s/o How Smart are your college football players?

[Deleted]

Woo hoo, we are top 10 in something!

cfn.scout.com/2/1196887.html

It gets easily forgotten, but this is college football. Of course, college football is nothing more than a glorified minor league, but the guys still have to go to class and at least pretend to try.

Welcome to the Academic Progress Reports, better known as the APR, taking a look at the classes from 2006-2007 to 2010-2011. Every Division I sports team calculates its APR each academic year, based on the eligibility, retention and graduation of each scholarship student-athlete. Programs that score below 925 (this is the Mendoza line ... if you can't hit this, you're just not trying) on their four-year rate and can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships through immediate penalties. Programs that dip below 900 - there weren't any this year - face additional sanctions and can also face historically based penalties for poor academic performance over time.

Below are the rankings for the FBS teams based on their APR and with our scoring for how they graded out. We categorized the teams into ten categories. If a program was in the 90-100% range, it gets a 10 (for our Program Rankings to come out later this summer), while a program that finished in the 1-10% range gets a 1.

10 is obviously amazing, anything 7 or above is fantastic, and 4 or below is miserable.

Past APRs 2011 | 2010 | 2009

10 – an APR of 90-to-100%

“Old lady had her tested once. They said her I.Q. was way up there. .. around 200 or some such (bleep). That girl could do just about anything she put her mind to."

1 Northwestern 995
2 Boise State 989
2 Duke 989
4 Ohio State 988
5 Northern Illinois 987
6 Rice 986
7 Clemson 983
7 Middle Tennessee 983
9 Rutgers 982
10 Air Force 980
10 Miami 980

9 – an APR of 80-to-90%

“Hi, Gilbert. I'm a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news for the beautiful people. There's a lot more of us than there are of you."

12 Vanderbilt 978
13 Boston College 977
13 Stanford 977
15 Wisconsin 975
16 Georgia Tech 974
16 UCF 974
18 Navy 973
18 TCU 973
18 Wake Forest 973
21 Florida 972
21 Missouri 972
23 Kansas 971
23 Penn State 971
25 Oklahoma 970

8 – an APR of 70-to-80%

“Moles and trolls, moles and trolls, work, work, work, work, work. We never see the light of day. We plan this thing for weeks and all they want to do is study. I'm disgusted."

25 Alabama 970
25 Army 970
25 Georgia 970
25 Notre Dame 970
30 Virginia Tech 968
31 Miami Univ. 967
31 Tulane 967
33 Nebraska 966
33 South Carolina 966
33 Utah 966
36 Indiana 964
36 LSU 964
38 Connecticut 963
38 South Florida 963

7 – an APR of 60-to-70%

“Oh I get it, it's very clever. How's that working out for you? Being clever."

40 Toledo 960
41 Mississippi State 959
41 San Jose State 959
41 Temple 959
41 Utah State 959
45 Baylor 956
45 UCLA 956
47 Oregon State 955
47 Pittsburgh 955
49 Colorado State 954
49 Western Michigan 954
51 Illinois 953
51 UAB 953

6 – an APR of 50-to-60%

"My mocabulary isn't inept enough to even define what 'it' is."

51 West Virginia 953
54 East Carolina 952
55 Arizona 951
55 Bowling Green 951
55 Hawaii 951
55 Kentucky 951
55 Marshall 951
55 Western Kentucky 951
61 Purdue 950
61 Syracuse 950
63 Iowa 949
63 Nevada 949
63 Ohio 949
63 San Diego State 949
63 Washington 949
68 Fresno State 948

5 – an APR of 40-to-50%

"Today ... on First Take."

68 Arkansas State 948
68 Louisiana Lafayette 948
68 Oregon 948
72 UNLV 947
72 USC 947
74 Ball State 946
74 Louisiana Tech 946
74 Texas A&M 946
74 Texas Tech 946
78 Virginia 944
79 Kansas State 943
79 Michigan 943
79 North Carolina 943

4 – an APR of 30-to-40%

"Facebook at $38? Get in NOW!"

79 Auburn 943
79 Michigan State 943
79 New Mexico 943
85 Central Michigan 941
85 SMU 941
87 Cincinnati 939
88 Colorado 938
88 Iowa State 938
88 North Texas 938
91 Arizona State 937
91 Florida State 937
91 Texas 937
94 Arkansas 936

3 – an APR of 20-to-30%

"As in Helsinki, Sweden."

94 California 936
94 Wyoming 936
97 Eastern Michigan 935
97 Kent State 935
99 Florida International 934
99 Idaho 934
101 Akron 933
101 Ole Miss 933
101 Washington State 933
104 BYU 932
104 Memphis 932
104 Minnesota 932
107 Maryland 931
107 NC State 931
107 Tennessee 931

2 – an APR of 10-to-20%

“Next, on the Real Housewives of ..."

110 Florida Atlantic 930
110 Southern Miss 930
110 Troy 930
113 Oklahoma State 928
114 Houston 926
115 Tulsa 925
116 Buffalo 923

1 – an APR of 1-to-10%

"I think it's only fair to let him ride out the season because this is the house that Joe built."

117 New Mexico State 918
118 UL Monroe 917
119 Louisville 911
119 UTEP 911

[ejpint]

Well, let's just say they aren't doing much on the field or in the classroom.

[ijack]

Not D1, but I'd assume we'd be pretty high on this list.

[hamster]

My school has a score of 948. I can't exactly say I'm shocked.

[Deleted]

Aug 21, 2012 10:02:52 GMT -5 v said:

I will admit that I just skimmed the methodology part, but no Ivies? They're all D1, and since they're pretty crappy at football and don't give out sports scholarships, I'd imagine they aren't really attracting the not-so-smart but really, really good at football crowd.

yeah its just D1A schools. The former "BCS" schools, whatever they are called now.

Fun fact- two attorneys at my firm played football for their respective Ivies. Hence, why they are attorneys and not football players.

[bronxgirl]

Woo- hoo #4!

[Brie]

We're #1! We're #1!

Northwestern FTW!

[Bob Loblaw]

My school is in the 9 category, which I find terrifying. Very good at football, but the FB players I hung out with in college were dumb as shit.

[CallingAllAngels]

The school where I did my graduate work is a 10, which surprising to me based on the football players I had in the classes that I TAed.

[honeybee]

Huh mine falls in the 9 category.... since I tutor many of these students I find these numbers hard to believe.

[keweenawlove]

We were D2 but I'm pretty sure our football team was pretty high on the list. We don't send many players to the NFL but the most recent started last year and also has a degree in mechanical engineering. The starting QB from when I was there is now in PT school.

[mrshandy]

I'm pretty surprised at how low we are on that list considering that we're a good school and I always thought our football team wasn't as good because we had too high of standards.

Apparently not.

I did have some classes with a few football players and they were very lazy and didn't put forth an ounce of effort. They withdrew from the class and probably had to take it again during summer school.

[Deleted]

#4 for this year. Interesting. In 2009 when the big football scandal happened, they were #15. Maybe we have a chance. ;-)

[minniebee]

There's a lot more to APR than the intelligence of the student-athletes or the academic quality of the school.

One of these factors is that a school gets penalized if a player transfers out before graduation. If a player transfers to a new school and graduates from the new school, the original school gets no credit for that. So ... there are lots of situations that can cause a drop in APR that have nothing to do with the smartness of players or academic quality of the school. For example, if a school has a coaching change that leads to a higher-than-normal transfer rate, the school's APR will take a hit. If a player leaves college early to go pro and ends up finishing his degree at another school, his original school will take a hit on its APR.

And ... just because someone plays a sport at an Ivy or some other school with a reputation of high academic standards, doesn't mean he/she is smart and destined for a stellar non-athletic career. Often times, student-athletes have different admission standards. Schools don't like to admit this, but it happens. All the time. I worked with a hockey player at my school who was offered full rides a multiple Ivies, since they were willing to overlook her lack of academic credentials, things that would have been expected of non-athlete students. She ended up coming to the state university I work at because we have a better hockey program. She was an elite hockey player (Olympian), but is as dumb as a box of rocks, and left school after 3 semesters because she couldn't maintain a 2.0 gpa to remain eligible to compete in athletics. Yet multiple Ivies wanted her. Says a lot about the Ivies :-)

[Deleted]

My school is not there.

I would like to think they are smart.

[rootbeerfloat]

#5. I guess that's what we get for being ranked so high in football.

[statlerwaldorf]

Mine is #4. The football players I knew were pretty dumb, but smart enough to take the easiest classes. I had an American history class that was full of football players. It was the easiest class I've ever taken.

[Deleted]

Aug 21, 2012 12:07:57 GMT -5 minniebee said:

There's a lot more to APR than the intelligence of the student-athletes or the academic quality of the school.

One of these factors is that a school gets penalized if a player transfers out before graduation. If a player transfers to a new school and graduates from the new school, the original school gets no credit for that. So ... there are lots of situations that can cause a drop in APR that have nothing to do with the smartness of players or academic quality of the school. For example, if a school has a coaching change that leads to a higher-than-normal transfer rate, the school's APR will take a hit. If a player leaves college early to go pro and ends up finishing his degree at another school, his original school will take a hit on its APR.

And ... just because someone plays a sport at an Ivy or some other school with a reputation of high academic standards, doesn't mean he/she is smart and destined for a stellar non-athletic career. Often times, student-athletes have different admission standards. Schools don't like to admit this, but it happens. All the time. I worked with a hockey player at my school who was offered full rides a multiple Ivies, since they were willing to overlook her lack of academic credentials, things that would have been expected of non-athlete students. She ended up coming to the state university I work at because we have a better hockey program. She was an elite hockey player (Olympian), but is as dumb as a box of rocks, and left school after 3 semesters because she couldn't maintain a 2.0 gpa to remain eligible to compete in athletics. Yet multiple Ivies wanted her. Says a lot about the Ivies :-)

Pretty much all of this. I HATE APR. understand the intent, but dislike how unequally the resources are distributed to achieve success. For example, major schools can usuall afford tutors and to send athletes to summer school. Smaller schools need to try to get athletes through classes in the regular academic year. He next step in this report is to ask "how much money is spent per 10 APR points?"

Also, Bosie State in the top 10? Bull shit. Probably because the guys are doing well in their diesel mechanics Or arc-welding classes. Yeah... Compare the academic rigor of Northwestern to Boaie State Junior College...

I could write a book on APR.

[crazycakes]

I'm surprised my alma mater is ranked so highly (25 - APR of 70-80%).

I had a film class with D.J. Shockley and that guy was a major idiot.

David Green, David Pollack, and Ben Watson were pretty smart, though. Those were the only football players I knew personally in college.

Edited because my parentheses were confusing.

[Deleted]

Quite smart.

Not very good at football.

[dirtyred]

I went to Northwestern--one of our favorite football cheers was "Our SATs are higher!"

I can remember watching a televised game once and laughing at the player introductions--the opponents were overwhelmingly physical education or communications majors. The NU player? Chem E, pre med, biochem, econ, math....you get the picture. Rwal majors as no one had any illusions of playing pro ball.

[curbsideprophet]

My undergrad did not even have a football team, but my grad school is in the top 10. Which does not surprise me at all.