This top 25 list should get much more attention than it does. It's the AP's final top 25 football rankings plus others receiveing votes. Some schools on the list are clearly also football and basketball powers, so clearly you can compete and not lower standards or sell your schools academic soul to the devil.
It's just one of the reasons I continue to cheer for old Notre Dame, they do things the right way and still compete.
For all the noise we hear on occasion about dumb jocks, it appears that based on these numbers, (when compared to the rates shown in the picture above) that football players at most of these fine institutions of academic learning and pigskin proficiency, are succeeding at a rate higher than their student peers.
Top 25 Graduation Rates
Team Players' graduation %
1. Navy 98
2. Boston College 96
3. Notre Dame 95
4. Wake Forest 93
5. Nebraska 88
6. Florida 80
7. Penn State 80
8. Texas Christian 78
9. Virginia Tech 74
10. Michigan 71
11. South Florida 66
12. Boise State 65
13. Maryland 64
14. South Carolina 64
15. Auburn 63
16. Texas A&M 63
17. West Virginia 63
18. Wisconsin 62
19. Oregon State 60
20. UCLA 59
21. Rutgers 58
22. Tennessee 58
23. Arkansas 55
24. Georgia Tech 55
25. OSU and USC 55
Barely passing graduation rates in the AP rankings: Brigham Young 53, Louisville 53, Oklahoma 52, Houston 51.
Teams that should be dropped from bowls on overall graduation success rates: Hawaii 49, LSU 49, California 44, Georgia 41, Texas 40.
From the Boston Globe story: Graduating to a new standard
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Staff | December 4, 2006
http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/extras/12_04_06_graduation_rates/?p1=email_to_a_friend
2 comments:
If you take the two years spent on a mission, you'll soon see that BYU athetes are graduating in a timely rate of the acual four years spent in undergraduate work. You never take into account that players like John Beck graduated in less than four academic years with two years spent serving a mission. Check the facts before you print things that you are not including in your assumptions. Mike K
Thanks for the comments and the clarity regarding BYU, however note that the figures are not mine but those of the Boston Globe writer cited.
Without a doubt the circumstance you cite would not make this a fair apples to apples comparison for BYU, but you must know that they have in the past appeared on the list of schools whose football programs graduation rate trails that of it's own overall student body by the greatest amount. In one year recently, I believe they may have topped the nation.
Was that not a hot-button topic recently within the BYU community?
I think what I posted shows that most, if not all of the top twenty five should be applauded more than they seem to be by those who want to stereotype big-time collegiate football as a wasteland of "dumb jocks".
I would inclued BYU in with those that deserve much praise. And like Notre Dame and Navy run immaculate programs from a recruiting standpoint, to my knowledge. I always root for schools that do things right as far as developing the students character as well as his football/baseball and academic abilities. A BYU clearly runs to the top of one of those lists.
I wasn't trying to drill down and verify all the numbers cited. Sadly, I have to keep my day job.
My bash is against the general negative stereotype against athletics in general that comes up from time to time.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to write.
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