Football coaches like to talk about the importance of graduation rates.
But when the NCAA released its inch-thick annual report on the subject last weekend, there was hardly a peep from football offices across the country. Hey, they are trying to qualify for bowl games. Don’t bother them with academics.
But here’s a suggestion for the wizards at the Bowl Championship Series, who have devised a complicated formula to determine the No. 1 vs. No. 2 pairing in the Fiesta Bowl: Why not include graduation rates in the mix? Some of the graduation numbers are shameful. There ought to be a way to reward schools where the connection between “student” and “athlete” is more than a hyphen.
Tennessee, which leads the BCS standings this week, graduated an average of 27 percent of its football players over a recent four-year span, according to the NCAA. A team’s graduation rate ought to exceed its third-down conversion percentage. In the latter department, the Vols succeed 40.2 percent of the time.
MAKING THE GRADE
These are the top 20 teams in this week’s BCS standings, ranked according to their graduation rates (Grad).
%%
Team Grad BCS
1. Notre Dame 80% 12th
2. Penn State 74% 18th
2. Tulane 74% 16th
4. Nebraska 66% 11th
5. Oregon 65% 14th
6. Florida State 62% 4th
7. Wisconsin 61% 9th
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8. Michigan 59% 19th
9. UCLA 57% 2nd
10.Missouri 56% 13th
10. Texas 56% 15th
12. Virginia Tech 55% 20th
13. Arizona 51% 10th
14. Georgia 46% 17th
15. Kansas State 42% 3rd
16. Florida 41% 5th
16. Ohio State 41% 8th
18. Texas A&M 37% 6th
19. Tennessee 27% 1st
20. Arkansas 20% 7th
Figures are four-year graduation averages for scholarship players entering school from 1988-91. Source 1998 NCAA Division I graduation-rates report %%