<p>Jim Harbaugh seems to be as treasonous as Rich Rodriguez.</p>
<p>Barrons, it is about time Michigan owns up to its lax academic standards for Football and Basketball athletes. Other athletes at Michigan take serious classes and do well. There is no reason why Football and Basketball athletes can't do the same. Some actually do. When I was at Michigan, I took classes with Football players and they were definitely good students. However, the majority of Football and Basketball athletes are given way too much slack. There are no violations of NCAA rules mind you. Michigan isn't in any trouble. However, many universities provide athletes with very easy paths to stay academically eligible. Michigan is not alone in this regard. I am not going to point fingers, but friends attending other top ranked universities have often told me of how their football and/or basketball athletes have a slew of "special" classes geared specifically for them.</p>
<p>Where in the article did they mention USC? According to every objective and subjective data, USC athletes perform well compared to peer schools academic-wise. Some recruits failed to gain admission to USC but got into UM without much efforts.</p>
<p>1997-2000 Graduation Success Rate:</p>
<p>Football:
USC - 57%
Michigan - 73%</p>
<p>This proves that USC has tougher courses for student athletes.</p>
<p>QW, do you have any proof to back your claim? Most Michigan football player graduate from high school wilth 3.0+ GPAs. Of course, that's not saying much considering High School classes can be very basic. However, I never heard that USC recruited football players that are somehow a cut above academically. I know that Duke, Northwestern and Stanford recruit pretty good student athletes, but even then, there are limits.</p>
<p>Cal's graduation rates are abysmal. However, I think graduation rates are inversely proportional to winning percentage, with a few exceptions. As long as a team succeeds on the field without criminal mischief, schools are more willing to stick their heads in the sand.</p>
<p>You're right about Cal's graduation rate; UCLA is not much better. However, some traditional football powerhouses have rather decent scores:</p>
<p>Stanford - 93%
Penn State - 76%
Michigan - 73%
Florida - 72%
WVu - 65%
U of Washington - 64%
Wisconsin - 61%
USC - 57%
UCLA - 56%
Ohio State - 53%
Cal - 52%
LSU - 51%
Texas - 42%
Georgia - 41%</p>
<p>I'm impressed with Penn State.</p>
<p>^ Joe Pa has got his team in-line.</p>
<p>QW553,</p>
<p>You honestly believe USC has "standard" while getting all these star recruits?</p>
<p>According to Scout.com:</a> The Bootleg's Graduation Rate Analysis, only two schools in the Pac10 had lower grad rates. The basketball team wasn't that much better either and ended up in the bottom half of Pac10.</p>
<p>^ Yes, the "standard" is a man by the name of Pete Carroll, and the glory of becoming a condom.</p>
<p>I guess memories are short. USC had a major problem with lots of players taking some off-campus class where everyone gets an A with no work. It was back before Pete C.</p>
<p>Penn State's 76% is especially impressive in the context that its overall graduation rate (6-yr) is 85%.</p>
<p>Sam, thanks for the nice, unbiased report from Stanford.</p>
<p>Cal's academics are obviously too tough for the players.<br>
Tradeoffs, tradeoffs...do we go back to the losing ways (ala Stanford and Duke) so we have better graduation rates at the expense of the revenue that winning teams bring in?</p>
<p>Surely other teams have, in a sense, had their cake and eaten it too. It can be done...it needs sustained leadership and proper discipline.</p>
<p>Wildcats >>>> Bears in grad rates :D</p>
<p>^ And as I mentioned regarding tradeoffs:
Bears >>>>> Mildcats in winning percentage and post-season play over the last 5-10 years.</p>
<p>Some athletes take easy courses? Wow! I hope the Ann Arbor News sees a Pulitzer for this ground-breaking reporting. </p>
<p>Given what we expect athletes to invest in the university's teams time-wise, and the standards under which some of them are admitted, you better HOPE they're finding some classes that aren't too strenuous.</p>
<p>I'm all for taking a harder look at exactly what kind of business we're in the way we run D1 football programs, but this story isn't it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I guess memories are short. USC had a major problem with lots of players taking some off-campus class where everyone gets an A with no work. It was back before Pete C.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It was only on the news because USC nullified their credits. It was last year and in PC-era. I though it actually painted a good portrait about USC. I don't know anything before Pete Carroll since I wasn't even here yet. Nonetheless, the incidents said something about young folks don't want to work hard, but the school had a standard to invalidate their easy grades. How come you get a "USC like athletic fraud problem" conclusion? Short memory, ill logic, or pure smearing:)</p>
<p>
[quote]
1997-2000 Graduation Success Rate:</p>
<p>Football:
USC - 57%
Michigan - 73%</p>
<p>This proves that USC has tougher courses for student athletes.
[/quote]
This can also prove UM has "fraudulent" problem. I am kinda new to this college sports stuff, but U-M never was a high academic one in the recruiting contest. UCLA people (our crosstown rivals) complained constantly why they cannot learn from UM, and Berkeley recently, to get any recruits in by lowering their admission standard. It is a lame excuse for losing to USC, but it says something about UM's reputation on low athlete academic standard. U_M is a great academic powerhouse, but don't try to extrapolate it to BigBlue sports. </p>
<p>Alexandre: Please look up the name Eugene Germany. There is no statistical data out there because this kind of information is protected as privacy.</p>
<p>Sam: The graduation rate is not the best indicator. USC has a lot of early departures. NCAA has some official data to assess every school's academic performance. Its name escapes me at the moment, maybe called NCAA academic progress rate? USC is pretty good according to that. NCAA basketball's graduation rate is much worse, but that is another story.</p>
<p>If... the revenue ath-a-letes took the exact same courses as those offered to non ath-a-letes, the graduation rate would be even lower.</p>
<p>I don't care one way or the other. I simply believe at least 85% of the revenue ath-a-letes would not be admitted as non-revenue-ath-a-letes.</p>
<p>So, the school has the choice of making them keep up with qualified students and washing out about 80% of them, -or- tutor the hell out of them, create classes <em>just</em> for them, find classes where the grade is not determined by an in-class exam, and pray they stay above a C average. The school has an obligation to help these revenue producers have a fair chance of earning (kinda, sorta) a degree.</p>
<p>I believe the biblical reference is "don't muzzle the ox".</p>
<p>USC academic problems circa 1980--and I'm not even bringing up Reggie Bush.</p>
<p>COLLEGE</a> FOOTBALL '87; ALABAMA, SOUTHERN CAL MAKE ACADEMICS A FIRST AND GOAL - New York Times</p>