WSJ College Football Grid of Shame
Wall Street Journal ranks college football teams by how good they are and what kind of shennanigans they have (embaressing to admirable) off the field.
Not sure why we aren't more admirable.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:39 PM ^
Why is Sparty so far up the "admirable" chain? Or Clemson? Outside of a few obvious choices (Penn State), that scale seems to be pretty arbitrary.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:54 PM ^
I was surprised to see Clemson that high.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:31 PM ^
Add Florida to the surprised list. Sparty is so high because nobody hears about their dirty laundry on a national basis...they just don't matter that much.
August 29th, 2013 at 7:33 PM ^
I was thinking the same thing. And how are they a "powerhouse"? They have a career bowl losing record, and have had, what, 3 10+ win seasons in the past 20+ years?
And don't get me started on A&M, Clemson, etc. Just a silly list.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:40 PM ^
Isn't there an issue with our APR based on the attrition from the pre-Hoke classes?
August 29th, 2013 at 1:42 PM ^
Only thing I could think of holding us back, according to their rankings (0 arrests, AD and program actually makes money, and no "ick" factor that I can think of)
August 30th, 2013 at 8:53 AM ^
Yes, it's the APR from the Rich Rod era that is "holding us back" on this silly chart.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
If they are using APR to judge, then that may be a portion of the explanation - at least they put the part about "somewhat subjective" in their disclaimer, because, well, these rankings. Anyway, the single year APR for 2008-09 was 897, which is not at all good, of course. That number should fall off the four-year rolling average next year. We're at 951 for the four-year rolling average now, so a similar score this season to the last few (984 and 981) would give us about a 20-point boost.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:53 PM ^
Aren't we still on probation from our most terrible of violations?
And how much of your team needs to do time to count negatively? Sparty seems to be benefitting from the "no one cares about us, so they didn't pay attention to all of our criminals" factor.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:43 PM ^
Wow, the fact that Indiana and San Jose State are on the "powerhouse" side of the scale is hilarious. Well done.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:44 PM ^
Stretchgate and the associated probation doesn't help in admiration department.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
This is absolutely worthless.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:40 PM ^
I came to that realization after viewing the first quadrant alone.
August 30th, 2013 at 8:57 AM ^
As soon as Clemson became the most admirable powerhouse in the land, they should have known that they needed to redo their methodology. But the people assigned to do this by WSJ probably know nothing about college football.
Hey WSJ, I have a chart that says AIG is the most admirable powerhouse corporation in the land. It's based on a methodology that I threw together over lunch, so its gotta be true.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:49 PM ^
Eastern Michigan: the weakest admirable team in the land.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:54 PM ^
Also quite confused by a lot of them including Sparty, Indiana (on the powerhouse side?), Florida, UCLA, and CMU among others.
August 29th, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^
How is Miami not at the bottom of the embarrassing scale?
How is Florida admirable? Don't they get hit for Aaron Hernandez killing people while in college.
SMU--I'm assuming the death penalty wiped the slate clean for them. The whole thing with Craig James killing 5 hookers while at SMU doesn't count anymore.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:13 PM ^
Allegedly
August 29th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^
something like Fulmer cup points (plus regular season incidents) on 1 axis and total wins in the past 5 years on another axis.
Then, it would be numeric and transparent.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:22 PM ^
was just edged out in the powerhouse category by the Baylor Bears. Ummm what?
This should probably alert you that your system is flawed.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:25 PM ^
In what universe is Nebraska more despicable than Miami? And why all this MAC dishonor (CMU, Akron, Miami-OH, Kent State, Marshall, Ohio)? The '70s were a long time ago, Kent-watchers.
August 29th, 2013 at 2:49 PM ^
It's stupid methodology, but it's on there. Personally, I'm not sure "ick factor" passes muster as a viable part of any methodology.
August 29th, 2013 at 4:02 PM ^
"To rank the teams' 2013 prospects, we calculated a composite of four 1-through-125 rankings: Athlon, Lindy's, the Orlando Sentinel and football guru Phil Steele. The shame component is based on five categories: each team's four-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) figure, the metric the NCAA uses to assess academic performance; recent history of major violations and probation; percentage of athletic-department revenues subsidized by student fees; number of player arrests in the off-season, and a purely subjective, overall "ick" factor."
Or, how far back does their recent history of major violations go?
Well, we've got a ways to go in the eyes of the WSJ. But I have faith in Hoke. Bring it on!
August 29th, 2013 at 5:26 PM ^
notre dame is pretty low on the embarrassing scale.. im unsure if the manti teo incident outweighs their APR that much that they would be almost dead last
even if they did a 0-100 scale.. they could get a 0 for manti and a 99 for APR.. it would still average out to 50%
August 29th, 2013 at 10:22 PM ^
Could it be these players being arrested since Hoke's arrival? Fitzgerald Toussaint (July 21, 2012) Frank Clark (June 2012) Will Campbell (April 7, 2012) Josh Furman (February 11, 2012) Marvin Robinson (November 2011) Darryl Stonum (May 6, 2011) Or maybe the Gibbons/Lewan rape scandal? When was the last time an MSU football player was arrested? I think that might be Bullough and Linthicum back in March 2011.