Partial Qualifiers - Will Nebraska go back to this old B8 trick...

I could have sworn the NCAA disallowed that practice. I know Nebraska was doing it during their Big 8 days, and that the Big 12 wasn't cool with it ... but I thought that Nebraska's beef with the B12 was moot in light of the fact that the NCAA disallowed it soon thereafter.

I found this line quite amusing:

"Sure, Nebraska will always be one of the most powerful programs in college football—along with teams like Florida State, Michigan and Notre Dame..."

Emphasis mine - probably not the list used if the article was written today.

Dorsey would have qualified and been admitted in the day at Nebraska...

If you listened to Nebraska's Board of Regents vote, they more than once stressed the importance of academics in their discussion. Osborne in particular stressed the importance of athletes graduating and doing so with life skills.

I also don't claim to know the Big Ten rules and how they relate to the NCAA rules, but at least in the case of how many scholarships may be issued in a given year, the Big ten rules are more restrictive. Perhaps they are here as well.

Couple that with the NCAA now not allowing such a practice, and it would appear that an old, and now disallowed practice will not be a problem.

Way to dig old dirt on a new conference. Particularly when we are the last ones who should be casting stones these days.

hopefully this helps. directly from the NCAA

 url:http://www.ncaa.org/wps/portal/ncaahome?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/ncaa/ncaa/legislation+and+governance/committees/division+ii/best+practices/d2_initial_eligibility.html

 

 Final Eligibility Center Certification Decisions.

1.   Qualifier:  All four initial-eligibility requirements (i.e., high school graduation, minimum number of core courses, core course grade-point average and test scores) must be satisfied at the time of initial full-time enrollment to be certified as a qualifier.  Qualifiers may practice, compete and receive athletically related financial aid.

•   The final certification must be a "final/yes" as listed on the Eligibility Center's Web site for a prospective student-athlete to be a qualifier.

2.   Partial Qualifier:  A partial qualifier is a student-athlete who does not meet the requirements for a qualifier but who, at the time of graduation from high school, presents one of the following requirements:

     a.   Successful completion of the required core curriculum consisting of a minimum number of courses and a specified minimum grade-point average in the core curriculum; OR

     b.   Specified minimum SAT or ACT score.

•   A partial qualifier is eligible for practice conducted only in the institution's regular practice facility and athletically related financial aid, but may not compete in any outside competition during the first academic year in residence.

Please Note:  Institutions may not certify a student-athlete as a partial qualifier until the Eligibility Center certifies the individual as a final/no.

3.   Nonqualifier:  A nonqualifier is a student-athlete who has not graduated from high school or who presented neither the core curriculum grade-point average and SAT or ACT score required for a qualifier.

     a.   A nonqualifier is not eligible for practice, competition or receive athletically related financial aid for one full academic year at the certifying institution.  A nonqualifier may receive other institutional aid unrelated to athletics.

     b.   A nonqualifier may not attend any practice sessions in any capacity, including any meeting characterized as practice.

4.   If a student-athlete's final certification status is a partial or nonqualifier, the student-athlete must establish an academic year of residency prior to representing the institution in outside competition.  

5.   A partial or nonqualifier may participate in an institution's intramural program (not coached by a member of athletics department staff) but may not participate on an institutional club team or outside sports team.

6.   A student-athlete who has never applied to the Eligibility Center is by default a nonqualifier until he or she applies and receives a final certification decision.

url:http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/prba/perspectives/winter1997/rsellers.pdf

Take it FWIW... I hope this also helps in this debate. In this PDF on page2, it talks about a Proposition 42 that was passed in 1989 eliminating the "Partial Qualifier" title.

...and the partial qualifier controversey is found here.

NCAA rules don't restrict the number of partial qualifiers or nonqualifiers a school can have, but conferences can. The Big 12 does. The initial eligibility standards are among the toughest of the major athletic conferences in the country.

Under the new Big 12 rules, only two male and two female partial qualifiers are allowed to enroll each year, with no more than one athlete in each sport. And nonqualifiers aren't accepted at all. They must go to junior college.

For NU and other former Big Eight schools, the Big 12 eligibility standards were a big change.

The Big Eight didn't limit the number of partial qualifiers a school could have and allowed nonqualifiers to enroll at institutions. Nonqualifiers had to sit out the first year - paying their own tuition - and then were eligible to play the second year provided they passed 24 credit hours over two semesters.

Originally, Big 12 schools agreed to adopt the old Big Eight rules for initial eligibility, former NU Football Coach Tom Osborne said. Then some Big 12 schools, led by the University of Texas, pushed for stricter rules. These standards are the one in place now.

The Big 12 now uses NCAA Clearinghouse standards to admit athletes. An athlete can establish eligibility with a GPA in 13 core classes as low as 2.0, provided the student also presents an SAT score (re-centered) of 1010 or an ACT sum score of 86. At the other end of the index, a minimum 820 SAT or 68 ACT sum score establishes the floor for students with GPAs of 2.500 or higher.

What upset Osborne at the time was the limits on partial and nonqualifiers. Some conferences like the Big Ten, don't have any.

"Where this rule can hurt you is if a player is considering Nebraska and Ohio State or some other school in the Big Ten," Osborne said. "The initial signing day is in February."

The Big Ten, which had always proclaimed itself as an elite academic conference, does not limit the number of partial and nonqualifiers. Theoretically, an athlete could have scored a 60 sum score on the ACT (an average of 15) and had a 1.5 GPA and still enrolled in a school like Michigan. They wouldn't play, but they could eventually.

But the Big Ten does have stricter rules once students enroll in institutions, said Jennifer Heppel, director of legislative and eligibility services for the conference.

The NCAA rules states an athlete must complete 24 hours toward his or her major each year. The Big Ten rules require 51 completed credit hours after the second year and 78 after the third year.

"We put more emphasis on their college work than high school grades," Heppel said.

Osborne's complaint that Big Ten schools could take the partial qualifiers that Nebraska was restricted from taking is not borne out by the experience of the past few years as Big Ten schools have not made this a practice.  In fact, with the Demar Dorsey affair, we have an example of a reported full qualifier who was not offered admission to Michigan because he apparently didn't meet university admissions standards.

Here's Peter Bean's father's (a former Texas professor's) take on the issue from a 2006 burntorangenation.com story.  I thought this was pretty interesting given the current controversey regarding the non-admittance of Dorsey and the contention that Michigan is handcuffing itself by maintaing standards higher than NCAA Clearinghouse standards.

...back then, under Berdahl, UT gave more weight to academics than before.  This may explain Texas' stand on the qualifier issue more than anything.  When I was at The University in those days, Texas football, if you recall, wasn't on top like it is now.  I heard endless complaints that the reason was UT had to adhere to higher academic standards than other schools. Sound familiar? A bit like Nebraska now? In reality, it's a bogus argument.  The truth is the schools that win are the ones who recruit best, coach best, and play best. And none of these is that easy.