NCAA increases APR cutoff. UM now under?

Submitted by VictorValiant on

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/6853878/ncaa-committee-approves-increase-apr-cutline

"One day after university presidents talked about making changes, the governing body's board of directors approved a measure Thursday to raise the historical Academic Progress Rate cutline from 900 to 930."

According to  NCAA data (http://web1.ncaa.org/maps/aprRelease.jsp), only one Michigan athletic team is under this new cutline:

Football      2009-2010    928
 

Uh oh!

 

 

EDIT: I added the year of the score for clarity.  the database didn't have the 2010-11 academic year.  maybe it's increased since the year before?

Noleverine

August 11th, 2011 at 3:21 PM ^

theres some sort of grandfathering in. We were above the threshold, I cant imagine they'd knock us for being 2 pts below a newly-raised threshold. Then again, the NCAA is not known for being "reasonable."

justingoblue

August 11th, 2011 at 3:24 PM ^

Wasn't there a lot of grumbling about not penalizing teams under the threshold anyway? I doubt the teams at 898 before lost scholarships or anything. This is all based on memory, so maybe I'm completely wrong (but I do think that was right).

bronxblue

August 11th, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^

APR is designed to punish schools that don't push kids to graduate or keep them on track; UM suffered a drop because a bunch of kids transferred with eligiblity during the season.  The team's GPA under RR was still pretty good (I know he once said it was the best ever, but I cannot confirm), and kids continue to graduate.  I wouldn't be worried about how this makes UM look in the eyes of others regarding academics.

bouje13

August 11th, 2011 at 3:30 PM ^

The new rules don't go into effect until 14-15 academic year.
<br>
<br>It won't affect us for several years and hopefully we will have a few good years of APR under our belts.

wlubd

August 11th, 2011 at 3:33 PM ^

Hadn't heard 14-15' but it makes sense. It can't come in immediately. Saw one tweet today that said 101 of 120 FBS members would be ineligible for postseason play if it started right now. Good luck with that.

wlubd

August 11th, 2011 at 3:42 PM ^

Ah, you're right. Would be 17 FBS teams. Makes more sense.

Point stands though, you introduce it immediately and you're handing out de facto postseason bans to a lot of teams across a lot of sports. No reason to think we can't get our APR well up above 930 by whatever year they bring it in.

LSCrepair

August 11th, 2011 at 3:32 PM ^

The NCAA will not impose the cutoff limit immediately. It will be phased in over a period of time as to allow the member institutions to meet the limit. It was discussed on the SVP show this afternoon.

D.C. Dave

August 11th, 2011 at 3:35 PM ^

The NCAA typically doesn't change a rule related to academics and immediately commence retroactive enforcement. Michigan traditionally has been fine in APR and should improve now that RR has departed. Rodriguez took more than his fair share of recruiting risks in terms of bringing in players who were destined to struggle academically and either fail out or leave, and that's what led to an APR this year that is lower than Michigan is accustomed to. But we're not in awful shape and should be able to rebound fairly easily with the new staff.

bronxblue

August 11th, 2011 at 3:49 PM ^

I don't think RR's problems academically had to do with kids he brought in who couldn't compete in the classroom; his problem was that the kids he brought in tended to leave with elgibility remaining.  Everyone points to Tate and his struggles, but every team has kids who struggle in the classroom (when I was there in the early 00's, shockingly not every player was a Fullbright scholar).  I know blaming RR for all of the past ills is the thing to do (like it was blaming Carr before him), but the reality is that the poor APR numbers had to do with a wide variety of factors, not all directly related to the academic profile of the team.

dnak438

August 11th, 2011 at 3:37 PM ^

when the new regulations would go into effect, but not immediately, it seems (emphasis added):

The presidents felt strongly that the academic principles be adopted swiftly and decidedly, with details to be finalized in October. The Board directed the Committee on Academic Performance to produce particulars about the new changes in academic requirements, including a timeline for phased-in implementation for both the new 930 benchmark and the penalty structure.

From the NCAA web site.

Needs

August 11th, 2011 at 4:06 PM ^

Actually, the only two players I can think of under RR that left with academic issues were Tate and Kurt Wermers. Where we get hurt is that APR dings schools for scholarship athletes that transfer in good academic standing, presumably because it places a value on having students graduate from their original institution.

Alton

August 11th, 2011 at 4:13 PM ^

Documents on the NCAA website confirm that the implementation of the new limits will begin (as other posters have already stated) in the '14-'15 academic year, and the new penalty structure will not be implemented until the 2015-'16 academic year.

Lots of details here, along with lots of useless information:

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/DI_MC_BOD/DI_BOD/2011/August/BOD%20Combined%208…

The timeline is on page 31.

Johnny Blood

August 11th, 2011 at 10:05 PM ^

On the radio this morning...

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139519301/ncaa-devises-rescue-plan-for-tarnished-sports-programs

During the NCAA's 2-day retreat in Indy (more than 50 university presidents present), they discussed three major changes to clean up big-time athletics.  Excerpt from the broadcast below.  They are discussing some major changes and talking about putting them in near-term.

Mr. MARK EMMERT (President, NCAA): That we needed to have change in a number of key areas, and we needed to have it quickly.

GOLDMAN: As in over a period of months, not years. So, with the clock ticking, here are some of those key areas.

Mr. EMMERT: We all agree that the NCAA rule book needs some serious editing. The rules are, in some cases, too complex, unenforceable in some ways, convoluted in some ways, even irrelevant.

GOLDMAN: Emmert says a rule book focusing on serious infractions, like paying athletes to move to another school, providing inappropriate benefits, academic fraud, combined with tougher penalties will put a healthy fear in those contemplating breaking the rules. Another key area: ensuring student athletes are just that. Proposals include raising academic requirements for incoming freshmen and transfer students from two-year colleges.

And perhaps the most controversial idea: raising the standard for a team's academic performance and linking that to postseason play. Penn State President Spanier talked about it in a phone interview.

Mr. SPANIER: If you're a basketball team and your numbers are historically too low, not enough people are continuing in school - they're flunking out, they're not graduating - as good as you might be, you're not going to play in the NCAA tournament.