Do Academic Standards Affect Recruiting?

Schools with high academic rigor have historically done very, very well, and I think will continue to do well. Cal Standford Michigan UCLA Notre Dame Duke Wisconsin Vanderbilt Looking at the list of historically winning football (or basketball) programs gives you a who's who of the top academic institutions of America. I think that it doesn't help for ALL students. But I think there are a lot of ballers who realize most of the kids that Lemming terms a "stud" are very unlikely to make their way in the world as a Pro player. Therefore, the University you graduate from helps a lot. However, I think this affect has been progressively receding over the last half-century or more. One big reason is simply the scholarship limits, which mean many fewer players can go to the top schools. But the trend has continued because the lax NCAA has stood idly by while the schools make their football programs into professional franchises in every sense except making the players millionaires. In the SEC these days, it's considered strange if one coach sees a recruit from the day he enters school to graduation. Even in the more academically inclined conferences - the Big Ten and Pac Ten - coaches who put a high value on the student aspect of their student athletes were considered an anachronism. In his quest to rebuild Michigan in Northern California, Jim Harbaugh made a cutting comment that led to Hart's impassioned response (and we all, of course, backed Hart). But there was prescience in that comment, not because a football player with a degree from Michigan is less than any other graduate from Michigan, but because, and this is the important part, employers generally believe there's a difference. Say you're an employer. A guy comes to you with a degree from Ohio State. That's a good school. Their research endowment in your field is incredible. You ask what he studied, right? General studies. You press, and find out he played for Jim Tressel. He was 4-, borderline 5-star recruit coming out of high school. He was sold on football. He lived football. Then football no longer wanted him. I'm an employer. If you played for Jim Tressel, I will hear you out, but that's a knock on you right there, because I know that man doesn't care about his students' academics, and therefore his students are unlikely to care about academics, and therefore your college experience is very unlikely to have provided you with the knowledge and ethical background you need to do what we do. The thing is, recruits don't see it from the employer's view, but they have the same stereotype in their mind, which is "a football player isn't a real graduate." And that's true enough at Ohio State, it's true enough at Florida State, and it seems to be true enough -- with major exceptions -- all over the SEC, ACC, and Big XII. The NCAA has let this happen, because it make a better product. Seriously, how much do guys like us care if Tate Forcier is getting a background in the politics of Late Antiquity and applying that to the modern business atmosphere? We want his nose in a playbook, not Licinius! And so does ABC, who's going to broadcast his games. And unless he's got a strong reason otherwise -- and I believe Rich Rod does -- neither may his coach. The reason the SEC, and even the ACC is kicking our asses now is because they've upped the ante again. Brian keeps giving shit to Bama and UNC for over-stuffing beyond the scholarships they have. But mark my words, this strategy will work out for those programs football-wise. And then more schools will do it too. It's not just NCAA. More people go to college now, and that means undergraduate degrees don't mean nearly the same as they did before. A piece of paper with a block M is no longer an instant ticket to financial well-being. That's why academics means less to recruits today than it did 50, or 40, or 30, or 20, or even 10 years ago. Or, I should say, that's why fewer recruits put academics at the top of their list. The reason most had to go to Notre Dame, or Michigan, or Stanford, or any of these schools in the first place, was the opportunity to walk out with a degree of impeccable worth. With those degrees devalued, particularly when they're in the hands of a scholarship athlete -- from a school known for not giving a damn about educating their top-sport scholarship athletes -- it's simply not as much of a consideration for students. I don't pass judgment on this system, except to say that whenever NCAA makes a pro-academic move, it's good for Michigan recruiting, and vice versa.