NCAA Issues First Postseason Ban For Poor Academic Performance

Jacksonville State's Football Team Faces Postseason Ban

LITTLE BY LITTLE: The NCAA yesterday in its report noted "overall national improvement in its three troubled areas: baseball, men's basketball and football, each of which improved by 17 or more points over the past five years in the single-year APR." The average four-year football APR for FBS schools was 941, up from 925 for '03-04, and only 12 of the 119 FBS teams were subject to penalties (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 5/7). Brand: "After five years of APR application and data collection, there is clear evidence of upward trends in nearly every sport." However, NCAA officials yesterday said that they "remain concerned about overall football scores, which have not improved as greatly as those in men's basketball and baseball." The organization also "singled out women's basketball, where overall eligibility rates have decreased over the last two years" (L.A. TIMES, 5/7).

CHANGE WOULD DO YOU GOOD: In N.Y., Pete Thamel notes of the 85 Division I teams punished in football and men's basketball, only 10 came from the six BCS conferences. Brand said, "It's an expensive ordeal. Those schools who can't afford it are more likely to run into trouble" (N.Y. TIMES, 5/7). SPORTINGNEWS.com's Dave Curtis wrote the "system needs to change." The "tweaks to the APR so far have only boosted scores across the board, furthering the case that this whole thing might be a big public relations ploy to show that scholarship athletes really are students, too." Curtis noted there likely is "some committee somewhere reviewing and analyzing and proposing new ways to look at athletes in the classroom." The "smart money, though, lies with this system staying in place," and that means "college football's canyon will continue to grow" (SPORTINGNEWS.com, 5/6).

Print This Article