The NCAA uses three metrics to gauge and track a football program’s academic performance. The NCAA invented two of them: GSR and APR. The third metric is the US Department of Education’s Federal Graduation Rate (FGR). GSR and FGR track the graduation rate of students receiving sport-based financial aid over a six year period. The NCAA, though, takes into account the fact that athletes can and will leave programs before they graduate, i.e. they go pro or they will transfer for more playing time, and does not count such movements against the host institution. Under the FGR, no accommodations are made. APR tracks the good performance, for lack of a better term, of student-athletes per semester, giving credit to the host institution for each student-athlete in good academic standing. As with GSR, player losses don’t count against the score, as long as the student-athlete in question was in good-standing at the time. NCAA’s member institutions at the DI level must now maintain a 930 APR score or face penalties, which can ultimately result in, among other things, the head coach losing his or her job.

“[APR] itself is fair and about as accurate in predicting graduation as we can get without making it substantially more complicated.”
– Thomas S. Paskus, PhD

In an article last year in the Journal of Intercollegiate Sports, the NCAA’s Principal Research Scientist, Thomas S. Paskus, PhD, wrote that there was a good correlation between APR and GSR. The NCAA expects a 930 APR score to correlate to a fifty percent (50%) graduation rate. I wanted to look at that correlation, and compare the NCAA’s metrics to the FGR for the top four Division I programs in the country in 2012: Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. Here’s how it all shook out:

If there’s really a correlation, I’m not seeing it in the top four FBS programs. The only school with a correlation appears to be Oregon, whose modest APR score translates into a modest graduation rate of slightly better than fifty percent. And maybe that’s the point, given that the NCAA looks at all DI and DII programs. Still, ND’s relatively “low” APR stands out against the comparatively gaudy score posted by Ohio State. Alabama’s 978 puts it in first place in the SEC. Ahead of Vanderbilt, in at 973. Ohio State comes in third in the Big 10, behind Northwestern, 996, and Wisconsin, 985.

So, I think there’s something behind the numbers. Players being pushed out the door when they’re in good-standing? Maybe. Remember, there’s a penalty for falling below 930 APR and it seems remarkable that Alabama’s APR could be up from 916 in 2004-2005, while its FGR has remained in the low-60’s since 2005. Really. In 2005-06, Alabama’s GSR and FGR were 39 and 39. In 2006-07, 44 and 46. Good move up. In 2007-08, 55 and 53. Soaring, ‘bama. In 2008-09, 67 and 62. Huzzah! In 2009-10, 67 and 61. Beg pardon? In 2010-11, 69 and 64. In 2011-12, the last year for which is data is available, Alabama’s GSR has reached 75, yet its FGR dipped down to 60, demonstrating that the two metrics have decoupled.  In comparison, ND’s GSR and FGR’s today are very similar to what they were in 2005-06, when they were 96 and 85. The numbers, it seems, show a discrepancy between APR and GSR and a further, wider gulf, between GSR and FGR.

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And let’s face it. It’s been a long, hot summer in ND-land, too. So, the release today by the NCAA of the latest academic data for the nation’s Division I and Division II schools can be considered a refreshing tonic as we build toward actual football news. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to do my best to explain it, and what it means to the Irish going forward.

Today, Notre Dame announced that twelve sports programs earned perfect NCAA Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores. Eight men’s teams, including basketball and baseball, and four women’s teams, including swimming and diving, hit the coveted 1000 mark. This is the second year in a row in which Notre Dame has lead all FBS schools in APR, a measurement of academic performance over a semester. According to the NCAA, “[e]ach student-athlete earns one point for staying in school and one point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are divided by points possible and multiplied by 1,000 to produce the team’s APR. A 930 APR predicts about a 50 percent graduation rate. Teams falling below an APR of 930 face sanctions ranging from scholarship reductions to more severe penalties.”

Now, APR can rightly be viewed as a flawed metric, as it does not account for the most fundamental goal of a college student: graduation. Because it awards points for players in good academic standing, a school is not penalized if an athlete leaves for the NFL, or home, as long as they leave in good standing. The NCAA’s other academic success metric, Graduation Success Rate (GSR), comes in for similar criticism, in that some voodoo mathematics make their way into things by removing transferring students from one school’s cohort and blah blah blah. Even the NCAA admits that the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR), a six-year metric tracked by the Department of Education, “[. . .] is still the only rate that allows a direct comparison between student-athletes and the general student body.”

But since we’re not shying away from the perfect APR scores, I wanted to look at where the football program stands relative to the other programs we face. Today’s figures, as released by the NCAA, show that ND football has a multi-year APR of 973 and 979 for year 2011-2012. This gives us the second highest APR on our 2013 schedule. Stanford, 978/977, comes in first. BYU finishes last, in at 931/943. The national average for D1 football programs is 949 and teams whose last-two year average falls below 930 are subject to penalties ranging from practice time replaced by study time all the way to coaching suspensions. Given Notre Dame’s rise in APR over last year, 977, Brian Kelly’s not going anywhere, undefeated regular season notwithstanding.

Of the rest of the 2013 schedule, Temple (968/961), USAF (974/968), and Navy (968/961) round out the top group. Pitt (962/966), Oklahoma (960/934), and MSU (955/982) make up the meaty-middle, while Purdue (953/zzzzzzzzzz), Michigan (sucks!/981), U$C (945/944), and Arizona State (937/935) finish, as they so often do, far behind. Credit where it’s due, though, both Michigan and Michigan State posted very solid 2011-2012 APRs.

Last year, Notre Dame’s APR scores were 970/977, placing the Irish fifth out of their schedule, tied with Oklahoma (970/985). Notable performers included Miami (980/982), Stanford (977/985), Boston College (977/980), and Wake Forest (973/969). Alabama, FWIW, put up a very respectable 970/977.

But the huge swings you see from year to year give the lie to putting too much stock in any one set of numbers. Note Oklahoma’s 2012 970/985 in comparison to 2013’s 960/934. The Irish, along with a select group of schools consistently putting up high marks, are maintaining excellence year-to-year. More importantly, and as I’ll explain in my next post, the players in good standing are actually graduating. And that, my Bayou Militiamen and -women, is keeping the “student” in “student-athlete.” Which is pretty cool after all.

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