“This year” is, of course, a complicated term, when speaking of a program’s APR. Earlier this month (April) of this year (2016), the NCAA released APR scores for the 2014-2015 (this year) academic year. So, this year’s APR is actually based on last year’s team, but since I am not writing to an SEC-educated audience, I feel that you’ve grasped the concept and I can move on.

To calculate a team’s APR, each scholarship athlete gets a point for being enrolled and one point for being in good standing. The team’s total points are added and then divided by the possible points and then (stay with me, you O’Shag rats) multiplied by one thousand. Then a dividend is issued and you subtract the basis from pi. Or maybe that’s how champagne is made.

APR is not solely a metric for metric’s sake. The NCAA pegs a team’s eligibility to compete in championships to its four-year (Multi-Year) APR and to be eligible in 2015-16 and beyond, a team must have an APR of 930 or better. Penalties, increasing in severity over time, accompany ineligibility.

While Notre Dame football has not risked ineligibility, one presumes that the Irish are top o’ the charts. That’s not true, as the below table shows:

Notre Dame football’s multi-year APR is 975. It’s 2014-15 APR is 971. That means 97%, give or take, of its scholarship athletes are enrolled and in good standing. Nine women’s teams (basketball, cross-country, fencing, lacrosse, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball) and seven men’s teams (cross-country, fencing, golf, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, track and field) achieved perfect scores. The average FBS score is 964.

By the way, that’s SIXTEEN teams with perfect APR scores.

In case you are curious, and you are, Alabama’s APRs over the last four years are 979 (973 for 2014-5), 978 (1,000 for 2013-14), 975 (958 for 2012-13), 978 (968 for 2011-12).

So what does APR mean, ultimately? That’s a great question, and I believe you can guess why championship eligibility is pegged to it and not, say, the NCAA’s other academic tracker, Graduation Success Rate (GSR), or the Department of Education’s Federal Graduation Rate (FGR). GSR takes the math behind APR and bastes it in string theory and non-Euclidean geometry for a few hours, to account for a player who transfers in with a degree or who leaves and ultimately graduates. FGR is still the only metric that tells you what percentage of student-athletes are graduating from a particular school in six years.

Notre Dame football’s most recent GSR, based on the 2008 cohort year, is 93, with an FGR of 82. Alabama’s most recent GSR is 86 and the FGR is 64. Alabama’s GSR and FGR for 2013-14, when they had that gaudy 1,000 APR, were 80 and 60.

That’s enough numbers for now. Hopefully tonight, though, we’ll see some of our student-athletes in another top twenty.

The post Analyzing APR (Again): How ND Football Compares appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

With eight players selected in the draft, this was Notre Dame’s best class since 1994, when 10 players were selected and one better than 2007’s previous “modern era” record haul of seven. In fact, Notre Dame’s eight tied Alabama for second-most draftees, one behind LSU. That’s pretty strong company for an independent school, and puts us ahead of our peers, as it were. Stanford had 6 players drafted, FSU had seven, Boston College had four, North Carolina had three, Michigan had three, and USC had three. Rice had one player selected. USC’s relatively poor draft performance, interestingly, eroded its historic lead over the Irish at the head of the “Most Players in the NFL” list to a very narrow two: USC has 487 players selected to the NFL over the years. Notre Dame now has 485. In third place, OSU has 413 players in history.

Kelly saw 6 players drafted in 2013, 4 in 2012, and 1 in 2011. This class, 2014’s, was the first class recruited one hundred percent by Coach Kelly, if you include Louis Nix, III, who committed to Notre Dame when it was without a head coach.

If Notre Dame takes the lead over the Trojans, though, it’s not going to be because players are leaving early. GAIII, Troy Niklas, and Stephon Tuitt all left early for the 2014 draft, much to Coach Kelly’s chagrin. Eric Hansen at the South Bend Tribune hit this issue out of the park ten days ago and his article is well-worth a read, if only to see in black-and-white that recruits who talk about leaving early for the NFL will talk themselves out of Notre Dame’s consideration.

But for a player like Tuitt, who left early, his slip from the first round to the second round, the Steelers took him with the forty-sixth overall pick, cost him about $3.4 million. If Stephon, or Troy Niklas, also a second-rounder, comes back to get his degree, good for him. But what about GAIII, who had to settle for an undrafted free agent contract with the Raiders? For him, his ND experience resulted in no degree and a long-shot to make a 53-man roster.

The opposite example, from a pure football perspective, is found in Prince Shembo. He played, stayed, got his degree, and his impressive fourth round selection puts some major coin in his pocket, when you consider that he was projected to go in the sixth round. Niklas may have improved his draft position by coming out, given the relatively weak offerings, but who is to say he couldn’t have improved his stock with a strong showing in 2014 and who’s to say he wouldn’t be better situated with another season at the position and a diploma on his wall?

Looking at graduation rates overall, Notre Dame’s football Graduation Success Rate of 94 is right there with the best. Rice’s 96 is better, sure, but Stanford is 93, Boston College is 94, Michigan is 66, and Florida State is a 58. The NCAA’s other graduation metric, which somehow uses math to account for players who go pro but come back to get their degree but not if they wear blue shoes or whatever, APR, is another strong stat for the Irish. Notre Dame’s APR is 973. Stanford’s is 978. Boston College’s is 982. Michigan’s is 951. Florida State’s is 954.

So, I think it’s fair to say that the BK years have been a success. Starting with the 2011 draft, Notre Dame has seen twenty-three players drafted into the NFL, a GSR that has dominated the charts like Michael Jackson in the 1980’s, and one appearance in the National Championship. In fact, it can be argued that Everett Golson’s academic gaffe took away ND’s chances of making back-to-back appearances. Whether his return in 2014 brings the boys back to the big game remains to be seen, but clearly, Notre Dame is succeeding on the field, in the classroom, and in the draft.

The post How Do You Spell Success? N-F-L? G-S-R? A-P-R? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Back when we detailed Cam’s amazing run through a backwards gauntlet, one loyal reader had the ingenious idea of nicknaming Cam “run cmd”. Being a computer nerd myself, I’ve run with this. With that in mind, let’s take a journey through some of Cam’s greatest hits this season via run cmd commands.

run cmd -backwardsguanlet -destroyitanyways

Via

run cmd -nohelmetneeded -noonemakesmebleedmyownblood

rud cmd -texaspower -stiffarm -bulldoze

run cmd -juke -pickupyourjock

And of course….

The Roundup

This Cam thing really has hit critical mass. I’ll just let Cam explain:

https://twitter.com/cammcdaniel4/status/393600745062166528

Our ranking blind poll is complete. We left Notre Dame unranked and put Arizona State on the top of the pile. Good work, everyone!

I’m agreeing with Saban, I think I might be sick. I can’t fault him for his opinion on his fans, at all.

Speaking of ‘Bama fans, at least they didn’t poison a tree this time. Defacing a rock is a step in the right direction Bammers, good for you!

GSR numbers are out. I’m pretty sure you can guess who won this battle, again.

If you haven’t made yourself aware of the Grambling State situation, you should. Their initial protest is now over, but the entire situation is bringing Louisiana education budget cuts to light. Oh, and the opponent they cancelled on this past weekend is suing them. Definitely one of the crazier stories of the season.

And now, your moment of zen…THE PUPPETS HAVE JOINED FORCES WITH EVERY DAY SHOULD BE SATURDAY!!!

Put These Games on Your Radar

Last week was a little bit rougher on me as I went 2-3 against on the games I picked, but it brings me to a two week total of 8-5, which I will happily take. Let’s see how this week goes — we got quite a full slate of great games.

Picks are in bold as usual or, if you are using Firefox which has a fun bug apparently, my picks have the spread listed next to the team name.

Predictions

Biscuit predicted 13-10…months ago. Coming that close, months in advance deserves a bonus half-point to take the lead in this little competition. Let’s see how we do this week.

NDtex (@HLS_NDTex)

So here’s what I’m expecting: ND comes out with a solid start against a vastly inferior team, Hendrix comes in and the offense sputters to end the game. It’ll be a comfortable win, but we will all likely wish it had been by more.

ND 38, Air Force 6

Biscuit (@HLS_Biscuit)

Via:

The lesser of the 2 academies we often play is always a challenge with the Triple Option, and they keep it interesting with special twists and gimmicks week to week. Smaller, but really good at what they do, Air Force racks up serious yardage with Option play, but can’t match up physically. It’ll be a bit of an adjustment for Notre Dame’s stellar defense, and I could see a decent game til half time, but Notre Dame will push through it and pull away in the 2nd half. Air Force just can’t keep up with the size, speed and depth of Notre Dame.

ND wins 37 – 17

   3 Leprechauns for the pilots. (And thanks so much for your amazing service to the US of A)

Bayou Irish (@HLS_BayouIrish)

I have a running deal with the bar where we do gamewatches. If we hang sixty points on a team, I buy the bar a round of strawberry shortcake shots (don’t ask). We almost scored sixty in 2011, with T Rees under center. I still bought the round. I think I’m buying this Saturday.

Even though it’s a service academy and God and Country and Notre Dame and all that, I think BK knows we need a blowout, gaudy win to go with our two losses and drag us into the Top 25. Tommy played well against USC until he got hurt, and I don’t think you’ll see him come out until late and only in order to give Hendrix some (as we know now badly needed) game experience and maybe let him finally score a rushing TD against Air Force without tripping.

Daniels, TJ and Hercules will be too much for the Falcons. Diac knows that he got his one “pass” after Navy 2010, so he’s going to be keyed in to this one and so will Jaylon Smith, who is quietly (or not) turning into a beast. He may finish with 15 tackles. Jaylon. Not Bob.

ND 63, Falcons 10.

Twibby (@HLS_Twibby)

After a couple games that went down to the wire, Saturday will offer Irish fans (that get CBS Sports Net) a chance to relax and enjoy a contest that will be in hand early.

Irish 45, Falcons 14

Irish Elvis (@IrishElvis)

1st Quarter: Start Fast
If I predict TDs on the first 3 ND possessions, it’s bound to happen one of these weeks, right?

2nd Quarter: Attention to Detail
Cam McDaniel works on not fumbling and maintaining the “Blue Steel” look while running. ND up comfortably 24-6 at halftime.

3rd Quarter: Effort & Enthusiasm
Hopefully the second team plays better this week than they did last week. Egads, injuries!

4th Quarter: Finish Strong
Here’s hoping for a comfortable victory that’s not as close as the final indicates. ND wins 34-20.

The Irish Twins (@HLS_IT1 & @HLS_Podcast)

Twin 2 (@HLS_Podcast): ND coaches and fans should resist the urge to work on offensive contingencies long enough to focus on the task at hand–stifling the inevitable service academy pep. Some will justifiably predict big points for ND. But this Irish team is scoring less and allowing more going in than they were in 2011 vs. Air Force. Note that Air Force outgained ND in total yards in the 2011 contest and quietly scored 33. If ND remains unapologetic and sticks with what works on offense, they will roll. But if they succumb to offensive introspection as a result of the USC game, they won’t be as efficient. Still, a lot of fans may want to see new offensive faces and experimentation in this game, rather than the workhorses accumulating points. They will probably get their wish.

(Properly adjusted for the 5,896 elevation difference):   Irish 37, Air Force 21 

Twin 1 (@HLS_IT1): 41-21 ND

Blog Davie (@BlogDavie)

I have soaked in the other HLS members’ predictions and will now pull a move straight out of The Price is Right: I will take @HLS_Podcast’s prediction and add one point to each team’s score. Irish 38, Air Force 22

Steve in Iowa (@SteveInIowa1)

Let’s see.

48-17 ND

But you know what is really going to happen? We win blocking a last minute FG attempt come away with a squeaker. 17-16.

Why? Because ND never does as good as I think they will.

ManCaveQB (@ManCaveQB)

Notre Dame 38, Air Force 10

SuperManTDJesus (@SuperManTDJesus)

To be direct about it, the Falcons are royally boned. They’ve be ravaged by injuries and their established lack of size in the trenches of both sides of the ball is going to spell utter disaster for my military academy brethren.

Look for the speed back to go off. GAIII will run for +145 and 2 scores, tab McDaniel with another 90 yds and a score and look out for Carlisle to get his fair share of work scoring another TD of his own (maybe 2). Rees doesn’t have to throw much, but will connect with TJ Jones and Corey Robinson for a score each.

I’m also looking out for a touchdown on D. I’m gonna reach and say it goes to Cole Luke on a broken screen that gets picked off and taken to the house.

A field goal or two will be expected as well. Air Force will score two in the 4th during garbage time and one in the 2nd qtr as formalities.

Final Score 55-24

The Beer

This game will be played in Colorado, I have tons of it in my fridge leftover from the Shamrock Series tailgate, and I make no apologies for this for those reasons:

Via

The post Friday Roundup: The “run cmd” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

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.

The post APR and GSR: What Do They Mean, Really? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

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.

The post NCAA 2013 Data Released! appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Let me make one thing abundantly clear: Notre Dame is far from perfect.

Take a break, go back to the last sentence and re-read the bold over and over again before you continue. Realize this is a post written by an Irish football fan, former student manager, and proud alum, but also a person that has been severely disappointed by the way in which his alma mater has handled certain situations.

For instance, the Declan Sullivan tragedy, usually a must-mention in any anti-ND story, was completely avoidable. I wrote about this at length in my pre-HLS days after it happened. As a former manager, it frustrated me to no end that simple precautions were ignored. Sure, Notre Dame was fined and took action to prevent it from ever happening again, but it was all reactionary. Notre Dame shouldn’t have needed a death to figure out that high winds and lifts were a dangerous combination.

However, this tragedy being used as evidence that ND shows cracks in the “doing it right” foundation is a bit of a stretch, especially since the Sullivan family is at peace with the incident and holds no ill-will toward ND.

But what of the Lizzy Seeberg case, the go-to argument these days to show ND’s failings? After all, the alleged assailant is still on the football team and, unlike the Sullivan family, the Seebergs are far from happy as to how the investigation of their daughter’s reported sexual assault was handled.

I honestly can’t blame the Seeberg family for being angry. The timeline of events leaves quite a bit to be desired, especially in terms of how long it took to interview the accused. Further, while I understand the reasons Fr. Jenkins refused to meet with the family (as he wanted to remain impartial should he need to serve as a final disciplinary appeal), I think that refusal did a lot more harm than good, especially when juxtaposed with his dealings with the Sullivan family (and yes, I realize those are two very different cases).

In the end, the evidence wasn’t sufficient enough for any further legal action and the same decision was made on the disciplinary side. As far as football was concerned, it would be rather hard for Brian Kelly to suspend a player after two different entities withheld punishment. Further, doing so would have exposed the identity of the player publicly which is a whole other can of worms.

Unfortunately, these events are warped and sensationalized into a conspiracy that Notre Dame was protecting the football program at all costs. This misguided focus made Notre Dame football the story, cheapening the tragic events of two years ago. Upon each new mention of the Seeberg case, that same misguided focus remains, which completely ignores the fact that Notre Dame has revamped the way all sexual assault cases are handled in the summer of 2011, a move that the Seebergs hope will help young women in the future.

Much like in the Declan Sullivan case, I wish these new procedures weren’t reactionary. Considering that one in four college-aged women nation-wide are victims of rape or attempted rape (source), any policy revamp such as the one Notre Dame did is always a step in the right direction, but that’s not where the focus is. Instead of being lauded for attempting to prevent future tragedies, Notre Dame will continue to be vilified in print for the one they failed to prevent.

Some articles though go further than just the Sullivan and Seeberg tragedies. They wish to suggest that there has been a major institutional change at Notre Dame to aid the football program, citing the stepping down of Fr. Mark Poorman from the position of Vice President of Student Affairs, ND’s disciplinary wing, in 2009. Also often mentioned along with this change was a quote from a then recently fired Charlie Weis when asked what the biggest problem at ND was:

Oh, it’s Residence Life (the disciplinary arm of the office of Student Affairs), it’s not even close for second.

AHA! There’s the proof! A fired coach said ResLife was the problem, so ND removed it for Brian Kelly!

How else can you explain light punishments for Michael Floyd’s DUI (suspended for spring, zero games), Tommy Rees’ arrest (one game), Carlo Calbrese “my people will get you”-ing a cop (one game), and Cierre Wood smoking some weed (two games)? And then compare that to someone like Will Yeatman in 2008, who found himself suspended for the whole year, after blowing a .02 at a party (he was underage at the time) on the heels of being charged with a DUI (in a golf cart, supposedly) the previous spring.

Smoking “ND has sold its soul gun” found?! Not so much…

While there is definitely a start contrast, as usual with such pieces, that isn’t the whole story. First, let’s take a look a Weis’ entire quote about ResLife:

Oh, it’s Residence Life (the disciplinary arm of the office of Student Affairs), it’s not even close for second…I didn’t even know Residence Life existed when I went to school…I think if you took a poll of the students at Notre Dame on what’s the biggest negative issue, I would bet at least 50 per cent of them would say Residence Life…Without getting into the names of people who work at Residence Life…I just think that, not understanding all the principles of du Lac (student conduct manual) and everything else: I just think that these are college kids and college kids do what college kids do…Let’s say a kid has been too loud because he had some alcohol, why wouldn’t you just tell him to go to bed ? Why would that be something that ends up in the hands of Residence Life…? I’m just saying that boys will be boys and I’m just defending them; we as parents know what we interpret with our own kids what is out of line, and we all wish the best but we know our kids are going to be in trouble in their lifetime — but there are so many things that I think border on petty.

Much different in context, no?

Weis wasn’t just referring to ResLife from a football perspective, but from a student perspective as well.

I was a student during the start of Weis’ tenure and his assessment of ResLife would be 100% dead-on for that time. Punishments bordered on Draconian. Some rules seem like they were from another era in time. My favorite: no hard liquor on campus even if you were 21 or older. Hard liquor, by the way, was defined as 14% ABV, making some wines illegal contraband.

The other issue was that ResLife wanted to make examples out of athletes that got in trouble. It was a completely different standard from what normal students would experience. Considering part of the Notre Dame “doing it the right way” includes treating students and student athletes the same, this made no sense.

For instance, let’s take a time in which yours truly had a run in with a duLac violation my sophomore year. I got busted while drinking in a friend’s room. By the letter of the law I could’ve been sent to ResLife for not just the white Russian in my hand (hard liquor violation), but also for underaged drinking as I was 19 at the time.

I wasn’t even sent to ResLife. I was fined $50 and that was that.

As Weis said, “college kids do what college kids do” and our rector knew it. Sure, he could’ve sent me to ResLife if he wanted, but he didn’t feel that punishment fit the crime. In fact, most punishments in our dorm were handled in-house as most issues were minor offenses. Of course, if something more serious went down, ResLife would be brought into play; however, our rector still had the power to decide which direction to take the case. Weis simply wanted the ability to do the same without ResLife trumping him no matter what.

In other words, Weis wanted the football team to be treated just like every other student and, really, when every Notre Dame fan talks about how ND “does it right”, this is what we mean. Notre Dame doesn’t just pay lip-service to the “student” part of student-athlete. It is a part of the culture of Notre Dame and striving for, and obtaining, excellence on and off the field is what separates us from the rest of the college football world.

For years, Notre Dame fans have been told that the old days of college football was done. You simply can’t expect excellence in the classroom and on the field. As an example, take a look at what Pat Forde had to say about Notre Dame in the wake of firing Ty Willingham:

Notre Dame, football factory, fired its coach Tuesday.

The athletic director stressed that the football coach has done wonderful, inspirational work off the field. The academic performance has never been better, he said. The coach is a man of unassailable character who has recruited players of similar ilk.

“In a lot of ways,” the athletic director said, “this program hasn’t been this healthy in a long time.”

Except for one way. The wins-and-losses way. Which is what truly matters at all football factories.

Tyrone Willingham committed the fireable offense of going 21-15 in three years. As AD Kevin White said, Willingham did great work Monday through Friday.

“We just were not meeting those competitive expectations on Saturday,” White said.

Athletic directors, presidents and alums everywhere want the big lie: they want Harvard during the week and Oklahoma on the weekends. Clearly, the Fighting Irish weren’t getting enough Boomer Sooner when needed.

This move makes one thing clear: the Golden Dome might as well be located in Auburn, Ala., or Lincoln, Neb., or Tallahassee, Fla. All the things Notre Dame used to hold dear — the class-and-dignity stuff, the special-institution stuff — is officially of secondary importance.

Hilariously enough, here’s what Forde had to say yesterday about ND:

But in many ways Notre Dame remains a major-college athletic anomaly. The world’s most famous Catholic university aspires to win like a football factory while educating like an elite institution, and it largely succeeds.

The school ranks No. 1 in the NCAA’s most recent Graduation Success Rate. It is the smallest (in enrollment) and most academically prestigious (in national rankings) school to play for a championship in the BCS era (1998-present). It also is the only religiously affiliated school in that time to compete in the title game.

After decades of declining football returns, this season is the return to glory. And it’s been accomplished with players who are still part of the fabric of everyday campus life.

For too long, the powers in college football have perpetuated the “big lie” that Forde refers to as Notre Dame faltered in the win column.

We’ve talked a bit about GSR all season, and celebrated when we became the first school to hit #1 in both the BCS and GSR rankings. Notre Dame hasn’t just excelled in overall GSR, but also in graduating black male student-athletes in which they rank second at 81%, just two percentage points behind Northwestern (source).

And in comparison to the rest of the BCS top 10 — it’s a complete joke:

Then again, when you have schools like Alabama participating in oversigning, it’s rather clear that the only math that matters is how to trim the total number of scholarships on the roster to 85. What’s even sadder is that many media outlets don’t seem to care.

In fact, here’s a piece on ESPN about the nine scholarship seniors on the 2012 Alabama roster. Four of those are redshirt seniors, one senior is a JUCO transfer, and one walk-on was awarded a scholarship, leaving three as true seniors from the recruiting class of 2009, which had 27 members sign a LOI according to Rivals (and yes, that’s already two over the annual limit of 25).

Two members of that same class went to the NFL and eleven more are currently on the roster as redshirt juniors. One more is listed as a sophomore, making him a “grayshirt”, that is, a player that enrolls in the second semester instead of the first. This allows the player’s scholarship to count against the following year’s count of 25 instead of the current year, which is how Alabama can do things like sign 27 players in a single recruiting year.

To recap the math there: 2 (NFL) + 3 (seniors) + 11 (redshirt juniors) + 1 (grayshirt sophomore) = 17 scholarship players still on the roster. That’s a full 10 less than the 27 listed by Rivals or 63% of the class still retained and 10 less kids that found their paid education taken away from them.

Notre Dame doesn’t play this scholarship shell game. Unlike most schools, who treat scholarships as a renewable single year agreement, when a player is awarded a scholarship at ND, it is good for all four years. The only way a scholarship is pulled before that time is if the player decides to leave ND due to the NFL draft or to transfer to another school. For the Irish, a scholarship isn’t just a spot on a roster, but a commitment to the student-athlete that extends to the classroom, a commitment to their future.

And that commitment is the heart of ND “doing it the right way.” It isn’t about Notre Dame being perfect — it never can be. Notre Dame will fail in striving for perfection both on and off the field. People will gleefully write about it, convinced that they have finally proven that ND has indeed finally fallen completely into irrelevance or that they’ve finally sold their soul for football glory.

However, ND will continue to learn from mistakes made, continue to strive to prevent future ones, and above all else, keep that same commitment, the eye on that same prize, that excellence on and off the field isn’t just some big lie.

Former Irish and current Vikings safety Harrison Smith summed it up perfectly:

You’re expected to go to class and not just be a football player. That’s real. It’s going to be hard academically, just like it’s hard academically at a lot of schools. But we’re all just college kids, we’re all playing football, and we’re all going to make mistakes. Notre Dame is not some golden perfect place. It’s a place that tries to do the right thing.

The post Doing It the Right Way appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

According to those very numbers, which, like Shakira’s hips, don’t lie, Notre Dame is the only program ranked in the Top 26 by AP, USA Today, ESPN.com and by the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate. Pedestal, please, Mr. Reilly. We deserve it. We’ll perch upon it as you watch us on television thanks to our gaudy contract with NBC or perhaps we’ll scoot it up to the BCS table while we plot another cycle of bowls and conference alignment.

You see, the NCAA tracks academic metrics on every school. One of those metrics is the Graduation Success Rate (GSR), a number that “takes first time full-time freshmen in a given cohort and only counts them as academic successes if they graduate from their institutions within a six year period.” The cohort (whatever the hell that means in this context) (again, Arts & Letters, here) as per the NCAA’s tables, comprises the years 2001-2004. With that out of the way, may I please present you Notre Dame’s 2012 schedule as arranged by opponent and their GSR:

Holy shattered academic illusions, Bat Man! Navy only graduates 91% of its football players in six years?!?! Actually, the percentages that surprised me were BYU at 59% (maybe it’s something to do with their mission year?) and Oklahoma at 48%. That’s a joke, right, Coach Stoops? You’re taking a page out of the ol’ Bearcats playbook, aren’t ye boy-o? Attention parents of recruits! YOU HAVE A BETTER CHANCE OF GUESSING A COIN TOSS THAN YOU DO OF GRADUATING FROM OKLAHOMA. LSU, by the way, rates a respectable 77% – a percentage only made respectable by Oklahoma, Purdon’t’s 59% and Pitt’s 65%. Michigan’s in at 71%. Tee hee.

I may have been unfair to Oklahoma in comparing it to Cincinnati’s basketball program of old, which graduated 0% of its players at one point. But 48% is pretty poor. And since the 50-50 coin toss analogy above may have been perhaps too facile such that it lost its resonance, here’s one that you history buffs out there can explain to the masses: you stood a better chance of landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day and coming out unscathed (41% casualty rate) than you do of getting a degree from Oklahoma as a football player.

So, ND runs the table against its schedule, as far as GSR. But Ooooooh! Oooooooh! Bayou Irish! So what? Big deal! Open it up! Take it national! Where does ND stand against everyone else? Peep this, Loyal Readers:

Kudos to BC and the Middies for showing up, but, really? Until I started this project, I thought Furman was a muppet and I still don’t know what a “Wofford” is. Possibly where they did the Olympic cycling? Fr. Sorin, I am sure, is tickled (and possibly thereby making bagpipe sounds) at having TWO teams on the list, in a manner of speaking. But our football program is eighth out of 235 and has a higher GSR than Yale and Harvard. Think about that.

So, to return to Messrs. Reilly and Cowherd, ESPN ranks ND at 25. ESPN, for those of you living in compounds protected only by high walls and a complicit national intelligence service, pays Reilly and Cowherd, so there’s a no small amount of irony in that juxtaposition as they pocket their pieces of silver. USA Today ranks ND at 24 and AP has us just outside the top 25 with 83 votes.

SO FIND ME ANOTHER TEAM RANKED IN THE TOP 26 ACROSS ALL THE POLLS! Unless and until everyone goes full North Carolina and just stops making football players go to class at all, let’s not so readily dismiss the “student-” part of “student-athlete.” It’s beyond grotesque to lump ND, or any school for that matter, in with Penn State, as Reilly did, and equate the covering up of child molestation with a mediocre run of football. Sticking to the football part of that effrontery, Biscuit dismantled the idea that a team cannot recover from a run like ours, for starters. So, there’s that.

And there’s also this: what I am going to call the NFL Success Rate (NSR). How many Irish players got drafted last year? Four. That’s right, four. In the middle (or maybe it’s the end?) of all this suck, we produced one more draft pick than U$C and Michigan and the same number as Stanford. And what school has had the most players picked overall? Not Notre Dame. Notre Dame is in second with 471, behind USC, with 480. In third place is Ohio State with 404. Not a bad NSR.

So after all these years of desert wandering, we’re still putting out draft picks with the best of them PLUS we’re graduating 97% of our players. I like that. I’ll like it more if we’re 4-0 after the Michigan game. And I’ll like it most if we’re playing for the MNC soon. What’ll RickCowherd say then?

The post Davidson College Ranks Ahead of The Irish: GSR or a Sick Rick Reilly Fantasy? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.