Competing on the Field and in the Classroom

By Michael Oriard

Saturday’s Notre Dame-Michigan game pits two of this season’s most closely watched coaches in Charlie Weis and Rich Rodriguez, but the challenges in the two football programs run deeper than the guys at the top. Success at the highest level begins with getting blue-chip athletes who can survive academically. That challenge has long been recognized at Notre Dame, but it faces Michigan, too, and increasingly all top football programs. Most people think of Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana State and so on as football powers. They also happen to be the premier public universities in their states. To be both at the same time poses increasing challenges.

An investigative report by The Atlanta Journal Constitution last December found that the average football recruit at the public universities in B.C.S. conferences has an SAT score 220 points below the average for all students. The average SAT for football players at Michigan was 997; only Georgia Tech’s 1028 was higher. But the average for all Michigan students was 1264, a 267-point difference. An obvious question arises: How does the average football recruit fare in Michigan’s academic environment? Or flip it around: Can the Wolverines compete for B.C.S. bowls and national titles with Michigan-quality students?

The problem is an old one that’s become more severe. According to the annual rankings of colleges by the U.S. News & World Report, 75 percent of incoming Michigan freshmen in 1997 scored at least 1140 on the SAT (or its equivalent on the ACT). By 2008, that 1140 had risen to 1220. Most universities have seen similar increases, typically around 40-50 points but 120 at L.S.U. and 190 at Ohio State. One way that Michigan accommodated its athletes became an embarrassment a year ago, when The Ann Arbor News reported that 78.4 percent of Wolverine football players (compared to 1.6 of Michigan undergrads over all) majored in general studies, a place to hide out from the more challenging curriculum in regular academic disciplines. USA Today found similar “clusters” (25 percent of juniors and seniors majoring in the same subject) at 79 F.B.S. schools and “extreme clusters” (40 percent) at 28.

Michigan is ranked the fourth-best American public university. U.S. News rankings are as controversial among academics as B.C.S. rankings are among football fans, but they are also self-fulfilling. If Michigan is ranked fourth, it will attract students who believe it to be fourth. Facing our increasingly winner-take-all economy, parent-driven students arrive at top colleges having worked on their academic résumés since the ninth grade (if not pre-school). The best college football recruits today have worked on their résumés just as long, but that work entails football camps and long hours in the weight room, not physics camp and summer classes in Chinese.

To compete on the field, Michigan needs athletes who can succeed academically, or face the penalties (loss of scholarships or bowl appearances) of not meeting the N.C.A.A.’s minimum Academic Progress Rate (A.P.R.) of 925. The rising SAT scores of regular students are Michigan’s rock, the APR its hard place. Between them sits general studies. Michigan’s latest Graduation Success Rate (G.S.R.) for football is 70 percent, but most of the team experiences an academic subculture outside the university mainstream. The Detroit Free Press recently reported that Rodriguez’s players also had nine hours of football-related activities on Sundays after games, the one day of the week when they might have time to catch up on homework.

I single out Michigan because Rodriguez is on the spot, but its case is representative. U. S. News ranks Michigan behind only California, U.C.L.A., and Virginia among public universities, and just ahead of North Carolina, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Washington. Penn State, Florida, and Texas are tied at No. 15; Texas is tied at No. 18 with Maryland. Football players at eight of those universities, including Texas and Florida, have SAT gaps greater than Michigan’s. The Gators’ 346-point gap (due to an average of 890 for football players) leads all universities.

These institutions have met their common challenge with varying degrees of success. At California, the best public university in the country, the most recent G.S.R. for the football team was 53 percent. North Carolina graduated 78 percent; Georgia Tech, only 48 percent. Among the football powerhouses, Florida graduated 68 percent, but Texas 50 percent, Oklahoma 46 percent, L.S.U. 54 percent, Alabama 55 percent, and Ohio State 52 percent. All of these figures are moving targets, with graduation rates reported for one year, average SATs for another, neither of them the current profile presented by U.S. News. But the general outline is clear: athletic and academic priorities have always competed, but the competition has become fiercer as the stakes have risen. And the casualties, as always, are the “student-athletes.”

Under the N.C.A.A.’s current two-part agenda for reform, the A.P.R. minimum is mandatory, while fiscal restraint is voluntary (creating a desperate challenge for a different set of institutions). For academically as well as athletically ambitious public universities, something has to give.

Michael Oriard’s new book, “Bowled Over: Big-Time Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era,” will be published in October.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Mike September 11, 2009 · 11:27 am

APR has very little to do with academic success, intelligence, or SAT scores. It measures how successful programs are at retaining and graduating players once they’re enrolled, heavily penalizing schools where players leave early for the pros. It’s a pretty worthless stat that could be greatly improved upon.

Bill Condon September 11, 2009 · 11:41 am

Let’s clear the air about SAT scores. They correlate most closely with family income. The higher your parents’ socioeconomic status, the higher your SAT score will be. So the SAT gap for athletes may be good news in a way. If athletics is a ticket for a poor kid–or even a less rich kid–to get educated at a top university, then that’s great in my book.

I taught at Michigan for nine years, and I saw my share of athletes succeed (and not) in my classes. They do compete in the classroom, despite the long hours they practice and the severe energy drain of competing at that level. Sure, the programs often steer them away from challenges they might otherwise meet–but too many students in general drift toward general studies, and not just at Michigan. The point is that most of the kids I saw were not, economically speaking, Michigan material. But they got their shot at a Michigan education.

Craig Haley September 11, 2009 · 12:38 pm

Michigan may be ranked by USNWR as the 4th best public university in the US, but The Times (of London) ranked Michigan the 18th best university (public or private) academically in the World and the highest ranked US public university in 2008. Shanghai University’s annual ranking of the World’s best universities has Michigan at # 20.

Kevin September 11, 2009 · 5:09 pm

Let’s be honest–to compete, Michigan has to keep its standards for athletes lower than its standards for its regular students. Look at a school like Stanford, which has remarkably strict academic standards. They are never going to compete for a national championship, not anymore. A Rose Bowl every so often, but you simply cannot have tough academic requirements and hope to compete against schools that will admit you if you can spell your name.

Craig Haley September 11, 2009 · 6:20 pm

Most universities (yes, even the Ivies) take in student-athletes whose grades and test scores are below the class average. It’s not just football, but also basketball and hockey where this can be found. Maybe not as common as in the past, but the double standard still exists most places.
By the way, Stanford (mentioned above) was ranked #17 academically by the Times of London, one above Michigan.

Tom C September 12, 2009 · 3:11 pm

“Let’s clear the air about SAT scores. They correlate most closely with family income. The higher your parents’ socioeconomic status, the higher your SAT score will be. ”

– That’s why among the top colleges, the underrepresented and underpriviledged applicants averaged 150-300 in SATs below the rest of the class.
– I suspect this discussion still holds true no matter how you measure the academic achievements of these college applicants. SAT just happens to be one easy measure.

Joe September 12, 2009 · 3:24 pm

If the NBA and the NFL player’s lists are a model for the common sense and intelligence supposedly learned in academia; then higher education is indeed in crisis. In addition, the “long hours” student/athletes must “endure” is not an uncommon path for the many, who toil at menial jobs in order to pay for their own education that includes the costs of athletic programs, also known as having fun with boys and girls on the grass programs, and hefty student loans with high interest rates. Training table food, private tutors on call and other amenities both known (legal) and hidden (illegal) are way beyond the student, who pays tuition by working their way through college.

Scientist’s kid October 15, 2009 · 2:05 pm

“Let’s clear the air about SAT scores. They correlate most closely with family income. The higher your parents’ socioeconomic status, the higher your SAT score will be.”

That unqualified assertion is simply not true. Despite my middle-class background, my SAT score was much higher than most (if not all) of my wealthier classmates’ scores.

If the correlation you describe holds, the average SAT score of a group of economically struggling students will be lower than the average SAT score of an OTHERWISE-IDENTICAL group of economically privileged students. But you cannot use these generalizations to make predictions about an INDIVIDUAL, only about a large group and ONLY when nothing else important skews the group. You could almost certainly go to an inner-city high school, test everyone, then do the same at a wealthy suburban school, and hand-pick two groups such that all the inner-city kids outscore all of the suburban kids.