Academic Performance Rates Released for Big Ten Football Programs

The Academic Performance Rates of NCAA athletic programs have been released, including college football programs. The NCAA appears to be kicking ass and taking names. Just ask Minnesota, Mississippi or Montana State football progams.

College football coaches either deliver good academic performance, or pay they're going to pay the price.

"The NCAA grades teams athlete by athlete, awarding one APR point per semester for staying at the school and another for maintaining academic eligibility. The association has determined that programs should hit 92.5% of their possible total, an APR of 925 that it says projects a 60% graduation rate.

Teams falling beneath a 925 are subject to initial scholarship cuts. Those falling beneath 900 face a stricter sequence of penalties: a warning the first year, scholarship and practice-time cuts the second year, postseason sanctions the third year and the school's relegation to restricted NCAA membership the fourth year.

To escape, a team must show "meaningful improvement" in its APR, plus meet at least one of three additional criteria: have a projected graduation rate better than that of the school's overall student body, prove a lack of resources or post an APR that's better than the bottom 10% of all teams in that sport."

As far as Big Ten football is concerned, Minnesota got nailed with 3 scholarship losses this year. Purdue, scoring a 926 APR, escaped sanctions by a butthair.

The two best teams on the Big Ten gridiron last fall, Penn State and Ohio State, demonstrated the top two APR scores in the conference respectively.