Does College Football Have an Academics Problem?

Does college football have an academics problem—or do academics have a college football problem? However you want to phrase it, the fact that the question could go either way indicates there's a rift in the athletics-academics marriage. 

The next question, for which there is no clear answer, is when that marriage is headed for divorce.  

Brad Wolverton of The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Wednesday that the NCAA is looking into 20 cases of potential academic misconduct, from Division I to Division III: 

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The cases are at various stages, from preliminary inquiry to awaiting a hearing with the Division I Committee on Infractions, and they involve a variety of missteps, including allegations that players received impermissible assistance from professors, academic advisers, or people outside of an athletic department. Eighteen of the cases are in Division I, one is in Division II, and one is in Division III. The official declined to name any of the colleges.

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Academic misconduct allegations (and violations) aren't new to college athletics. There have been several reports just in the last couple of years about academic fraud, from the scandal at North Carolina to Sports Illustrated's exposé on Oklahoma State in 2013. (Oklahoma State has since responded with its own inquiry into the allegations.) 

However, Wolverton does write that such cases "are on the rise in college sports."

To be abundantly clear, there's no information in Wolverton's article suggesting that football is the primary offender. That said, football is far and away the most popular college sport, and television contracts have turned it into a multibillion dollar business. With that comes the pressure to keep the most important assets—the players—eligible. 

One of the easiest narratives to buy into, true or not, is that everyone in college football bends or otherwise breaks the rules in some form, both on and off the field. It doesn't have to be blatant either; it can be something as simple as steering a player toward an easier major with classes that fit the practice schedule. That was an accusation made by former Missouri wide receiver Sean Coffey in 2012. 

(Of course, schools may counter that some students aren't cut out or don't meet the requirements for certain majors.)

Or, as Wolverton notes, academic misconduct can be of the wink-wink, nudge-nudge variety: 

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Coaches are also involved. In some cases, head coaches have urged members of their staff—secretaries, athletic trainers, people in the weight room—to 'get this young man or woman eligible,' Ms. Sulentic said.

'It’s not necessarily a directive about what to do—‘I need you to write this kid’s paper,’ ' she said. But she said coaches were making 'proclamations' to a broad network of people, encouraging them to cheat on behalf of current players or recruits.

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How much of an issue is this? It depends on your point of view.

Using the numbers provided by The Chronicle, 20 NCAA members are being investigated for academic misconduct. That's about 16.67 percent of the 120 separate cases that the NCAA is reportedly investigating. Furthermore, there are 351 Division I programs in the NCAA. About 5 percent are being investigated for academic reasons.

Without context, those numbers appear low—and, again, incidents involving football may be even lower. However, the NCAA would probably tell you that 1 percent is too high, even if such a number is unobtainable.

The irony of it all is that the schools allegedly breaking the rules, created by them, make up the NCAA. It's a classic case of "why are you hitting yourself?" 

If you're looking for an example of how the football-academics juxtaposition affects the sport, look no further than head coach Gary Andersen's move from Wisconsin to Oregon State. According to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, Andersen was frustrated with Wisconsin's admissions standards, particularly in the cases of junior college transfers: 

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Admissions was probably the reason the 50-year-old Andersen arguably caused the biggest stir of the coaching silly season.

'That's not Wisconsin's fault,; Andersen added. 'That's Wisconsin's deal ... I want to surround myself with those kids I can get in school.'

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None of that is to suggest Andersen wanted to cheat, but clearly he and athletic director Barry Alvarez weren't on the same page about the school's admissions process. That brings up an entirely new conversation about the "privilege" of going to college versus providing the opportunity for those who don't have the greatest means to go. 

There's a distinct difference. Having the grades to get into a good school could very well have as much to do with the resources provided to students as the students themselves. 

The tricky part about academics in the college athletics arena is that metrics like Academic Progress Rate and terms like "value of an education" are trumpeted by admins, but they don't tell the whole story. Athletes can just as easily get a 3.0 GPA in a major chosen for them as they can get a 2.0 GPA in a more difficult major of their choosing. 

Mark Duncan/Associated Press

Take Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones, who said in a nationally televised press conference last week that he 1) was staying in school and 2) wanted to be a financial planner after football. As B/R's Ohio State lead writer Ben Axelrod opined, that type of path should be encouraged. How it fits into Ohio State's APR seems far less important. 

Furthermore, the value of education can't solely be measured in a test score. Some of the most important learning in college happens outside of the classroom—in guest lectures, office hours, internships and interactions with other classmates. As a busy student-athlete, balancing practice, games, travel, homework and the like makes it easy to miss out on those opportunities. 

As long as a school gets the stats that matter, though, it won't get in trouble with the Association and risk penalties like scholarship losses, which take opportunities away from future athletes. 

In one way or another, that cheats an athlete long-term. But the business model college football has adopted is too far along now to go back. The only thing that means is that the NCAA and its members have to evolve in how they look at academics and athletics. 

Ben Kercheval is a lead writer for college football.