I'm FOR decent academic requirements because some of these guys simply don't belong in college with the lack of K->12 background they have had. Having said that, I will disagree with you about "just as entertaining without scholarships" and we don't have to imagine really. Take your Louisiana Techs (a school I like to watch play BTW so no bias against them) or a Southern Miss or an Air Force. Without football scholarships, that would be the quality of college football permeated everywhere without scholarships. Would the game be the same....well yeah, 11 players on each team at a time unless you are Tennessee , etc. But anyone who had ever watched big time college football before would notice the downgrade in quality, just like if they keep raising the academic standards, we will notice it there also...fewer franchise players on the major rosters.
Of course, the quality would suffer greatly without athletic scholarships. I'm not really concerned about the idea that some of these kids "don't belong" in college. Obviously, athletic departments offer support to help kids make it through college, even when they don't have a great (and in some cases even adequate) K-12 background. In fact, scrap the K part of that; these days, a child is seriously behind without preschooling starting no later than 3. But lack of access to education is not the fault of any kids; they cannot control what their parents know/don't know, afford/cannot afford, etc. Athletic scholarships open vistas to kids who otherwise wouldn't sniff a college campus, and I still think that diversity is a good thing. And I don't really like the idea that they are not "real students." They are, and they bust their butts for the benefit of the universities for which they play. Is it mutally beneficial? Sure. But how many ventures in life are entered into without the possibility of future benefits?
To be fair, they are weeded out fast enough as every year it seems like LSU has maybe 1 or 2 guys who become academically ineligible. One of the more recent cases was Trevon Randle the TX LBer who I loved to watch on his HS video but the word is he basically couldn't stay eligible. BTW, your point about university academic support is a superb one. I was quite honestly surprised about how almost every single recruit who commits to LSU talks about its academic center. I really don't know that that entails but they are doing something superb there. Not only do the recruits prove that with their words but as we all know, LSU has moved up to #2 in the conference between Vandy in football player graduation rates....and with Beckwith's graduation recently, every senior from that2007 NC team has graduated! On this vein of academic issues, heard what happened to Stavion Lowe, OL signee with LSU in 2009 class. He came to LSU but apparently couldn't make it so he went to JUCO and he recently committed to play for SMU.
The academic center provides tutoring for all athletes in a multitude of subjects. Several of my labmates have signed up as tutors there, and I'm considering doing that in the fall, as well. Apparently they all get the full compliance spiel from the AD. Not allowed to discuss the athlete's sport with him/her, and they're not allowed to do so much as give an athlete a ride somewhere. Strictly business.
Across the SEC, the last thing we need to brag about is GSR. The conference schools don't have to include transfers in those stats. If you take a schools reported GSR, subtract transfers from those numbers, you'll see the majority falling below a 50% mark. Bottom line, it is nothing but deceit coming from conference offices across the NCAA as a whole. It's as disingenuous as the NCAA touting the 338K "scholar-student athletes that go on to..." What's truly sad is even with those transfers not taken into account you have some schools who are still failing miserably. UofSC has less than 40% GSR ratings within its football program. It's also important to note these numbers are taken over a six year period. The numbers released for 2011 were from kids entering school in 2004. Side note: It makes what happened at Stanford on the football field, as one example, that much more impressive.
I thought about that (transfers) before but never knew how they accounted for that...obviously they don't according to you. Anyway, one thing is clear regardless of any discrepancies, exceptions, etc, LSU's academic reputation in football players getting degrees is much higher than a decade or so ago. Like I said before, Beckwith was the final football senior scholarship player in 2007 who needed to get a degree for all of them to have graduated. He got it and that is quite the accomplishment. Regardless of the transfers issue, you can still basically compare LSU to all the other SEC schools who have the same rules they go by...LSU is #2 behind Vanderbilt. Miles is proud of that and should be.
I'm generally no fan of the NCAA, but it's hard for me to blame them for duplicity when it happens across the board in higher ed. LSU already routinely overlooks mediocre ACT scores in favor of grossly inflated GPA's at joke HS programs so they can assess "the whole person" during the admissions process. When the state passes something like the GRAD Act to increase performance metrics like graduation rates, universities simply resort to grade inflation to lower the bar to meet those standards. The NCAA has loopholes that need addressing, but gaming the academic system isn't something peculiar to the NCAA, so raising standards is good step in the right direction.
One very important fact that no one has mentioned. That is that the LSU football graduation rate in 6 years is almost 20 points higher than the general student population at LSU after 6 years. The numbers are 77% to 59% which supports your point above. Lord knows if people want to start going after extenuating circumstances about LSU football graduation rate, let's compare it to the much, much lower student body graduation rate
It's not according to me. It's clearly spelled out in how conferences report numbers as outlined by the NCAA APR guidelines. Look it up. In fact, while you're at it, look around the NCAA at other schools as well. It really dispels assertions from fans of teams in other conferences about their academic prowess. If you want other numbers, look up Federal Graduation Rates supplied by the DOE. You want something that will really put a lot in perspective? Look up differences between football players graduating and non-athletes: I believe it was Cal who had the worst percentage differential.
But in which direction? According to Milesthebest, LSU's graduation rate is much better for football players than the general student population. I've often heard this was the case, as well.
