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Are you kidding me? People who talk about graduation rates (at least in football) have losing teams. What would you rather do? Get congrats from your buddies and co-workers about your win against OU or have no one care or know about a 90% graduation rate. We are not Harvard or Yale.

It is absolutely fine to expect the kids to do well and get an education, but give them easy majors. You can't tell me that the 20 or so players who aren't that smart somehow dilute our academics. There are plenty of kids that barely make it at SMU, but their parents got them in. We don't ask about their graduation rate, do we?

Win Football games and all of this BS conversations go away. Reduce the SAT to 800 like everyone else and pay more money for tutors. I don't care, just win games!!!!!!

Don't go there.

Yes, easy majors. During the Miami - Florida State game I noticed that one of the players was majoring in "Personal Exercise" My first thought was "What the F is a Personal Exercise" major?

SMU will never have Personal Excersize as a major - But SMU needs to be realistic and have PE, Coaching, Sports Marketing and a few others for the physically minded.

Even Rice has a school of ??? from which most players earn a degree. Do not kid yourself, it is not the real RICE U.

SMU needs many more changes, and maybe some different personnel with more energy and passion.

Graduating students is important. Athletes are students. Where we have gotten lost is that we seem to think it is more important for athletes to graduate than for students to graduate.

SMU graduates football players at a higher percentage than the student population as a whole.

The faculty still reviews individual grades and test scores for athletes. The faculty does not review individual grades and test scores for regular students.

SMU still accepts two out of three applicants.

Where we have gotten lost is people think academic integrity for the football program translates to the university as a whole. Where we have gotten lost is the manner in which we seek "academic integrity". Where we have gotten lost is people think "academic integrity" and winning football is an either/or proposition.

Other schools manage to graduate their athletes, too. And some of them win meaningful games. We should be following their lead and not continuing down the same path that has failed SMU for 15 years.

Exactly why we need to expand available majors that may provide interesting fields for athletes.

I am primarily interested in other majors for purposes of transfer hours. New majors aren't going to make SMU significantly more attractive to athletes and to me aren't really necessary. I seriously doubt all those A&M recruits are really interested agricultural sciences.

SMU Football Blog wrote:Graduating students is important. Athletes are students. Where we have gotten lost is that we seem to think it is more important for athletes to graduate than for students to graduate.

SMU graduates football players at a higher percentage than the student population as a whole.

The faculty still reviews individual grades and test scores for athletes. The faculty does not review individual grades and test scores for regular students.

SMU still accepts two out of three applicants.

Where we have gotten lost is people think academic integrity for the football program translates to the university as a whole. Where we have gotten lost is the manner in which we seek "academic integrity". Where we have gotten lost is people think "academic integrity" and winning football is an either/or proposition.

Other schools manage to graduate their athletes, too. And some of them win meaningful games. We should be following their lead and not continuing down the same path that has failed SMU for 15 years.

Blog, you are correct. The issue we face is not our academic standards. That is the lazy way to think about our issues. SMU needs continued leadership in graduating a high percentage of student athlete. And is it not a either/or proposition as you state.

Notre Dame, USC, Stanford, Northwestern, Wake Forest, Boston College, etc. aren't embarrassed by their athletic teams or academic standards. The suggestion that our soul as a university must be sacrificed for W's is a joke.

The counter is raise performance for everyone as has currently been proposed by the NCAA. Then everyone can't quit working about this issue and focus on getting a competitive team, not cutting corners.

Water Pony wrote:The suggestion that our soul as a university must be sacrificed for W's is a joke.

And just what is the "soul" of our beloved alma mater? If an athlete wants to come here, he is put under an academic microscope and then made to perform a satisfactory song and dance routine in order to get in.

If Muffy, who had all C's in high school but wears all the latest fashions, wants to come to SMU, all that has to happen is for Daddy to wire the money.

I'm not sure that's a soul worth defending.