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Released Wednesday by the SMU athletic department:

Ponies Honored By American Football Coaches Association
SMU One Of 32 Schools Recognized

WACO (SMU) - The SMU football program has been honored by the American Football Coaches Association for its outstanding work in the classroom, the organization announced today.

SMU was one of 32 institutions recognized for graduating 70 percent or more of their football players.

Other schools honored were Ball State, Baylor, Boston College, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Duke, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Marshall, Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Purdue, Rice, South Carolina, Southern Mississippi, TCU, Texas Tech, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Wake Forest, Washington, West Virginia and Western Michigan.

SMU and Rice were the only two Western Athletic Conference teams to be recognized, and were two of the five schools from Texas to be honored.

The overall graduation rate of the 102 I-A schools that responded was 59 percent, one percent less than the previous year. Fifty-one of the members responding were above the average and 51 were below the average. The median graduation rate was 59 percent, compared to 61 percent last year and 58 percent the four previous years.

The study involves the freshman class from the academic year of 1997-98, including those who entered at that time but who did not receive financial aid until after their initial year, or who transferred from another institution and subsequently received a grant-in-aid.

This is a good thing for our programs. With reforms likely, this is an important factor which will protect or expand scholarship compared to the low performers.

Also, check the caliber of the universities. Not a bad group to be identified with.

[This message has been edited by Water Pony (edited 06-18-2003).]

I'm a little surprised to see Cincy, Marshall and TCU on the list.

Let's see. . . included in that list was Marshall, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, South Carolina, Southern Mississippi, West Virginia, and Texas Tech. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical. If these schools really are graduating 70% or more of their football players, then they must be offering some truly remarkable "academic" programs to their student-athletes.

[This message has been edited by bhop (edited 06-18-2003).]

Congrats to SMU!! and the other school to complete this accomplishment!

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Get Ready...Mustangs Never Die!!
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Cincy needs to get their basketball players in the same classes as their f'ballers. While it is better to be on this list than not, it also shows how radically different the word graduation is used. We gotta get some of those Kineseology classes along with some in Human Development, PE and Law Enforcement.

You know another interesting point, we talk about Stanford as a model for our program at times (the win the Commissioners Cup every year) but notice they did not graduate 70% of their football players. Is that because Willingham left and they transferred out, or is it because they have more aggressive admission policies than SMU?

Now East, why are you so shocked to see the horny toads on the list?

The line I had been hearing was the TCU was admitting all sorts of academic risks to improve their football. In retrospect, I guess that was basketball.

Stanford did not reply to the survey.

stanford for a fact gives exceptions & they line those 'exceptions' up with tutors as soon as they start school.

Here a comment from the Stanford bb"I believe that Stanford doesn't participate in the AFCA survey. We know from the NCAA graduation rate report that Stanford has one of the top 5 football graduation rates in Division IA, with graduation rates running in the 80%+ range. (The last two NCAA reports show Stanford at 93% and 81% for the two most recent classes.) But in the 20 years the AFCA has been giving the "academic achievement" award, Stanford has never made their list. Since the AFCA gives honorable mention for all grad rates above 70%, Stanford clearly isn't included in their survey. The AFCA press release notes that 102 schools participated. Stanford obviously is among the 15 or so schools that did not participate. . . " The break the student athlete gets is 300 points on the sat so a range from 1000 to 1200

Just because you admit academic risks, doesn't mean they don't graduate. And just because you admit JUCO's doesn't mean they won't graduate. Sure our basketball graduation rate sucked, but that also wasn't Billy Tubbs top priority, or a priority at all for that matter.