dcpony wrote:Imo there's a correlation between how good a college football and how many thugs it has on the team.
See Miami, UT, FSU, So Cal, So Carolina, A$M...The list goes on and on ...
For the record, at least half the schools you mention above are on-par if not superior to SMU academically, but I digress.
The LA Times did a piece awhile back profiling several USC players who actually wanted to go to UCLA but couldn’t due to admissions. None had any academic issues at USC. USC’s recent success is in part due to self-restrictions UCLA has placed on themselves allowing the Trojan’s to monopolize this type of talent from the SoCal region.
Which leads to JWill. No way do I condone what he did; I think it was enormously short-sided on his part. But you have to ask yourself, how many Top 25 programs would suspend ‘arguably’ their best QB over the past 20 years due to academics (at a minimum it played an important role), especially when you have NO proven back-up plan.
I suspect Top 25 schools offer courses that are so dumbed-down, it is next to impossible for all-conference 'students' to fail.