Well, I will go ahead and bring the atmosphere down by bringing up academics and recruiting. I was checking out some of our recruits and noticing some lower high school GPAs. It is nice that we have some people comming early to go ahead and get some classes and grades under their belts but some of these GPAs make me nervous. I don't want another season where academics or arrests spoil things before they get started. Has UT initiated any kind of new tutoring program for athletes, etc? Any thoughts?
UT has an amazing Tutor program for football players. Guys with Cs in HS can get Bs and Cs in college. I don't think grades really relates to thuggish behavior either. I think the new position that Coach Rucker took will go far in making sure the arrests of the past don't happen with new student athletes. Plus I had a high D average in HS but a 1510 on my SAT. I had a 3.85 GPA in college. Sometimes kids just don't take high school classes seriously. I know I didn't.
I am frankly pissed that, in comparison to the other elite programs, we have yet to get a football commitment from a Rhodes Scholar.
The absence of Rhodes Scholars has no bearing on anything. We do, after all, have the Draddy Trophy winner as well as several other intelligent individuals on the team. Ogbonnaya is another example. There are always some players that at least superficially make you wonder, but to imply that we are somehow at a disadvantage because we don't have any Rhodes Scholars is quite an assertion.
Lotus Blade: you must have set some sort of record for being a worthless slug in HS if those stats are correct. (or you attended the most difficult HS on the planet. )
Yeah, because no other football teams in the country have players with marginal grades. Mack has set an standard higher than any other elite program for players coming into the program. If there was even a decent hope that Calhoun could have made regular progress on a degree at Texas, he'd be a Longhorn.
The problem with having this discussion is that many schools, it used to be almost all of them, have special "jock" classes where the athletes can take basket weaving or chicken science and get good grades. They don't take regular academic classes in some cases, and (some, many?)schools that brag about their athletes' good grades are not to be trusted for this reason.
"Bob Costas talked to one such fellow - former Texas A&M star Antoine Wright. During an interview for this show, Wright admitted his high school education was more challenging that what he faced at A&M. “Once I got to college, I kind of let my hair down a little bit,” Wright says. “I don’t have to write term papers any more — I just have to get a grade now and play basketball.” Is that a ringing endorsement for would-be A&M recruits or what? Costas was curious about some of the agriculture courses Wright took. “In certain classes you see, you know, a quarterback, me, a running back, and then a farmer,” Wright said. “So, it definitely was a little bizarre. But, we’re all in poultry science for a reason. We’re in this class because we need to get this grade. We’re not really trying to learn about chickens.” Wright even took a class in floral design. “It’s not as easy as it sounds, to be honest with you,” he said. “But they put me in there with a couple of athletes. You’re gonna ask me a question about floral design — I can’t answer it because I needed a grade.” The Link
What exactly is Rucker's position? Also I wan't saying I expect one of our D-line to invent an alternative to oil, but I am curous what changes have been put in place to help keep athletes out of trouble (like Rucker, etc). Some of them will get into trouble anyways but I am hoping we don't lose another Ramonce because of grades. Also academic standard have gone up by the NCAA so basket weaving and the like have been somewhat curtailed recently.
Texas’s football team has always been an academic bottom-dweller, graduating only 32 percent of its players (and only 22 percent of its black players), in comparison to a 75 percent graduation rate at the school overall. here ya' go
1. Don't get me wrong-- I think that graduating athletes (and others) is generally a good thing. 2. If Harvard had a lower graduation rate than did ITT Tech, would it be evidence that ITT had stronger academics? 3. I have not yet seen a link that (to my examination) showed Texas was below NCAA APR standards and about to get sanctioned. 4. I did see that Texas trailed Harvard for most national merit scholars matriculated last year. The fraction of athletes that earn a degree within X years depends on a number of circumstances and variables, one of which is the "academic quality" of the recruits offered scholarships. Others include death in a motor vehicle collision, transfer to another institution, self-destruction after being kicked off a team, and interruption of studies to pursue a lucrative career. It is possible to "fail" to graduate promptly enough for formulae but to have great success both academically and professionally. I am reasonably satisfied with our FB academics and more than satisfied with our university overall.
We just love it when a guy from a bottom-feeding school like ou comes onto a Texas board and lectures people about Texas football and academics. FYI, ou is ranked 108th out of 124 national schools by USN&WR. And the article you cite points out that ou is among the schools that "are pulling up the rear of Higher Ed Watch's Academic BCS poll." I'd be unbelievably embarrassed to even admit I went to that kindergarten, let alone make it obvious on a BBS. At ou, an athlete may be "passed" through his classes and graduate, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the net effect of decades of condoning cheating probably permeates into the classroom and likely makes for a fairly worthless "education". We know that ou football players have learned for years how to punch car dealership time cards before and after practice; but it's not clear that they learn anything else there. here ya' go
The conversation isn't which University is better or viewed more prestigious & all things sexy for the acadamians of the world, it's about the football team position in regards to being able to take a chance on a kid because they have enough wiggle room under the NCAA guidelines to take a few of them each year & not get hammered for it because of falling short of graduating the previous ones they took the chance on years past. Texas has obviously done this in the past & failed bad enough they now are in the conversation of dropping below the min requirements. We pay to watch football games & the above argument is that Texas's football team as a whole has a documented horrible rate of graduating around 40% of the people that attend Texas to play football for Texas and an even more alarming rate of below 25% for the black ath. When we're all posting away on the debate squad kicking *** in the regional debate on global warning vs. the other schools in the Big XII then I can see where bringing up the student body as a whole is far superior than everyone else because they pull those students from the average population w/in that University. This isn't about the overall student body & where they rank, it's about the football team in particular & the eyebrow raising rate of which they graduated players, or lack thereof.
That link only measures kids who finish their degree in six years. Some take longer than that, especially if they go to the NFL. "Chris Carter, entering class of 1993, finished his BA in Kinesiology & Health in Spring 2006 (after six years in the NFL). Wane McGarity, entering class of 1994, finished his BS in Applied Learning and Development (Youth & Community Studies) in Fall 2006. Aaron Humphrey, entering class of 1996, finished his BS in Applied Learning and Development in Fall 2006. Greg Brown, entering class of 1997, finished his BS in Applied Learning and Development (Youth & Community Studies) Fall 2007. De’Andre De’Wayne Lewis, class of 1997, finished his BS in Kinesiology (Health Promotion & Fitness) in Summer 2006 during an NFL career which ended, I think, mid-October 2007. Victor Ike, the first of Mack’s recruits in this list, class of 1998, finished his BA in Ethnic Studies in Summer 2007. Brock Edwards, class of 2000, finished his BS in Applied Learning & Development in Fall 2007. Phillip Geiggar, class of 2000, finished his BS in Applied Learning & Development in Fall 2007. Tony Jeffery, class of 2000, finished his BS in Applied Learning & Development in Fall 2007. Matt McFadden, class of 2000, finished his BA in Government in Spring 2006. Aurmon Satchell, class of 2000, finished his BS in Applied Learning & Development in Summer 2007. Sloan Thomas, class of 2000, finished his BS in Communication Studies in Fall 2007." The Link
If the statistics in the link provided by TheTresLeches are accurate (and I have no reason to believe that they are not) then the graduation rate should dramitically increase in the next few years.
Texas is a better school academically than OU and many other football powerhouses. However, you are kidding yourself if you think the joke majors that most football players study is significantly harder at UT than any other school in the Big 12. For the players that are majoring in engineering, science, business, etc. I agree, but those are not the players that apply to this thread.
According to the most recent NCAA Academic Progress report (which doesn't penalize schools for transfers and early entry into the NFL), Texas had the highest score in the Big 12. Texas 944 Baylor 940 Oklahoma 936 Nebraska 935 Colorado 934 Missouri 934 Texas Tech 931 Iowa State 930 Kansas State 926 Oklahoma State 924 Texas A&M 922 Kansas 918 Texas passing on Calhoun had nothing to do with the APR. It had more to with questions over his ability to remain eligible here. Obviously that isn't a concern at OU (big surprise there).
ou is a pathetic excuse for an institution of higher learning. It's more akin to a corrupt kindergarten than a university. And it's universally deplored as one of the most corrupt university athletic programs since the founding of the NCAA: ou: A Perpetual Cheating Machine It should have gotten the Death Penalty decades ago. And you've got idoits like ouengineer defending that perpetually-cheating program. Pathetic . . .
