Academic changes coming to football

W orried about academic issues and football players? You should be. The NCAA has formed a working group to “devise recommendations for improving the academic performance of football student-athletes.”

Over the past year, the Football Issues Committee has reviewed specific data, particularly the comparisons between the academic performance of student-athletes who compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision and those who compete in the Football Championship Subdivision.

The data show that football’s Academic Progress Rate is among the lowest of all sports, though it has shown improvement, and the sport also has the highest percentage of teams facing historically based penalties.

As always, the NCAA used great judgment in creating its Football APR Working Group roster. When you think of academic integrity, you think of the University of Tennessee—and guess what, so does the NCAA because it included UT’s athletic director Mike Hamilton.

That reminds me of Calligula naming his horse a senator. What’s next? Maybe the NCAA will put Bobby Knight on the sportsmanship committee.

But everything about the NCAA is cynical. So why should we be shocked? Of course, fans should be worried because every time the NCAA gets together to “fix” something it ends up worse than before.