The oldest story in the Michigan book has to do with their great academic reputation. They want us to believe that their athletes are on a quest for academic excellence at the "Harvard of the Midwest". They sell their academic reputation as a legitimate reason why athletes should go there, as if those boys were going to be part of any academic quest at all.
The Michigan Daily exposed its own parent university years ago in a scathing series of investigative reports on the academic treatment of athletes at the University of Michigan. Turns out a very large percentage of UM athletes were listing "General Studies" as their college major. While we've seen various departments of theirs rank highly on national lists, we've never heard of the prestigious "College of General Studies". Could it be that Michigan athletes were being coddled to greatly assist their chances of making normal academic progress?
At least Jim Harbaugh thinks that's exactly what happens at "the other Ivy League school". He said so, back when he was more of a former quarterback than a head coach. That didn't sit well with many in the blue-and-yellow circle. It also didn't stop them from begging Harbaugh to come back and clean up the RichRod mess. When he said no thanks, and Les Miles said no thanks, Brady Hoke came crawling back to Scumbuckler Hall, begging for a shot. (Time was about to run out, so he was hired.)
Now we come to find out that the great University of Michigan Football team ranks dead last in conference academics. That's "last" as in 12th. What's funny is that they wouldn't raise a fuss if they were ranked second, because deep down they accept that Northwestern is a tough out in their fantasy academic derbies. But since they're 12th, they would rather not even bring it up.
Which is why we point out that THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN FOOTBALL TEAM RANKS DEAD LAST IN THE CONFERENCE BASED ON ACADEMICS.
Okay, there, we said it. We should keep an eye on these measurements to see if UM continues to fluctuate up and down along with all of the other conference schools. (Perhaps with the league additions forthcoming, UM has a shot to rank 13th or 14th in a couple of years.)
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"Its because U of M academics are tougher and the players are held to the same threshold as every other student that their scores are low" he said sarcastically.
ReplyDeleteAnd/Or
"Its RichRod's fault."
Add in a comparison among Big Ten schools of the basic spread between the academic requirements/accomplishments of the general student population vs. revenue sport scholarship athletes at the same school and you will find that the "Michigan Difference" means, "we treat our athletes 'more differently' than other schools". The data is out there. If someone could send it in or post it, that would be cool. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe APR (Academic Progress Rating) is a measure of the academic performance. It is a composite team measurement based on individual members. Basically, each scholarshipped student-athlete is credidted 1 point for being in school and a second point for remaining academically eligible. The teams total points are divided by the points possible (and scaled by 1000). The tallies are based on a 4-year rolling average (rolling average is defined in The Myth of a Widening Recruiting Gap - see "Recent Topics" for the link).
ReplyDeleteUM has a 951 rating. That means there are 8 (or 9, depending on the actual number of active scholarships) deficiencies, which tallies to 8 players academically ineligible or 4 players that dropped out/did not graduate.
And this is from General Studies? OMG!
A shame we are not allowed to edit our comments.
Delete"credidted" s/b: credited