Football: Football: UL faces scholarship reductions

Joshua Parrott • jparrott@theadvertiser.com • May 8, 2009

UL’s football, men’s outdoor track and men’s golf teams face scholarship reductions for next season based on the NCAA’s most recent Academic Progress Rate report, which was released on Wednesday.

All three teams suffered "contemporaneous" scholarship penalties after logging multi-year APR scores below the minimum threshold of 925 – approximately a 60 percent graduation rate – and having at least one student-athlete leave school when academically ineligible, known as a "0-for-2." The NCAA can reduce scholarships for any team that falls short of the required multi-year APR average and has a 0-for-2.

UL’s football team is limited to awarding 24 initial scholarships and 84 renewals for the 2009-10 academic year after compiling an average APR score of 916 over a four-year period ending with the 2007-08 school year. The NCAA allows each Division I-A football team to give up to 25 scholarships to newcomers every year and keep 85 total players on scholarship a season.

Both men’s outdoor track and men’s golf fell three points shy of the required multi-year APR score at 922.

Instead of being able to offer 12.69 scholarships, the outdoor track team will be limited to 12.25. The golf team can award only 4.05 total scholarships, down from the 4.5 normally allowed by the NCAA.

"The penalties for those sports are just contemporaneous, not historical, so it’s just a one-time thing," said UL athletic director David Walker. "It’s frustrating for the players and coaches because most of the student-athletes are doing what they need to do, but under those rules one student-athlete can cost the entire team."

The APR – created six years ago by the NCAA – measures how well schools retain student-athletes, keep them academically eligible and eventually graduate them using a scale of 1 to 1,000. Each scholarship student-athlete can earn up to two points per semester, one for eligibility and one for retention. The total points earned are then divided by the maximum possible points. That number is multiplied by 1,000 for the final score.

Already a confusing and complex system, the APR data is officially released one year after it is collected.

Walker expressed no concern over the future of the three teams that were penalized.

"We expect that the APR scores we will submit in the first four weeks of the fall (for the 2008-09 school year) will show improvement," Walker said. "We will be fine in those sports."

Rickey Bustle, UL’s head football coach, did not immediately return a phone call Thursday seeking comment.

UL’s highest multi-year APR for a men’s team was baseball with a 962, well-above the NCAA Division I average of 939 in the sport.

On the women’s side, the cross country team posted the highest multi-year APR score at the school at 984.

The UL men’s basketball team, which received "occasion two" penalties last May under the NCAA’s historical-penalty structure, recorded a multi-year APR score of 886. The team, however, avoided any penalties for next season due to the team’s demonstrated academic improvement and a favorable comparison based on other academic or institutional factors.

For the 2007-08 academic year, the men’s basketball team posted an APR score of 1,000. It’s the second consecutive year that the Cajuns got a perfect score.

The team can be penalized if it loses more than three of a possible 48 points each year under its academic improvement plan.

"We don’t face any penalties this year because we met the waiver requirements," Walker said. "In layman’s terms, the NCAA has said that we submitted an academic improvement plan and met it."

The men’s basketball team – bogged down by an APR score of 680 in 2005-06 – needs to meet APR standards in both 2008-09 and ’09-10 to move out of the historical-penalty structure.

Based on Wednesday’s data, Centenary’s men’s basketball team and Tennessee-Chattanooga’s football squad failed to attain the required multi-year APR score.

Both teams are banned from postseason play next season under "occasion three" penalties under the historical-penalty structure.

Jacksonville State’s football team, led by former LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, faces a similar ban but is appealing the decision.

Starting next year, NCAA schools with four consecutive years of poor APR scores could face "occasion four" penalties under the historical-penalty structure. That would include scholarship and practice restrictions, a postseason ban for that particular squad and restricted Division I membership status for all teams within the athletic department.

Translation: The school would no longer be considered an NCAA Division I college or university, effectively resulting in a postseason ban for all of its athletic teams.