OneKeg;841902565 said:

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. I'm surprised no one has blamed the tree-sitters yet.

:tedford

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http://bearinsider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51285&page=5

okaydo;841902284 said:

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http://blogs.mercurynews.com/collegesports/2012/06/20/cal-stanford-and-san-jose-state-football-the-latest-apr-scores/

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Let's take the bad with the good and this is bad. If what has influenced the downward trend of the scores are the number of "stars" who went NFL before graduating then it doesn't speak well for our performance on the field.

Let's face it. I just don't see where our players are taking highly competitive academic courses and programs. Now maybe we can argue that even in the easier classes it is still harder than what are the same offerings as what USC and Arizona and ASU would offer but that isn't going to fly with me. This is bad. TedFURD needs to go.

The SAHPC and renovations won't help this.

Sad

It will be interesting to learn how the athletic department spins this one... and perhaps more importantly, what they plan to do to address the problem

72CalBear;841902583 said:

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and this thread would disappear...Yes, I'm talkin to you!

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I sense you do not know Cal fans that well even though you are one. I know none at Cal that would accept a Miami/Oklahoma type environment with very marginal student/athletes. Most Cal fans I know want it fair and square with pride in the academics of our student athletes.

OdontoBear66;841902603 said:

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I sense you do not know Cal fans that well even though you are one. I know none at Cal that would accept a Miami/Oklahoma type environment with very marginal student/athletes. Most Cal fans I know want it fair and square with pride in the academics of our student athletes.

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Actually both those schools have higher APRs than we

oskiwanabe;841902600 said:

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The SAHPC and renovations won't help this.

Sad

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I think they will. It does have an academic study area that far surpasses what was available before. Also, it is where they spend a large amount of time, decreasing the cross campus treks that separated Academics from Sport mentally, culturally, and geographically.



That said, these scores are embarrassing. If we were winning it would be fine to be run like a football factory. You have to have one or the other.

Phantomfan;841902610 said:

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That said, these scores are embarrassing. If we were winning it would be fine to be run like a football factory. You have to have one or the other.

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I think this is the point. We want to be a "football factory" in one sense-we all want Rose Bowl, BCS, etc. I think we recruit the same student profile as many of the factories-USC, Texas, Oregon, etc. Most of these recruits would be on the bubble at CSU Bakersfield let alone Cal and the gulf between the student population as a whole and football players is larger than at other schools. So why do we expect them to succeed at the same rate as the rest of the student population? Or better yet how do we get them to succeed if we also want to compete at the highest level and retain the academic brand. I think places like Stanford, Northwestern, BC, and Duke do it but not too many BCS brand names in that bunch for football

I'd imagine grad rates are well down the list of priorities of 5* recruits. Parents, maybe, but the kids, for the most part, are far more driven by PT, exposure, "sizzle" and other forms of instant gratification. Looming probation didn't hurt SC a lot and that's much more palpable than the prospective damage of grad rates (though UConn's bar from the BB tournament may up concerns).

GB54;841902606 said:

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Actually both those schools have higher APRs than we

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Whoops, I was talking about perception, but oh my.

OdontoBear66;841902627 said:

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Whoops, I was talking about perception, but oh my.

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Comparing APR against other schools is less useful than comparing against our own past scores.

StillNoStanfurdium;841902637 said:

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Comparing APR against other schools is less useful than comparing against our own past scores.

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Unless you look at a school with a very similar profile. But yes agree, the bigger issue is that we've fallen so far from where we were just a few years ago.

GB54;841902606 said:

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Actually both those schools have higher APRs than we

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It isn't simply that our easier courses are harder than other schools' easier courses, it is that schools will now be rewarded for academic fraud, such as pops up from time to time at the University of Georgia when faculty have been fired for flunking athletes. Does anyone really think that Cal athletes are less diligent than those at more than half the other participating schools? I don't. Do I think a lot of schools will pass athletes for writing their name on a piece of paper, if that? I do.

Unfortunately I don't think that Cal is immune to this sort of behavior, as we were dinged a bowl game in 2002 for it. But I'm willing to bet we do it a lot less than other places.

What does a "930" really mean, by the way? That five or six players dropped school while not in good standing?.....or that 10-12 players were on academic probation?...or somewhere in between? I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble being mortally embarrassed over that. Of course, I think that with all urgency we should ensure that our players do their part to help Cal meet the criteria or exceed it, because school is really what they're there for (whether they think so or not).

I am confused as to why this is so low....who do we have that has flunked out? Maybe one or two per year. Is that too many? How does the NFL impact this? What is driving these numbers?

Oski87;841902650 said:

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I am confused as to why this is so low....who do we have that has flunked out? Maybe one or two per year. Is that too many? How does the NFL impact this? What is driving these numbers?

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We lost about 30% of our 2010 class to attrition:

Terrance Montgomery
Kaelin Clay
Trajuan Briggs
Tevin Carter
Cecil Whiteside
Chris Martin

I believe Trajuan was in good academic standing when he left so I don't think that hurts us, and I'm not sure if Chris Martin ever enrolled. Not all these guys had academic issues, but whatever the reasons were it is not good to lose that many players in one year.

OdontoBear66;841902603 said:

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I sense you do not know Cal fans that well even though you are one. I know none at Cal that would accept a Miami/Oklahoma type environment with very marginal student/athletes. Most Cal fans I know want it fair and square with pride in the academics of our student athletes.

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Ummmm..are you sure?? Does our attendance drop off because GPAs drop.. or because we lose games? We are only second to Stanford in All-P12 scholar athletes..but who cares? Stanford owns us on the field! I love touting our new recruits and their (inflated) high school GPA's..But "most" Cal fans want to win games..period..I know first hand how hard the coaching staff "works" with academics and kids fall off the wagon regardless. Clay and Whiteside might be good examples - we've kept Clay in the program 3 years and he still can't make grades?! Maynard missed spring ball to "catch up."..No excuses either way for the football team. I hear them all the time with my high school seniors who can't get grades..It's very hard to predict with high school recruits how that GPA will evolve at Cal..Not an excuse.

Does this play around with the heads of frosh/sophs/?? As they find it tougher to make grades than expected.???

Well I'll be at/go to Cal...I'll have 2 years maybe if I can't hack the academics and declare for draft....

NFL seems to like Cal players.

hmmm.

Be interesting to poll some HS juniors, very good fball players, with good HS academics.... what they expect in the next 5 years. Some college and then go play NFL and make money. ??? What %age really are determined to graduate college and only then go to NFL?

Everyone around them at 17-20 years of age tells them how great they are and how great their footballl future is likely to be.

I care. I care a lot. If Cal doesn't at least have good academic standing, what else is there to talk about? A lot of arguments, damn, the vast majority of arguments about Cal point out academic "superiority" (whether correct, or not). I take a HUGE amount of pride in my degree. And I take a lot of crap from Oregon, UW, USC, Furd fans, etc. about our lack of performance on the field the last few years. If Cal was to go on academic probation, do you think anyone here would ever hear the end of it, ever? If it happens, it going to be serious soul-searching times for many Cal fans. Not the end of fanatical support as we know it, but it would hurt.

Sandy is the person at the top, so regardless of where Tedford is in all this, it's her job to keep us in good academic standing. Hopefully, this is just a blip.

We still have academic superiority in the general population and degree.

calbear289;841902653 said:

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and I'm not sure if Chris Martin ever enrolled.

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He was enrolled in Summer Bridge and had attended class. That is why he needed to sit out a year after transferring.

In regards to football and sports in general, it's one of the major selling points to HS athletes, parents, and yes, even donor alums. It's the argument used against Barsky and people like that in regards to spending funds on athletes. It's the argument that by football doing well, the academic programs will get more support (something I actually believe). If Cal goes on academic probation, it might not make a difference in someone's career, but it doesn't help with the overall perception that Cal (as a university) is taking yet another hit, especially after all the budget woes. I'm amazed that people are minimizing this potential issue. It would be front page on many newspapers and 60 Minutes would send out a team to find out "what's going wrong at the greatest public university in the world."

Like I said, let this be a blip.

sandiegobears;841902728 said:

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I care. I care a lot. If Cal doesn't at least have good academic standing, what else is there to talk about? A lot of arguments, damn, the vast majority of arguments about Cal point out academic "superiority" (whether correct, or not). I take a HUGE amount of pride in my degree. And I take a lot of crap from Oregon, UW, USC, Furd fans, etc. about our lack of performance on the field the last few years. If Cal was to go on academic probation, do you think anyone here would ever hear the end of it, ever? If it happens, it going to be serious soul-searching times for many Cal fans. Not the end of fanatical support as we know it, but it would hurt.

Sandy is the person at the top, so regardless of where Tedford is in all this, it's her job to keep us in good academic standing. Hopefully, this is just a blip.

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Weren't academics and graduation rates one of the very same points that the traitor To$h used and exploited against us in winning the talents of the young "Hatters Gon Hat" Thompson?

72CalBear;841902678 said:

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We are only second to Stanford in All-P12 scholar athletes..but who cares? Stanford owns us on the field!

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2-2 over the past four years sounds more like a dogfight than ownership. USC, on the other hand, owns us, and I'm sure their APR is better than ours.

Amyhow, since JT is sucking at winning and academics, I'm not sure what the argument here is - that he should be "more fired" for losses and "less fired" for academic failings?

SonofBlue;841902401 said:

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How exactly is the APR determined? I have heard conflicting statements on whether or not the players that transferred or left to the NFL early have negatively impacted the APR.

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The wikipedia article references the NCAA link, and includes additional information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Progress_Rate

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Academics/Division+I/How+is+APR+calculated

sandiegobears;841902738 said:

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"what's going wrong at the greatest public university in the world."

...um..some football players are failing their classes just like many of us did..and are dropping out..

Mahalo for the links, BAMSPHD!

Come on fellow Cal alumns. If our football players were flunking out of Electrical Engineering, Pre-Med, Life Sciences, Math and other courses of a very difficult nature then we would be more understanding. That is not what is happening. Just go down the published roster and you will see what is their major course of study (some even have majors).

We excuse this whole travesty by saying "This is Cal and no matter what classes are being taken it is still difficult". I call "Bogus" on that!

The white elephant in the room is that the football players are not getting the job done even when taking the kind of courses not considered to be very difficult. Let's don't kid ourselves. We know why most of the students take those kind of courses.

I would be much prouder of my school and my school's team knowing that the majority of the scholarship players are like Joe Igber.

My apologies for being an judgmental elitist snob.

I will assume Jeff and Sandy are having daily work-lunches to discuss how to improve the APR rating.
I have a suggestion; A Bounty System
A $5,000 bounty to each 'student-athletic' receiving a degree.

Just athought.

From the comments posted below this Daily Cal article you can get a sense for how this issue is playing out in the campus community.

http://www.dailycal.org/2012/06/25/cal-athletic-teams-show-ambiguous-academic-progress/

How Tedford and Sandy B. can hold onto their high-paying jobs with such a trend is something I cannot understand. We aren't doing much better in hoops (not sure how the rash of transfers affect the hoops stats).

Wow, this sucks.

One of Tedford's remaining strengths as a coach/mentor is also going down the toilet....

dupdadee;841905243 said:

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Wow, this sucks.

One of Tedford's remaining strengths as a coach/mentor is also going down the toilet....

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Yeah, the only remaining "strength" is saving rent by spending the night on a cot in his office at CMS..I wonder if they upgraded him to a single now?

59bear;841902620 said:

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I'd imagine grad rates are well down the list of priorities of 5* recruits. Parents, maybe, but the kids, for the most part, are far more driven by PT, exposure, "sizzle" and other forms of instant gratification. Looming probation didn't hurt SC a lot and that's much more palpable than the prospective damage of grad rates (though UConn's bar from the BB tournament may up concerns).

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Other schools are graduating their 5*'s better than we graduate 2&3*s

The past couple recruiting classes have been unprecedented at Cal in terms of the amount of U.S. Army and Under Armour All-Americans signed (I put up a thread on this. Look at the spike the past four years). There are 23 of these recruits on the roster, which means over 1 in 4 scholarship players are from this pool.

If I recall correctly, the linebacker we just lost had issues getting through the NCAA clearinghouse the first time around. I doubt we would have offered him in the first place if there were other linebacker recruits with the same skill set and just happened to be less of an academic risk at a place like Cal.

But as you and I know, the kid in question was a U.S. Army All-American and was a special, special player. NFL-caliber if I had to project. When you have an increase in talent as a whole, the chances of you making room for one or two guys who you're willing to roll the dice on increase.

And based on how they adjust to campus, whether it's their work ethic in class, or any outside influences that accompany coming of age in a unique place like Berkeley are factors on whether they WILL or WILL NOT pan out. And when they don't, your program's APR score plummets like it is here.

Ultimately, where else can I point the finger but at Tedford and his staff?

It's like the whole QB situation, and this never-ending "chicken and egg" debate on this board, where people either argue that recruits haven't panned out post-Rodgers because either 1) Tedford's done a poor job developing them, or 2) Tedford's evaluation of the QBs he's signed has been poor. How about a little of both?

Either way, all roads point to Tedford, and it's still his fault. Either all the coaching in the world from a proven QB guru like Tedford couldn't make them upper-tier Pac-12 starters (which means he was offering the wrong kids), or he was picking the right kids and not honing their skills to maximize their ability.

You can make that parallel with the way he's been picking his recruits from an academic standpoint. Either these kids didn't have what it takes to succeed (or survive, depending on how you look at it) at Cal academically in the first place, or they DID, but the coaches and faculty have not been able to get them to perform in the classroom.

Again, either way, you have to look at the one guy responsible for offering them scholarships and bringing them to Berkeley in the first place. Tedford has to be held accountable.

When considering that the scrutiny for the drop in APR is magnified because Berkeley is the one of the best institutions of higher learning in the world, the future now gets even tougher for Tedford to go about business as usual. Why?

1. The administration will likely try to curb the falling APR score by increasingly denying admission to kids with borderline academics whom Tedford would want to bolster recruiting classes, and combined with losing the "Cap'n at Sea," that's a recipe for a dip in overall talent in the annual arms race.

2. That means that Tedford will have to do more with less. Based on the win totals of the last five years (7, 9, 8, 5, 7), it's hard to be confident right now that he will rise to the occasion.

That doesn't mean he's not capable of doing it. He has built this Cal program in his image, and from his arrival in 2002 through 2009, it would be hard to argue against the perception (READ: PERCEPTION) that Cal was a program that put fear in the hearts of the so-called superpowers.

Proof? By Tedford's peak (2004-mid 2007), the team was ranked in the preseason top 15 or higher each year. If that isn't a sign of respect from the national media, I don't know what is.

Not to beat a dead horse, but there is no Nike deal without Tedford. There is no new Memorial. There definitely is no SAHPC.

Now he will enjoy the fruits of his labor in 2012, but the clock is ticking, and I truly believe anyone who doesn't think a 9-4 season is a fair benchmark this season is out of his mind.

If he achieves anything less on the field, AND the APR tumbles to further damage our academic reputation, I don't see a scenario where he should be allowed to keep his job. The buyout will be affordable, and to argue that we wouldn't be able to find a guy at $2.3 million a year with the current talent and resources at his disposal to do better than 8-5 is ludicrous.