Fractional Football Scholarships
by sarabeth at 6:00 am on May 7th, 2008 in EntertainmentSomeone who played college football — or who understands the arcane stupidities of NCAA football rules for some other reason — will have to explain this WP story to me:
The Howard University football team was one of 218 Division I programs sanctioned by the NCAA yesterday for failing to meet academic standards. …
The NCAA yesterday unveiled the latest batch of Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores, which measure how well a team returns academically eligible athletes semester to semester, as well as the sanctions imposed on underachievers.
[...]
… Howard’s football team will lose 2.91 scholarships because of an APR score of 916 (the magic number you need to hit is 925, which “equates roughly to a 60 percent graduation rate”).
How exactly do you lose 2.91 scholarships? With your left hand you take away three scholarships, but with your right hand you give one 9% scholarship? (Or maybe NCAA rules require you to give three 3% scholarships?) Eric Prisbell, who wrote the WP story, spent a lot of time explaining a lot of other stuff, but he didn’t even try to address the non-integer scholarship. Not how the NCAA rocket scientists came up with 2.91 in the first place, not how this delightful penalty gets imposed in practice.
matt wrote:
gee, i wonder who played college football around here…hmmmm
many student-athletes are on partial scholarships, halves, thirds, quarters etc. you don’t give a full ride to a backup punt returner, but if he has promise, he might get a bit of help. a scholarship has a monetary value, and howard loses 2.91 times whatever that value is there.
Posted 07 May 2008 at 6:38 am ¶
Josh Centor wrote:
Actually, FBS football programs and Division I men’s and women’s basketball programs aren’t penalized in fractional amounts because they are counter sports – meaning that there are no partials given. Because Howard competes in the FCS for football, the institution has 63 scholarships that can be split among its players…the 2.91 reduction means that the program will now have dollars equivalent to 60.09 scholarships.
Josh Centor
NCAA
Posted 07 May 2008 at 9:26 am ¶
jamiebeth wrote:
Thanks Josh! Can you now explain FBS and FCS? Thanks!
Posted 07 May 2008 at 11:26 am ¶
matt wrote:
FBS = Football Bowl Subdivision
FCS = Football Championship Subdivision
FCS (of which howard is a member) is what used to be Div 1-AA
Posted 07 May 2008 at 12:18 pm ¶
jamiebeth wrote:
aha — guess i’ve been out of the game too long.
Posted 08 May 2008 at 8:17 am ¶