2008 Woodie Awards
Academics should be a factor in playoff
Ben Nielsen
Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Sports
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Boston College and Cincinatti should be playing in the Bowl Championship Series title game. At least, that is what Lindsey Luebchow, a policy analyst for the New American Foundation and contributor to the blog "Higher Ed Watch" argues.
Luebchow developed a complicated formula that combines BCS numbers with academic numbers. The academic numbers consist of the gap between graduation rates of the football team and the overall school, the gap between the black-white graduation disparity of the team and the overall school and the team's Academic Progress Rate (a number the NCAA uses to track athletes academic progress).
The formula is a bit flawed. One reason is the formula uses numbers from the 1997-2000 school years. A lot can happen to a football team in one year, let alone four years. To punish student-athletes for decisions made by former coaches and players seems unfair.
Nevertheless, the idea of incorporating academics into a team's BCS numbers seems intriguing at the least.
Here is the system's top 10 teams (Only the ranked BCS were used in the experiment): BC, UC, Auburn, Boise State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Southern California (USC), West Virginia and Arizona State. Local schools like Missouri (34.25) ranked 15th, Kansas (34.1) 17th, Oklahoma (32.85) 19th and Texas (7.85) ranked 24th.
While a system like this is something to consider, I do not think this formula should be implemented simply because the BCS system is flawed enough. This topic has been discussed many times before.
What has not been discussed with the same passion is the absence of academics when evaluating college football teams. If Missouri loses Saturday to Oklahoma, Ohio State will back into the BCS title game. OSU ranks 22nd (28.55) in Luebchow's ABCS formula. It does not seem appropriate that a team with such low academic numbers - which is surprising giving the prestige of Ohio State - should be allowed to reap the full benefits of playing the BCS Championship game.
Luebchow developed a complicated formula that combines BCS numbers with academic numbers. The academic numbers consist of the gap between graduation rates of the football team and the overall school, the gap between the black-white graduation disparity of the team and the overall school and the team's Academic Progress Rate (a number the NCAA uses to track athletes academic progress).
The formula is a bit flawed. One reason is the formula uses numbers from the 1997-2000 school years. A lot can happen to a football team in one year, let alone four years. To punish student-athletes for decisions made by former coaches and players seems unfair.
Nevertheless, the idea of incorporating academics into a team's BCS numbers seems intriguing at the least.
Here is the system's top 10 teams (Only the ranked BCS were used in the experiment): BC, UC, Auburn, Boise State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Southern California (USC), West Virginia and Arizona State. Local schools like Missouri (34.25) ranked 15th, Kansas (34.1) 17th, Oklahoma (32.85) 19th and Texas (7.85) ranked 24th.
While a system like this is something to consider, I do not think this formula should be implemented simply because the BCS system is flawed enough. This topic has been discussed many times before.
What has not been discussed with the same passion is the absence of academics when evaluating college football teams. If Missouri loses Saturday to Oklahoma, Ohio State will back into the BCS title game. OSU ranks 22nd (28.55) in Luebchow's ABCS formula. It does not seem appropriate that a team with such low academic numbers - which is surprising giving the prestige of Ohio State - should be allowed to reap the full benefits of playing the BCS Championship game.
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