My apologies

3/14/2010: My apologies for all the sports stuff lately. Here’s a little more, on what it takes to win at college football. Looks like it’s mostly a willingness to recruit players who are not going to graduate. From Scout.com:

The graduation rates in The Bootleg’s analysis are the NCAA’s “Graduation Success Rates” (GSRs), which were introduced four years ago. The Graduation Success Rate reflects the percentage of athletes who graduated within six years after starting college. The GSR doesn’t count outgoing transfer students, so long as they were in good academic standing. So, losing players due to transfer generally does not hurt a school’s graduation rate. Incoming transfers are included in the GSR calculation.
The graduation rates in this analysis are “four class” graduation rates – that is, combined graduation rates for the four most recent classes for which information has been reported. The classes covered by this year’s analysis are the classes that would have graduated in the years 2004 through 2007, assuming a five-year track to graduation.

FOOTBALL

Football Graduation Rates: Pac-10
Stanford	89%
Washington	69%
Cal	64%
Washington St.	62%
Arizona St.	58%
USC	58%
Oregon St.	57%
UCLA	51%
Oregon	49%
Arizona	41%

Bottom 10 Football Grad Rates: Division I-A
San Jose St.	33%
Arizona	41%
Oklahoma	45%
Fresno St.	46%
Hawaii	47%
Florida International	47%
San Diego St.	48%
UAB	48%
Texas	49%
Oregon	49%
Georgia Tech	49%
Eastern Michigan	49%

Oregon has joined Arizona, Oklahoma, and Texas in the race for the bottom. As the Ducks’ football fortunes take wing, their graduation rates are flying south.

Grad Rates for African American Football Players: Selected Schools
	African American	Caucasian	Difference
North Carolina St.	43%	94%	-51%
Auburn	48%	94%	-46%
Arkansas	40%	78%	-38%
UCLA	31%	68%	-37%
Georgia	48%	83%	-35%
Miami	65%	100%	-35%
Mississippi	60%	94%	-34%
Utah	48%	82%	-34%
Texas	37%	69%	-32%
Georgia Tech	41%	73%	-32%
Oregon	39%	70%	-31%

Biggest Difference in Grad Rates Between Football Players and All Students Major Programs (Difference of 15% or more)
	Football Players	All Students	Difference
UCLA	51%	89%	-38%
Texas	49%	77%	-28%
Georgia Tech	49%	77%	-28%
USC	58%	85%	-27%
Virginia	68%	93%	-25%
Cal	64%	88%	-24%
Texas A&M	55%	77%	-22%
Georgia	57%	76%	-19%
Maryland	60%	79%	-19%
Michigan St.	56%	74%	-18%
Arizona	41%	57%	-16%
Oregon	49%	65%	-16%
Michigan	71%	87%	-16%
Oklahoma	45%	60%	-15%
BYU	61%	76%	-15%
For an explanation of the calculation of these “graduation rate gaps,” see the note at the end of the analysis.