Saw we lost two scholarships for football. I don't know enough about the topic, but is this Darnell coming back and screwing us from the past?


Please some one fill us all in and how we got screwed.

Check http://www.freep.com they have the story.

I'll wait until I get the clarification/confirmation from the Gazette. But IF true, it's patently unfair to mid-Majors. We don't have the cash to afford full time tutors for each athlete, like the Big schools do. And you know they're finding ways to get around this requirement as well.

Do away with athletic scholly's and they'll resolve this issue. Only way to deal with it, frankly.

Article since Freep pulls everything online after 2 weeks...

[quote]NCAA penalizes EMU, WMU for not making the grade

May 2, 2007
By MARK SNYDER
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

For Myles Brand, academic reform remains a slow process.
But at least now the NCAA president has the teeth to enforce it.

Today, Brand released results of the Division I Academic Progress Rate and, with it, the teams that will be penalized for not meeting a reasonable standard of athlete retention and graduation-rate success over the past three years.

Eastern Michigan

From wmubroncos.com

[quote]A comment from WMU Athletics on the APR and how it affects certain sports with high levels of transition is available below:

The recently released APR figures represent three years of data regarding eligibility and retention in Division I athletic programs. Though reporting will eventually study four-year rolling averages, the NCAA decided to enact the penalty phase last year after just two years of study. [b]Thus, results that were part of last year

I don't have enough information to know if this is unfair to mid-majors or if Western screwed up. Maybe we recruited kids who aren't capable of the work or won't do the work. If being a mid-major caused this then either we should step up or step down.

I don't either. But I seem to remember that the MAC as a conference has one of the best GSR (Graduation Success Rate) of any conference.

We'll have to see what happens. But it does seem strange that few BCS schools seem to get caught in this trap. Maybe we haven't gotten the "cheat sheet" being passed around the BCS in how to scam the system.

I find it hard to believe that we are recruiting kids less capable in the classroom than the "big boys." In fact, I'll bet it is the other way around.

Seriously ForeverTroll, there's plenty of information and articles/discussions to that very point, how the BCS types are working around the rules (you tell me that those thugs you see on tv are better student athletes than the group we have in the MAC).

Maybe FF just doesn't look for information and pops off just to be contentious while pretending to be a WMU fan?

This below is just from the macreportonline.

Quote:A potential explanation for why Mid-American Conference members may have been disproportionately affected was offered by the University of Toledo's Director of Compliance, Brian Lutz who told MAC Report Online that he felt that the APR penalties were "fair, based upon the application of the APR systems. There are a number of reasons behind the lower number (for Toledo), including our conference's grade point average rule which is stricter than most conferences, transfers from the program and student-athletes who simply did not graduate after exhausting eligibility, Lutz advised."

Most Division One or 1A conferences mandate that student-athletes carry a an average GPA of no less than 1.7, however, the Mid-American Conference requires that student-athletes maintain a minimum GPA average of 2.0. Hence, with the more stringent GPA requirements, MAC schools are more likely to lose student-athletes who become academically ineligible due to these higher GPA requirements.

The proof is in the results, either that or MAC (and non BCS) schools are tougher than the bigs.

Not to make to broad of a generalization but if we are being penalized for academic performance and Ohio State, or Ole Miss isn't then this system is about as fair as the rest of D1a football.

Good point Liam. It is what it is, and we're the reason it's so messed up, because we support it by watching those 'marquee games'.

I'll admit to enjoying watching those "David vs. Goliath" matchups if only for the chance to smash the perceptions out there. Guilty as charged.

The worst part is that 2 douche bags show up on one thread... and that does not include me

Forever Faithful lmfao lmfao That handle always cracks me up. 5 years of reading his stuff and not one positive post on WMU sports. Not sure what Forever is faithful to, but it certainly isn't the school he says he graduated from.

oldbronco1 Wrote:The worst part is that 2 douche bags show up on one thread... and that does not include me

Or me!!! WTF?

GRPunk Wrote:

oldbronco1 Wrote:The worst part is that 2 douche bags show up on one thread... and that does not include me

Or me!!! WTF?

Hey, there are douche bags and then there are douche bags.
:shhh:

Quote:That handle always cracks me up. 5 years of reading his stuff and not one positive post on WMU sports. Not sure what Forever is faithful to, but it certainly isn't the school he says he graduated from.

I love when he's called out and whines. He's a classic troll, and now he's on my ignore list. I so love that feature.

It IS kind of sweet, isn't it?


Speaking of "big time" programs, there was an article on the Denver Broncos website talking about this year's top 3 draft choices out of Florida, Florida and Notre Dame. Those draftees were talking (boasting, really) about how important where they played was and how great the players in the SEC are.

Then this:

Quote:Head Coach Mike Shanahan insisted the team didn't take college championships into consideration.

"If you look at our past, it doesn't really matter what program our guys are in," the coach said on the first day of the draft. "If you can play, you can play, especially when they go to the bowl games and there is different competition. It just so happens that these guys that we picked have been in big-time programs."

But it's hard to ignore the experience factor, especially since the Broncos spent the first four rounds of the 2006 draft selecting players from programs that haven't enjoyed the same success as Florida and Texas including Vanderbilt (Jay Cutler), Western Michigan (Tony Scheffler), Central Florida (Brandon Marshall), Louisville (Elvis Dumervil) and Akron (Domenik Hixon).

Of course, even then the team didn't strike out.

Cutler was named the team's starting quarterback Dec. 3 while Scheffler, Marshall and Dumervil all saw significant playing time. Dumervil finished with a team-high 8.5 sacks.

All I needed to do was say I need more data before determining what's going on here, and the brown-and-gold pom-pom squad starts taking shots at me.

Could it just possibly be that maybe the NCAA was justified what it did and it had nothing to do with whether we're a mid-major or major-major or whatever they want to callus?

It is so juvenile and parochial for you to jump down my back and call me names like "Forever Troll" for a benign post like my earlier one. You two need to get your heads out of your provincial brown-and-gold asses.

I hate to say it but im with you guys on this one. The NCAA punishes schools for academics by taking away scholarships? You would think that if they wanted to punish a school they would make it so that they couldnt play in a bowl or couldnt win a championship. This just punishes 2 people who weren't on the team when the low scores took place.

On a side note. Im still trying to figure out how WMU of all schools got punished. I mean from everything i've heard on this board Cubit brings in top students and he puts education above all else. To be in the bottem 20% is just amazing to me. I guess this breaks down the myth that Cubit is somehow this high quality coach that puts academics above athletics.

http://www.mlive.com/broncos/weblog/inde...tml#249672

http://www.mlive.com/broncos/weblog/inde...tml#249672