+2
The Maryland football team has lost three scholarships for next season due to poor Academic Progress Report scores.
When Randy Edsall became the Maryland head football coach, he was reportedly shocked at the state of academic progress in the Program. We knew the Terps had a shoddy academic record, but I'm not sure we knew it would be this bad. According to Jeff Barker at the Baltimore Sun, Maryland could lose as many as three football scholarships as a penalty for poor academic performance.
thletic department officials agreed to be interviewed Thursday and confirmed that Maryland learned in January that scholarships were at risk and sought a waiver. The NCAA declined the initial waiver request but has reopened the process. Key to Maryland's argument is that academic improvements have been made since 2009 and that the school has a new president, new athletic director, new football coach and new academic support director for the program.
Barker points out that the punishments stem from the 2009 season when the team finished 2-10. I have no doubt that Edsall will be able to improve the academic standards at Maryland, it might just take him a little time to make it happen. And it seems like he is starting from a pretty deep hole.
The Academic Progress Rate, which is a measure used to determine how schools are doing at pushing athletes toward graduation, has declined for the Maryland football team for the past five years and could be low enough to lead to further NCAA scrutiny, according to a report by Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun.
Barker reports that the team's rate has slipped to 11th out of 12 ACC teams, behind only Florida State. The rate was released last June, and there's a slight possibility of further sanctions coming. The NCAA does not like to use low academic progress ratings as a means to eliminate scholarships, but 80 schools and 137 teams were punished for low scores last season. Athletic Director Kevin Anderson said it's "still being determined," whether Maryland is at risk for losing football scholarships.
Anderson said the program has already taken steps to correct this decline.
"Coming in, I was aware of the downward trend and it was a concern of mine, and we've already made measures to address this and strengthen it. We are going to add at least one person specifically to work with academic support," he said.
The Academic Rrogress Rate is different than the Graduation Success Rate, because the APR accounts for situations where a player leaves early to pursue a professional career. The next APR will be released in May or June.
Former coach Ralph Friedgen acknowledged the low score and attributed it to more rigorous academic requirements than at other ACC schools. He also said that many academic staff members whose jobs were to help football players were "overtaxed."
Maryland Announces Loss Of 3 Scholarships Due To Academic Performance
The Maryland Terrapins have announced that they have lost three scholarships because of academic performance, according to the Post's Terps Insider:
Terps football will lose three football scholarships next season because of low APR score.less than a minute ago via TweetDeck
Terrapins Insider
TerpsInsider
Randy Edsall was reportedly very surprised to learn about Maryland's poor academic performance when he first arrived on campus, and this certainly isn't going to quell that concern.
The APR is used to judge academic performance, with the score of 925 being the cut off for schools before being punished. Maryland scored below that mark, notching a 922 score this year. Last year Maryland scored a 929, which was only four points above the cutoff mark. So the Terps were living dangerously even before they had received this punishment.
As explained in the previous update, Maryland was warned in January that they were in danger of losing scholarships, which seemed to stem from the 2009 season where the team went 2-10. They had hoped that a new school president, athletic director, and new head coach could possibly bail them out and make the case for the school to keep their scholarships.
But it wasn't to be, and coach Edsall now needs to climb out of an early hole his program has dug for him already.
Apr 02 3:33p by Daniel Shiferaw