Whats the odds

When Aaron Davis decided to transfer to Southern Methodist University, the Mustangs had just completed a 1-11 season, firing coach Phil Bennett in midseason.

In 2008, Davis’ redshirt year after attending — but not playing at — Fresno State, SMU again went 1-11 under new coach June Jones.

If the defensive tackle from Elsinore High was having second thoughts about his move, well, who could blame him?

As it turns out, though, Davis was coming to the right place at the right time. When the 6-foot-3, 275-pound junior plays against Pitt in Saturday’s BBVA Compass Bowl in Birmingham, Ala., it will be the third straight year he and the Mustangs have been to a bowl game — after 25 years without a postseason appearance.

“I did have some concerns,” Davis said in a recent phone conversation, “because, obviously, I wanted to win and that whole deal. But I saw the program turning around, and I saw people doing the right things. I was just confident we had the right kids here to make a turnaround and change the culture.

“And I feel like that’s what we did.”

The change has been dramatic enough that SMU — still the only program to receive the NCAA “death penalty” for multiple rule violations — has put together three consecutive seasons with seven or more wins. That may be a modest milestone for some programs, but the previous 20 years since the Mustangs had their 1987 and 1988 seasons wiped out because of the NCAA sanctions included just two seasons with six wins and 18 with losing records.

“I’ve been fortunate to be a part of that turnaround,” Davis said. “It’s a pretty exciting time for us.”

Davis made the move to the Dallas school largely because of defensive coordinator Tom Mason, who recruited him at Fresno but went to SMU when Jones became head coach. It’s a good indication how highly Davis respects Mason.

“He’s a straight-shooting type of guy,” Davis said. “He tells it like it is, and that’s kind of hard, to find people like that in the recruiting process. I feel like a lot of people kind of lie to you and tell you what you want to hear. And coach Mason was just straight-up honest and kept his word with me.”

Playing for Mason, Davis said, has been everything he expected.

“I came here,” he said, “and I was able to have an impact every year that I was here. I played a lot on special teams. I made a huge impact on special teams and playing defense.

“It’s been a fun time and I’ve really enjoyed playing in the defensive scheme. It’s a great school, and Dallas is a great area to live in.”

Davis arrived at SMU as a 215-pound linebacker, and his development stands as testimony to the effectiveness of a collegiate weight program, as well as his own dedication to offseason weight work.

“The summer, I think, is what sets up the season,” he said. “Because for the most part, in the summer you’ve got nothing else to do but lift and train …

“It’s just a competitive deal: You compete against yourself to get stronger and be the best you can, the fastest you can, the strongest you can.

“I really enjoy that part of the season, and it’s actually my favorite time of the year, other than actually playing football.”

Highlights, Dec. 26-31

Offense

Chris Polk, RB, Washington: The junior from Redlands East Valley had 30 carries for 147 yards and a touchdown, as well as two receptions for 8 yards, in the Huskies’ wild 67-56 loss to Baylor at the Alamo Bowl. Polk subsequently announced his intention to enter the NFL draft.

Jonathan Warzeka, WR, Air Force: The senior from Temescal Canyon concluded his college career with three carries for 84 yards, three receptions for 50 yards and a touchdown, and an 18-yard kickoff return in a 42-41 Military Bowl loss to Toledo.

Defense

Daniel Sorensen, S, BYU: The sophomore from Colton had nine tackles, three solo, and broke up a pass as BYU rallied to beat Tulsa 24-21 in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Article source: http://www.pe.com/sports/college/college-headlines/20120103-college-football-davis-appreciates-role-in-smu-turnaround.ece

The Longhorns might have beaten Alabama a couple of years ago, denied the Crimson Tide a national championship and put a dent in the Southeastern Conference‘s modern-day domination of college football. But they fell on a cool night in Pasadena, Calif., Colt McCoy taking five snaps before injuring his throwing shoulder. ‘Bama claimed the fourth of what’s about to become a remarkable run of six consecutive titles by SEC teams.

“We could have stopped it,” Brown says. “It makes you mad.”

Beyond that, he says, you have to give the SEC its due.

“They’ve been good enough,” Brown says of a string of titles that will continue Monday with a victory by LSU or Alabama. “It lets everybody in America know that you’d better improve your own league. Quit griping about what’s happened in the SEC. Give them credit. And go back and get some other teams good enough to be in that mix.”

• MORE: Will the LSU-Alabama rematch be better?

• MORE: Alabama win could lead to split title decision

• PHOTOS: Best images from NCAA bowl season

It has been clear for a while now. The rest of the nation is playing catch-up with the SEC, which has won 84% of its regular-season non-conference games and more than two-thirds of its bowl matchups the last six years and seen Florida (2006 and ’08), LSU (’07), Alabama (’09) and Auburn (’10) celebrate BCS titles.

No league has won or shared six national titles in succession. The Big Ten strung five in the Great Depression era.

“It’s a perfect storm,” says former Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who coached the Vols to the BCS’ first national championship at the end of the 1998 season. “Being a part of it in the ’90s, I watched it grow and develop — the financial commitments from the universities, at least those in the upper echelon. They put the dollars into it. Expectations go way up.”

Keys to SEC’s football success

Budget: On average in 2009-10, according to filings with the NCAA, the SEC’s 11 public schools put $20.3 million into their football programs. That was 10% more than Big Ten schools, better than a quarter more than those in the ACC and a third more than those in the Big East.

The best coaches money can buy: Six of the nation’s highest-paid head coaches, and 10 of the top 20, worked in the SEC this season, topped by Alabama’s Nick Saban ($4.83 million before bonuses) and LSU’s Les Miles ($3.84 million).

Talent: SEC programs landed 179 of Rivals.com’s top 100 prospects in past five years, more than one in every three. That’s nearly double the Pacific 12’s 87, more than triple Big Ten’s 54. (The Big 12 and ACC had 720.) … Alabama signed 27 of those blue-chippers, and from that group counts seven current starters and six more players in its current two-deep lineup. LSU signed 18, accounting for 10 current starters and four more two-deep players. … The SEC has produced more NFL draft picks the past six years (237) than any league.

Passion: The SEC has led country in average attendance the past 14 years, drawing 75,607 a game during the 2011 regular season. That’s 96% of capacity. Even 2-10 Mississippi drew 93% of capacity, averaging better than 56,000.

Compiled by Steve Wieberg

Those are the essentials: money and talent, on the field and under the coach’s headset.

Schools cash in on a healthy gate — average attendance in the SEC has topped 75,000 the last six seasons — and the largesse from conference TV deals and the football and basketball postseasons. The league distributed more than $18 million in revenue per school last year.

That has enabled a heavy investment in coaching, from Alabama’s Nick Saban and LSU’s Les Miles on down.

Deep pockets don’t hurt in player recruitment, either. But in that area, the SEC has more intrinsic advantages.

The nation’s population is shifting to the Sun Belt, and so that’s where talent is concentrated and where it tends to stay when prospects sort through college options. Warmer-weather high schools can practice in the spring, speeding player development. The region doesn’t just dote on football. It lives for the sport, as the spending and attendance attest.

And simply put, the SEC’s elite teams are built to win championships. Fulmer points to defense, the lines first and then the cornerbacks. “All the good teams are going to have one or two guys that make a difference,” he says. “But in the Southeastern Conference, you’re going to see three or four at a time. And then depth, young guys coming in to play and help.”

In truth, the entire SEC doesn’t tower over college football. Vanderbilt has never cracked the BCS rankings, and Kentucky boasts a four-week appearance four years ago. Tennessee has ebbed. Fortunes at Mississippi and Mississippi State largely reflect the fact their football budgets are a third to roughly a quarter of the $31 million-plus spent at Alabama.

But Vanderbilt and Mississippi State qualified for bowls this season, and the league is fortifying with the addition of bowl winners Texas AM and Missouri on July 1.

“The only thing you know for sure in football or any other human endeavor is that nothing goes on forever. Something’s going to happen. Something will change it,” says Bill Curry, former coach at Georgia Tech, Alabama and Kentucky and now leading Georgia State’s fledgling program. “But I don’t see it happening real soon.”

Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/sec/story/2012-01-04/sec-national-championship-dominance/52380990/1

Enlarge Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Quarterback Darron Thomas of the Oregon Ducks (right) threw for 30 touchdowns with only 6 interceptions this season. The Ducks beat UCLA in the Pac-12 Championship to earn a spot in the Rose Bowl, where they’ll face Wisconsin.

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Quarterback Darron Thomas of the Oregon Ducks (right) threw for 30 touchdowns with only 6 interceptions this season. The Ducks beat UCLA in the Pac-12 Championship to earn a spot in the Rose Bowl, where they’ll face Wisconsin.

College football is set to enter its final week, and that means the biggest bowl games are coming up. This weekend will see teams such as Auburn, Oklahoma and Georgia Tech in action. And the first week of 2012 will feature marquee matchups like Oregon vs. Wisconsin, and Oklahoma State against Stanford.

Talking about the bowl season with Morning Edition guest host Linda Wertheimer in an interview for Monday’s show, NPR’s Mike Pesca says he’ll be paying particular attention to several upcoming games, including Penn State vs. Houston, and Georgia vs. Michigan State.

“Houston has an amazing offense,” Pesca says. “They average over 600 yards a game. And they’re scoring about 50 points a game. It is a juggernaut. Of course, these numbers were put up against such teams as the North Texas Mean Green.”

And on Monday, Jan. 2, Houston’s impressive offense will meet Penn State’s stout defense.

In the 2011 season, Penn State’s defense has allowed opponents “only 15 points a game — one of the best defenses in the country,” Pesca says. “For all the flaws of the bowl system, when you get two teams of such differing types playing against each other, it can be interesting.”

Pesca says he’ll also watch the Outback Bowl at 1 p.m. ET Monday, which pits Michigan State against Georgia, “just because I think the teams are good, and a little underrated.”

Both of those teams finished the season with 10-3 records, having lost in their conference championship games — Michigan State to Wisconsin, and Georgia to No. 1 LSU.

For a complete rundown of this season’s bowl games, visit ESPN, which is airing many of the games, or if you prefer a reverse-chronological view, CBS can help. If you want a schedule that’s easy to look at on your phone, the Flickr user “encouragement” has posted an image of the 2011-2012 bowl games.

The Rose Bowl will be played at 5 p.m. ET Monday, matching two offensive-minded teams in Oregon against Wisconsin.

“Oregon does it a lot of ways,” Pesca says. “They’re competent through the air. They have an excellent ground game. And Wisconsin, as Wisconsin usually does, really can pound the ball. And by ‘ball,’ I mean their running back, Montee Ball. He’s a monster on the ground.”

In terms of history, Pesca gives Wisconsin a slight edge — Oregon hasn’t won the Rose Bowl since 1917, he says.

But once the teams take the field, Pesca says, “perhaps the Oregon offense will have a little easier time with the Wisconsin defense than vice-versa.”

Also Monday, the unofficial “Urban Meyer Bowl” kicks off at 1 p.m., when the coach’s former team, Florida, meets his squad-in-waiting, Ohio State, in the Gator Bowl.

And when the Fiesta Bowl kicks off at 8:30 p.m. ET on the same day, fans will see one team that missed out on the BCS title game, in 11-1 Oklahoma State, and one player that several NFL teams are hoping they don’t miss in the next draft: quarterback Andrew Luck, of 11-1 Stanford.

Oklahoma State has ridden its high-powered offense to a No. 3 ranking, Pesca says, while Stanford has relied on Luck, and a strong defense, to rise to No. 4 in the country.

“So, other than the national championship game, just in terms of rankings, this is the best possible matchup you could get,” he says. “And it should be very intriguing.”

And part of the draw will be to see how Luck performs in his final college game.

“He’s not quite Peyton Manning — I mean, he’s only 21, 22 years old,” Pesca says. “But he’s a master, and he’s a craftsman out there on the field. I will definitely be tuning in.”

The much-maligned BCS system uses several criteria to determine the top six teams — and which two schools should compete for the BCS title. Part of its formula is based on the USA Today Coaches’ Poll.

If you have time before watching your next game, and you’re curious about how coaches rated their own school — and, more interestingly, those from rival conferences — you can check out a sortable grid of the coaches’ final ballots over at USA Today.

Article source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/12/30/144491955/college-football-bowl-preview-compelling-matchups-dead-ahead

SAN ANTONIO — If that really was Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III’s final college game, what an incredible way to go out.

Just ask him.

“We went out in style!” Griffin shouted to his teammates.

It was amazing the Baylor quarterback had any breath left at all. Not after a record-shattering Alamo Bowl that might not only be remembered as the highest-scoring regulation bowl game in history, but also possibly as Griffin’s last addition to his legacy in Waco.

The AP Player of the Year wasn’t dazzling Thursday night, but he didn’t need to be as No. 15 Baylor still pulled out an incredible 67-56 victory over Washington.

If it was RG3′s final showcase before jumping to the NFL, it was a gripping goodbye to watch. One of the nation’s most electrifying players was upstaged by an even more exciting nail-biter that shattered the previous record for points in regulation set in the 2001 GMAC Bowl.

Fans showered Griffin with chants of “One more year! One more year!” as he paraded the Alamo Bowl trophy around the field. He stopped at the front-row stands and showed off his prize to his mother, who has already been looking at her son’s NFL draft prospects.

Griffin said he’ll start looking, too, soon enough.

For now, there was still the craziness of this game to sort through.

“I want Baylor nation to enjoy this,” Griffin said. “It’s not about me. I’ve got about two weeks. I’ll enjoy this the next day, and then the next day, and then I’ll make it.”

The previous bowl record for a regulation game was 102 points in the 2001 GMAC Bowl between Marshall and East Carolina. That game went to double overtime and ended with a combined 125 points, which still stands as the overall bowl record.

Baylor, which won a bowl game for the first time since 1992, and Washington (7-6) also set a bowl record for total offense with 1,397 yards.

“We just knew we needed to score,” Washington quarterback Keith Price said. “We needed to score fast, just to give our defense a boost.”

Griffin had an unremarkable night, throwing just one touchdown pass and running for another score. But Terrance Ganaway starred ably in his place, rushing for 200 yards and five touchdowns. His last was a 43-yard run with 2:28 left to seal Baylor’s first 10-win season since 1980.

Price outplayed his Heisman counterpart, going 23 for 27 with 438 yards and four touchdowns. He also ran for another three scores.

“I think we’ll have a hard time this bowl season to see a quarterback play as well as he did,” Washington coach Steve Sarkisian.

Griffin was 24 of 33 for 295 yards — and his only touchdown throw came on the game’s opening drive.

Blown out in four other games against ranked opponents this season, the Huskies finally made one interesting. Not that it started that way after Baylor ran up 245 yards of offense alone in the first quarter — awful even by the standards of Washington’s defense, which is among the nation’s worst.

Price, a sophomore who threw a school-record 29 touchdown passes in his first year as the starter, began cutting into a 21-7 deficit with a 12-yard scoring strike to James Johnson. Seven minutes later, Washington tied it when Devin Aguilar somersaulted over the goal line after catching a 1-yard lob.

Article source: http://www.southbendtribune.com/sports/sbt-college-football-baylor-wins-alamo-shootout-20111231,0,7521289.story

Editor’s note: Terence Moore is a sports columnist of more than three decades. He has worked for the Cincinnati Enquirer, the San Francisco Examiner, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and AOL Sports. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) — When it comes to the horror of bringing a playoff system to the big boys of college football, there are several things for members of the Knee-Jerk Society of America to think about.

The problem is, they don’t wish to think. They prefer emotion.

Mostly, they fume over the current system that chooses a national champion through a combination of polls and computers with the so-called Bowl Championship Series. They say a playoff system is the best way to determine a champion on the field, and they are correct. But only if you ignore things you have to … think about.

For instance: Name those screaming the loudest about a playoff system for the Alabamas, the Ohio States and the Southern Californias.

The fans? Yep, because they are, well, fans.

The coaches? Uh-huh. In their minds, a playoff system gives them the chance to add millions to their millions.

The media? Definitely. They have airwaves, cyberspace and newsprint to fill, and if you’re ESPN or the networks, a playoff system gives you the chance to add billions to your billions.

Guess who gets ignored? The players.

Pro players get paid for their sacrifices regarding extra games, but college players don’t. And that’s just for starters.

Consider that every team in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division 1-A) has about 120 players. On the high side, an average of five or six of those players make NFL training-camp rosters. Of the nearly 110 left, maybe 40 believe they should have made an NFL training-camp roster. So, a large portion of that 40 joins those five or six in spending more time studying playbooks than textbooks.

That leaves roughly 70 student-athletes on a team each season doing whatever it takes to get a degree — and it takes a lot for that group, even without an extra game or three.

Just one extra game means a slew of more practices, film sessions and team meetings for those student-athletes.

“A playoff system certainly would have its challenges, and it’s already a challenge now,” said Roddy Jones, a four-year starter at running back for Georgia Tech. He is a three-time Academic All-Atlantic Coast Conference player, and he has earned his undergraduate degree in management along the way to seeking an MBA.

Not only that, Jones is part of an advisory council involving Georgia Tech athletes and administrators. He said an average day for a football student-athlete can start as early as 6:30 a.m., stretch through the end of a tutoring session at 9 p.m. and continue with more studying at the dormitory.

“Time management is the biggest thing,” Jones said. “People just see the games on Saturdays, but we’re practicing Monday through Friday, and we have classes every day as well. A traditional student has the weekend to get a project done. We don’t have that liberty, because we’re in a hotel on Fridays, getting ready for the games. It can be a mental grind.”

And that’s without a playoff system.

That’s also coming from Jones, among the elite of student-athletes, who added, “A lot of those games with playoffs would come during finals weeks or at other times that are very stressful for any student, particularly for a student-athlete.”

OK, so you couldn’t care less whether Johnny can read or write. You just want to know whether Johnny can punt, pass or kick.

Tell me this: A playoff system would have how many games, and who’s to say it wouldn’t keep expanding before expanding some more? While several athletics directors want a “plus one” approach featuring a championship game after the 35 bowl games, others want two semifinal games and then a championship game.

President Obama wants eight teams playing three rounds.

Washington State coach Mike Leach wants 64 teams.

No doubt, others wouldn’t mind putting all of the Football Bowl Subdivision’s 120 teams in the postseason.

Where would you play these games? The site of current bowl games, you say, or maybe NFL stadiums, neutral sites or various places on the dark side of the moon? How many — if any — of these locations would be available?

If you use bowls, which ones? And since the bulk of the TV and advertising revenue would flow to playoff games, what would happen financially to the bulk of the bowls without playoff games?

How would you choose the participants for a playoff system, and wouldn’t that create more controversy?

I know. They have a playoff system in college basketball called March Madness, but here’s something else I know: The academic status of participating dribblers often has been a disaster. In fact, if the new academic rules that the NCAA adopted this fall were in place last spring, Connecticut wouldn’t be allowed to defend its national championship.

Connecticut barely would have made the tournament.

I also know they have a playoff system for the lower levels of college football. The one for the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division 1-AA) began November 26, and it will end with the championship game January 7.

Here’s something else I know: The last NCAA report on the financial status of its schools at the highest level was for the 2009-10 season, and it showed that only 22 out of those 120 athletics departments turned a profit. Which raises the question: How many football programs for those schools would agree to lose revenue by slicing regular-season games to keep a playoff system from lasting until Valentine’s Day?

Zero.

Oh, and home attendance in the playoffs for teams at those lower levels is frequently lower than their regular-season games. Such was the case last season for traditional FCS powers Delaware and Appalachian State, and such is the case this year for North Dakota State, according to its sports information department.

I say that because Georgia fans dominated the Georgia Dome this month for the Southeastern Conference title game. Their LSU counterparts were sparse. Word back in Baton Rouge was that LSU fans were saving their money for the Bowl Championship Series title game next week in New Orleans between LSU and Alabama.

Which raises another question: How many folks would travel multiple times to see their team during a playoff system involving the big boys?

The answer?

Just leave the current system alone.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Terence Moore.

Article source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/30/opinion/moore-football-playoff/index.html?npt=NP1

Everything we think we know about college football’s impact on students’ grades, graduation rates, rankings, and school finances adds up to this: Football might be bad for some colleges

Reuters

When college football’s final bowl games are played in the coming weeks, they’ll be a coda to a season defined by scandal. There was the demise of Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who tried to cover up evidence that his players had broken NCAA rules by trading memorabilia for money and tattoos. There were the revelations that a convicted ponzi schemer and University of Miami booster had lavished millions on dollars on cash, cars and prostitutes for school’s players. There was the nightmarish sex abuse scandal at Penn State. The list, sadly, goes on.

It’s hard not to wonder: Is college football really good for college? Taylor Branch delivered a tour de force take for The Atlantic this year on the injustices suffered by big time collegiate athletes. But what about the rest of the university? What does football culture do for the students who don’t play every Saturday? What does football do for schools’ finances? Their academics? Their reputations?

These are questions economists have been plumbing for years. Here’s a taste of what they have to say.

DOES COLLEGE FOOTBALL MAKE SCHOOLS RICHER OR POORER?
Short answer: It enriches the powerhouses, but the larger story is mixed.

When it comes to raw earning power, college football programs are pretty evenly split between haves and have-nots. The media tends to focus on powerhouse schools such as the Universities of Alabama, Michigan, and Texas, which rake in tens of millions of dollars from ticket sales, TV deals, and merchandise. But those teams are just one part of a much larger and more complicated picture.

In August, the NCAA released a financial breakdown of college athletics programs from 2004 through 2010. In those years, hardly more than half of the roughly 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the old Division 1-A, generated a profit from football. Those teams netted a median gain of $9.1 million. Among the programs stuck in the red, their median loss was $2.9 million. So for elite football schools, the game is a cash cow capable of subsidizing less remunerative sports. For the gridiron also-rans, it’s just one more expense.

By and large, economists haven’t focused on direct revenues. Instead, they’ve tried to probe the common claim by university administrators that alumni are happier to donate when football teams win. More than a dozen studies have tried to put that folk wisdom to the test, but the jury’s still out. For instance, a 2004 study by University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor Irvin Tucker found that better records and bowl appearances could boost alumni giving. Looking at data from dozens of big conference schools, he found that, over a six year period, a 10% jump in winning percentage, an extra bowl game, or extra appearance in the AP coaches poll appearance could increase donations by 1%. On the other hand, a 2001 paper that examined the behavior of thousands of individual alumni donors found no such relationship.

For public universities, though, there’s a crucial audience to consider other than alums: legislators. In 2003, UMBC’s Brad Humphreys looked at the relationship between gridiron glory and appropriations by state lawmakers. He found that winning teams received more generous treatment come budget season, especially if they went to a bowl game or won a major in-state rivalry match, such as the annual Iron Bowl between the University of Alabama and Auburn. “A successful football season might increase state appropriations by 5% to 8% in the following year, and a team with a respectable losing record might garner a 2% to 4% increase, other things equal,” Humphreys concluded. “Very bad teams — those that win only 1 or 2 games — get a smaller increase in appropriation in the following year.”

Ultimately, the biggest problem with treating college football as a financial investment is that pouring in more funding doesn’t guarantee better returns. Before his days in the White House, former Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag was part of a team commissioned by the NCAA to analyze the impact of athletic spending on colleges. Looking at data from 1993 to 2001, his study found that spending more on football didn’t lead to a more profitable team. It also didn’t lead to additional alumni giving. Why not? Possibly because that teams that upped their funding didn’t necessarily improve their records. Nor did a better record guarantee increased revenue. So schools can spend all the money they want in the hopes of becoming the next LSU. It just doesn’t mean they’ll get results.

IS COLLEGE FOOTBALL GOOD FOR A SCHOOL’S REPUTATION?
Short answer: Winning teams could lead to more applications and higher college rankings.

For many schools, then, it might be tough to justify a football program strictly in terms of dollars and cents. But there’s another, less tangible benefit: marketing. Schools tend to view their football programs as giant billboards. It’s nationally televised advertising. And there’s a pervasive belief that a big win on the field can lead to a surge in student applications. There’s even have a name for the phenomenon: The Flutie Effect.

In 1984, quarterback Doug Flutie led Boston College to an upset win over reigning national champs the University of Miami, capping the game with an awe-inspiring, 60-yard hail Mary touchdown pass, still regarded as one of the greatest plays in sports history. Over the next two years, applications to Boston College jumped 30%.* Northwestern University saw a similar spike in student interest after its highly improbable 1995 Rose Bowl run. So did The University of Florida after it won titles in basketball and football in 2006.

Those kinds of seasons are rare, however. That’s why fans still talk about them decades later. But research suggests that the Flutie Effect may also occur in regular old wining years. In one of the most highly regarded studies on the topic, a team from Virginia Tech looked at how winning affected applications at big time football and basketball schools between 1983 and 2002. It found that football programs that finished in the AP Top 20 saw 2.5% more applications the next year. A national championship drove between 7-8% more. Schools in the top twenty also had higher enrollment rates. The extra applications came from students with high and low SAT scores alike, meaning a win on the field gave schools a chance to improve their academic credentials.

Students aren’t the only ones who get drawn in by the hype around a bowl run. Academics take notice too. In 2010, a group of researchers investigated the effect of football success on a school’s peer assessment score in U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings. It found that finishing strong in the year-end rankings could have the same effect as a 42 point boost in SAT scores. “Football school” might be an insult in the ivory tower. But oddly, fielding a good team just might boost a school’s academic reputation.

IS COLLEGE FOOTBALL BAD FOR ACADEMICS?
Short answer: Winning teams appear to be bad for grades, but good for graduation rates.

Of course, reputation is one thing. Performance is another. In terms of academics, football culture appears to be a mixed blessing for universities. In a working paper released earlier this month, professors from the University of Oregon tracked how students’ grades were influenced by the school’s football success. Not just student athletes. All students. The team used their own institution as the guinea pig. The Oregon Ducks’ seasons over the past decade had ranged from middling to superb, which allowed the group to see how students reacted in good years and bad.

The results weren’t pretty. When Oregon won more, men’s grades dropped relative to women’s. When they lost, men’s grades recovered. In a survey that accompanied their grade analysis, 28% of male students reported drinking more when a team won. About 20% of women said the same. Shotgunning a celebratory postgame beer, it seems, isn’t conducive with studying for an economics final.

But even if tailgating might sink the GPAs at your local Beta Theta Pi chapter, it might also convince some of its brothers to stick around for graduation. Like many issues surrounding college football, the relationship between school-wide graduation rates and football prowess is still a bit murky. But recent findings suggest that winning on the field might actually increase the number of students who earn a degree.

There are three camps on the issue. The first subscribes to a theory known as “football fever.” It’s pretty much what it sounds like. The phrase was coined in 1992 by University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor Irvin Tucker (see above), who at the time found that graduation rates were lower at schools with strong football traditions, as students ignored their studies to party. But his findings were eventually challenged. In 2003, Patrick Rishe of Webster University published a paper finding no significant link between big time sports success and graduation rates. Then, just one year later a pair from the University of Southern Mississippi found that a better football team actually improved freshman retention rates. They called their model “football chicken soup,” arguing that students simply felt more comfortable and connected to a university that celebrated sports. Interestingly, Tucker later adopted their theory. In a 2004 study, he took a new approach to the data using additional measures of success. This time, there was a positive link between winning and academics. For instance, a 10% increase in winning percentage over six years pumped up graduation rates by 2.1%.

The theory for why was intuitive. Football might be an expensive distraction from academics. But when push comes to shove, students just like sticking around to root for their teams. Even if it means tanking their econ final.

_______________________________

*An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the 30% increase in applications was over one year. It also incorrectly stated that Doug Flutie led Boston College to a win over the University of Miami in the 1984 Orange Bowl. While the game was played at the Miami Orange Bowl stadium, it was not the actual bowl championship game. Flutie’s pass, however, was nonetheless miraculous.  

Article source: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/would-colleges-be-better-off-without-football/250691/