Graduation rates of 2004 Bowl Teams...OUCH for Pitt!

[Coach]

These grad rates are for players on the team...

Pitt....DEAD LAST :lol:

[web]http://ucbearcats.com/sports/football/r ... se_id=3166[/web]

[The Ancient Enemy]

I'd just like to point out that Miami was 14 on that list. Boo hoo to all you Big East fans who pointed your fingers at the Canes. Nice job, Pittsburgh.

[El-Moldo]

Hey, just think. If Pitt had not made it to a bowl game, we wouldn't even be discussing it. Who had the best rates of those teams which stayed home for the Holidays?

[Coach]

We could take about this for hours...

Oh well, Pitt made the BCS by default. Then they got DRILLED. Tussey would have made a bowl game playing Pitt's schedule of MAC teams and teams like Temple and Furman.

To top it off...the bums don't graduate.

[El-Moldo]

Default? Thought the winner of the Big East got an automatic bid? Anyway, there are many many reasons why athletes don't graduate. Plus when you're dealing with percentages, alot of the rates are close, you know, just a couple of kids. It's a statistic thing. If you got 84 kids on scholarship on a team, each kid is worth 1.2%. If 3 kids leave for any number of reasons, that's 3.6%. They may not be stupid. A parent may die. They may get disgruntled with the sport or lack of playing time. Why don't you do a study and tell us HOW MANY PITT KIDS ACTUALLY FLUNK OUT. Now that would be significant!

[once a runner]

And what did a great graduation rate get Paul Pasqualoni (sp?) and Ty Willingham? Their teams made bowl games and had the 1st and 3rd highest graduation and they still got fired! What message does that send to coaches? Nobody cares if they graduate kids, they care if they win lots of games. Winning games brings in money, not graduating players.

I'm not saying that is the right attitude, but let's face it, big time college football and basketball has nothing to do with education.

[Coach]

It has a lot to do with college sports. Ask the 90+ percent of them who don't go on to play in the NFL.

[once a runner]

Every athlete is given the opportunity to graduate. It's up to them to take advantage of the opportunity.

If college graduation rates are important to these universites, then tell me why Willingham and Pasqualoni were fired.

[Former Wildcat]

I would rather be #1 in the football polls than the graduation polls. Having said that, did you notice that the Buckeyes were right in the middle of the pack? Of course, this must be due to the tutoring program that does all of the athletes work for them.

On a related note, I hear that Penn State graduates lots of athletes. However, should we really call them athletes when they are so terrible? Maybe we should just call them academics. They can continue to graduate and Pitt and Ohio State can continue to go to bowl games.

Go BUCKEYES!!!

[ham55]

ahh, 2 down years make you terrible all of the sudden. GO PSU.