Think Troy Will Stop Oversigning?

El Paso Eagle · January 4, 2010

Good discussion here. The question is, at the end of the day will Troy's low academics keep them from moving up to another conference (CUSA) when an opening occurs, or will their success on the gridiron help them move up? My guess is success on the fooball field will rule.

I think I read here on the board that Troy (and a couple of other Sun Belt teams) also have a waiver on meeting the NCAA's graduation rate requirements. My guess would be that other conferences WILL NOT want a school to join in that receives a benefit (real or not) from their lower academic requirements.

rcade · January 4, 2010

No. We're all about academics here at North Texas. On the athletics website, we list the players' class grades and GPAs instead of game statistics. The player bios are full of highlights of the players' academic tests and projects, not game highlights.

So by your comment, you'd rather be Troy University than UNT. Smaller endowment, smaller enrollment and a poorer economic area to draw students from. Seems like a bad trade to me.

yyz28 · January 4, 2010

The practice won't stop until the NCAA or the 'Belt steps in and stops it with a rule change. ...why would they stop something that has worked for them?

...and I'm not on the "let's do it too" bandwagon.

The Fake Lonnie Finch · January 4, 2010

What I'm saying is no one cares what the academics are. And, it's hypocritical to say you do. Unless there's some huge demand that we see the players' grades as well as their game statistics, then all of the Troy discussions are nothing more than petty jealousy at getting our butts kicked by them year in and year out.

Darrell Dickey's 2003 squad shut out Troy. Guess what? It had nothing to do with academics. We simply fielded a better team. Dickey's other three games against Troy were close losses (18-16, 13-10, 14-6).

We're not getting blown out by Troy because of our academic standards versus theirs. We're getting blown out because they have a college football coach overseeing their program and we have a high school coach overseeing ours. As soon as we have a college football coach in charge again, the blow outs will end.

But, it won't have a thing to do with academics. They're not down on the field trying to proof the Pythagorean Theorem. To pretend that they are is just puff.

rcade · January 4, 2010

What I'm saying is no one cares what the academics are. And, it's hypocritical to say you do. Unless there's some huge demand that we see the players' grades as well as their game statistics, then all of the Troy discussions are nothing more than petty jealousy at getting our butts kicked by them year in and year out.

You keep making this about academics, but I'm not talking about academics. Some people point out that Troy and ULM have an advantage because they don't have to follow the APR. But even with that advantage, would anyone want to trade places with them considering their other disadvantages?

TIgreen01 · January 4, 2010

Troy is classified (along with ULM) as a lower economic status school and does not have to obey the APR rules.

I did not know that....and I bet most others didn't, either. How much does that fact play into the expansion discussions?

El Paso Eagle · January 4, 2010

I did not know that....and I bet most others didn't, either. How much does that fact play into the expansion discussions?

If you were a CUSA school would you want to allow a school in that had this "advantage"?

GrandGreen · January 4, 2010

What I'm saying is no one cares what the academics are. And, it's hypocritical to say you do. Unless there's some huge demand that we see the players' grades as well as their game statistics, then all of the Troy discussions are nothing more than petty jealousy at getting our butts kicked by them year in and year out.
Darrell Dickey's 2003 squad shut out Troy. Guess what? It had nothing to do with academics. We simply fielded a better team. Dickey's other three games against Troy were close losses (18-16, 13-10, 14-6).
We're not getting blown out by Troy because of our academic standards versus theirs. We're getting blown out because they have a college football coach overseeing their program and we have a high school coach overseeing ours. As soon as we have a college football coach in charge again, the blow outs will end.
But, it won't have a thing to do with academics. They're not down on the field trying to proof the Pythagorean Theorem. To pretend that they are is just puff.

I think there are many people that care what the academic standards are. There is sure a lot of money spend on I guess what you would call window dressing at universities all across the line for tutors and academic support for college athletes. The primary people who better care about academics are the athletes themselves. At least at most universities the pay the athletes receive is in the form of an education.

Why would Troy recruit the way they do unless it gave them an advantage? I guess they just want to commit or sign twenty borderline athletes and rely on fate to see which ones actually eventually qualify. I don't fault Troy for their stradegy it is obviously working for them on the field or they would not do it. Do you think per a recent article that UT's Administion is happy that their football squad's average SAT scores are approximately 300 points lower then the average student? I would assume that UT believes it is advantageous to the win column to have a football team made up almost completely of special admission students. So I don't think anyone can rational deny there is a strong correlation between success and admission standards.

AnotherEagleFan · January 5, 2010

According to US News and World Report Troy is a 3 tier University with 1 being the best. UNT is a 4 Tier as is Southern Miss. For what it is worth the prep route and the JUCO routes are different in nature. By closing this "loop hole" it forces schools like Ole Miss to go the Prep Route like UNC. You try to figure out who pays for the Prep Route because I cannot and the NCAA does not seem to care. But rest assured this loop hole helps schools like UNT, Troy and Southern Miss. I guarantee you that if Dodge had the opportunity to over sign while "placing" 3 stars at a JUCO's while grades got in order he would. The fact is that Dodge does not have this problem and therefore it is not an issue.

UNTFan23 · January 5, 2010

According to US News and World Report Troy is a 3 tier University with 1 being the best. UNT is a 4 Tier as is Southern Miss. For what it is worth the prep route and the JUCO routes are different in nature. By closing this "loop hole" it forces schools like Ole Miss to go the Prep Route like UNC. You try to figure out who pays for the Prep Route because I cannot and the NCAA does not seem to care. But rest assured this loop hole helps schools like UNT, Troy and Southern Miss. I guarantee you that if Dodge had the opportunity to over sign while "placing" 3 stars at a JUCO's while grades got in order he would. The fact is that Dodge does not have this problem and therefore it is not an issue.

I thought we already went through this discussion. Wait, we did!