Playing the APR Game...

In college athletics, lots of acronyms make or break players, coaches, teams … acronyms like RBI, or PPG, or PCT. Fans know these acronyms and stats, and can spout them off without hesitation. I still to this day know that in 1982, National League Cy Young winner Steve Carlton hit .218 while National League home run champion Dave Kingman hit just .204, albeit with 37 home runs (I didn’t even have to look that up, and no lie, in high school I was on the Quiz Bowl team mostly for the sports knowledge and that question came up…I was the only egghead who even remotely had a shot at that and I nailed it).

However, there is another acronym that programs, and college coaches, more and more are getting judged on, and it’s a stat that is increasingly becoming as important as wins and losses. It’s three little letters with a mighty big punch.

APR

Academic Progress Rate … a Division I system only that is greatly misunderstood, and in reality, probably hurts schools at ISU’s level more than BCS schools and leagues, but it is a system that is here to stay, and so the game, as they say, is afoot.

APR seems like a simple process to figure out in theory. Of course, to me, a car engine and how it works is a simple process in theory…put gas in, turn the key, and hey, it works. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, and the same can be said with regards to APR.

In its simplest form, APR basically takes a student-athlete and breaks them down into two parts per semester, eligibility and retention. For this exercise, we will utilize a fictional player to make this easy…Charlie Brown (Bengal fans are chuckling I’m sure). Charlie Brown is worth two points per semester, one point for retention (staying in school) and one point for eligibility (being eligible the next semester), so if Charlie Brown is eligible and still at ISU after his fall semester, then he gets two points out of two. After the spring semester, if Charlie Brown comes back in the fall eligible, then he gets another two points out of two.

Seems simple enough, but it’s really not…especially on the retention area. If Charlie Brown leaves ISU but is eligible, then he is a 1-for-2 (he gets the eligibility point but loses the retention point). But there are exceptions…if Charlie Brown leaves school with a 2.6 GPA and transfers to four-year school, whether or not he plays sports, then the retention point is dropped completely, and Charlie is just a 1-for-1 for his last semester (the real world example of this is Taylor Marchione, who played softball last semester and is transferring to Oregon State to be closer to her family. Taylor isn’t going to play softball at Oregon State, but her GPA is high enough that Taylor’s APR score for the spring 2010 semester is 1-for-1, not 1-for-2. If they transfer to a junior college, then you lose the point.

Sometimes you can save that retention point in ways that only the really big schools can, for things like becoming eligible for the draft, or personal hardship, or many other ways that I can’t even think of.

Sometimes, you get nailed for having kids graduate…seriously. Lucas Steijn for men’s basketball cost ISU two points because he didn’t fill out the official graduation form, meaning that according to the NCAA, he didn’t graduate, even though he did. Since he was out of eligibility (having played four years) and not returning to ISU (since he graduated), Lucas was an 0-for-2…despite graduating.

In APR, the magic benchmark score is 925 … that score is figured by taking all the points earned in a sport, and dividing it by all the points possible. Let’s say a team for an academic year gets 46 points out of a possible 49, that percentage is .939, and then you multiply that by 1000, and that APR score would be a 939.

If a score is under 925 for four years (The overall APR is a four-year rolling score, which means every year the newest score will replace the oldest score, so a score stays in the equation for four years), and if a team has an 0-for-2 student-athlete, at that point, a team might incur penalties, but I’ll be honest, I don’t understand how some of the penalties come about.

Now, the reason all of this is coming out is to kind of put in layman’s terms the APR, because on Wednesday at noon or so, the NCAA will release their APR penalties, and while ISU was given high marks from the NCAA and given public recognition for having a perfect score in women’s cross country, ISU is going to get dinged pretty good in football.

By pretty good, what I mean is losing scholarships, counters, and practice time. ISU will lose two counters, meaning on national signing day, you can only get 23 kids instead of 25, and ISU will lose 3.84 scholarships (this is a change from what I posted yesterday, as I now have access to the official stuff, and it's 3.84, not 6.3 scholarships which is better). The practice time is four hours, meaning the team can only have 16 hours of countable time together, and they must take two days off a week, not one. That penalty is probably the one that hurts early in the season when school is in session, as during the actual season the team usually late in the season had Sunday and Monday off, so that will start earlier.

The good news is that this is not new news to ISU and the department, and it actually helped us get some things we sorely needed, the number one thing being an extra academic advisor in the form of Quinton Freeman. “Q”, as he was known when he was ISU’s starting safety back in the early 2000s, takes the pressure of 270 student-athletes off of Matt Steuart and gives ISU two academic advisors instead of one. The other thing that was implemented pretty quickly after we realized what some of the numbers were (and let’s be honest, of the 15 sports, ISU is doing really well in 13 of them, it’s football and softball that are struggling, and the softball thing is really tied to the coaching instability and the newness of the program) is what Jeff Tingey called the APR Improvement Plan.

This plan was modeled after some programs at other schools that have had the same issues and it has worked. The basic parts of the plan are as follows (this is from our release which is coming out when the NCAA announces the APR stuff nationally) …

“All potential student-athletes are required to have a cumulative GPA of 2.5 (excluding all PE activity classes). Matt Steuart, assistant A.D. for academics, and the Registrar's office will determine the GPA by removing PE activity classes, and all potential student-athletes need to either have scored at least an 18 on both their English and Math scores on their ACT or scored at least a 450 on both their English and Math scores for the SAT. In addition, Steuart will approve all transcripts along with the Office of Academic Affairs, and Steuart will also approve all scholarship tenders.”

This plan has been in plan already through this recruiting class (the one signed in February), and I can tell you it’s been an adjustment for everyone in how they handle recruiting, because there are some kids that normally you would recruit that you just can’t right now. Basically, until the APR scores go up, it’s hard to justify taking a chance on a kid because the downside (a kid not making it) is too great a risk to take.

The bonus is that there is clear evidence that the plan works and can really help not only a program with APR issues, but really help other teams with staying out of what I refer to as “APR Hell”. The real issue is APR is like a soft chair…easy to get in it, and hard to get out of it. Kudos to coaches like Joe O’Brien, Brian Jannsen, and Allison Gibson who understand how to play the APR game (and make no bones about it, there is a game to it), and next year once O’Brien has four years of APR scores from his own time here at ISU, he is going to rank among the nation’s top programs.

Coach Z has really been snake bit a good deal with the retention issues, because he runs into a situation where in football, kids don’t pan out. A walk-on leaving the program like Ben Laporta doesn’t hurt, and Kyle Blum graduated, so that doesn’t hurt. The Keith Goins’ and Kenny Viser’s of the world? Those hurt. That’s been a learning process for the football coaching and recruiting staff, and they are getting better. We won’t know this year’s score until the fall, but the early indications are it will be better, but I couldn’t fathom a guess as to where or how much.

The really interesting thing is to watch the official NCAA release and look at how many penalties are incurred by BCS schools (i.e., schools that have the money, resources, and academic infrastructure in place to help avoid penalties), and look at how many are from mid-major and smaller conferences (i.e., schools that need more funds/manpower/stuff/computers). John Canzano of the Oregonian has a great piece about APR and the issue at Portland State here and he talks about some of the loopholes and things much clearer than I can.

In the end, it’s going to look and sound bad, and it was a hot topic way back when on the Bengal Den and around the ISU internet presence. Make no bones, it’s a cause for concern, but it’s one of those things where it was seen coming down the pike and the solution was put in place a while back to get a handle on it. I suppose there are bunch of woulda/coulda/shoulda things that might have prevented this from even happening, but the only thing we can do about the past is learn from it so that we don’t repeat it. What Bengal fans should feel good about is that for the most part, ISU’s programs are doing well in the APR, and a plan is in place to round out the programs that are on the low end.

---Frank

House Cleaning

This Friday blogpost is going to be a veritable hodge-podge of stuff, so let's get to it, shall we?

When 5-for-7 rocks, and when it just sucks.
In sports, going 5-for-7 generally is good. If Amorrow Morgan is 5-for-7 shooting, that's awesome. If Megan Miller goes 5-for-7 in a doubleheader, we should probably win both games. If Kyle Blum or Russel Hill go 5-for-7 passing on a drive, ISU is probably gonna score. In all those ways, 5-for-7 rock. So when does 5-for-7 suck? When the Idaho State Journal runs something regarding Keith Goins, Ryan Anchetta-Major, and Travis Anderson's legal troubles five of the last seven days. Really? I understand the first deal (although the headline and positioning was a bit much), and I get the little thing on the editorial page today in a way, but seriously, this isn't a free for all on the athletic department.

The only day there was nothing regarding this information was in Tuesday and Wednesday's paper. Matt Stucki (Pocatello) won four awards last night in the Bennion Awards Banquet, and Michelle Grohs (Salmon) won three .... we honored 37 or so student-athletes. All that got into the paper on that tremendously positive story was a listing of the winners in the agate section. No photo of all of our student-athletes dress in ties and dresses looking great ... just the agate. Hell, let's see who did have a picture in today's sports ... Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Kellis Robinett, Ben Crane (who you ask? he's on the PGA tour), a high school softball pitcher from Malad (name withheld due to NCAA rules), some high school tracksters, and LeBron James.

Now, as I have always stated, I don't write for the paper, and I have a great relationship with Tim, Kelvin, and Kellis, and maybe they have others above them making decisions on things (of which it should be pointed out that most of the incident stuff this week avoided the sports section, save for Kellis' column where he basically has decided ISU's hiring and firing practices ... I'll still buy his lunch next week though), but you would have to think that somewhere a picture could have made it. I will give kudos for running a small second APR story that painted a much truer picture of ISU's APR standing, brings me to my next nugget.

NCAA/APR/LOL/OMG
The NCAA loves the APR acronym, but I'll let Dave Hickman of the Charleston Daily Mail describe a great point in his column from yesterday.

"For starters, I'm never really sure what to call it because, apparently, neither is the NCAA. You know it as the APR, but that can refer to either Academic Progress Rate - which seems to be the NCAA's semi-official moniker for the system itself - or Academic Progress Report, which is what the group uses to refer to its yearly account of its findings. And just for kicks and giggles, the folks out there in Indianapolis also sometimes refer to the APP (Academic Performance Program), which seems to be the umbrella under which those APRs (take your pick) fall."

Nice right? Since the APR (take your pick) is here to stay, the NCAA has to do a better job at a couple of things with it.

#1) Retitle the reports.
When you go to the NCAA website and get a report, for instance, the one that came out last Wednesday, it is titled "NCAA Division I 2007-2008 Academic Progress Rate Public Report". Well guess what...that's wrong. It's not the 2007-08 APR...it's the four-year rolling score, meaning the correct title is 2004-08. If the report is entitled that, then folks know that the men's basketball score of 897 is spread over two coaches, Doug Oliver and Joe O'Brien, not one. Instead, it looks like Joe is saddled with an 897. O'Brien's score since he's been here? 926, and that includes having to get rid of guys from the previous staff like Tony Jones, and stuff like that (not bagging on the previous staff here, just making a point).

#2) Make the individual year reports available.
Why is this not available? Well, each school has an APR officer who has a pass code to gain access to it, but why not the publicity people who have to get the information out? ISU's four-year APR scores are OK, but the single-year scores for this year are higher in 13 of our 15 sports. Why wouldn't the NCAA make that publically available? I get the four-year score, but let's take men's basketball. In Doug Oliver's final year, the score was 827 (43 of a possible 52 points). In Joe O'Brien's first year, the team got 45 of 50 points, a 900 score (Tony Jones hurt here, and then Joe cleaned a few guys out of the program, like Ryan Baumgartner off the top of my head). His score for last year, which was just released, was a 956 (43 of 45), losing a point for Steve Anderson, who transferred out just half-letter grade under the 2.6 GPA mark. The guys had a perfect fall, and so, just for arguements sake, let's say that men's basketball gets 52 of 52 points, a 1000 score. Next year's report will list ISU's score for 2008-09 as 920.

That 920 will get in the commented on potentially as a "lowlight" since it's no at the magical 925 mark .... but is that 920 a representative score? Should a new coach pay for a something that he could not control? Apparently, he has to, but in what I just described, O'Brien's APR for his three-years would be a stellar 952. So O'Brien has his squad performing OVER the national Division I average, yet according to the NCAA and the APR, ISU is below the mark? Denmark? Rotten? I think so....there has got to be a better way to properly showcase the improvements schools make, so that brings me to point number three

#3)Allow waivers to recuse schools that change coaches
Now, all of that might look like I'm blaming Doug Oliver and his staff, but to the contrary, Doug announced he was not coming back during in January of the season. Try as he and his staff might, he couldn't control if kids transferred out or went to class in April ... he wasn't here. Anytime there is a coaching change, the APR of either the first season of a new coach, or the last of the old coach will always be down. Look at football. John Zamberlin cleaned out the program, and because of that, he took a huge APR retention hit. But, the program is better off. Now, a few scholarship athletes do something stupid, and he boots three scholarship kids out of the program. Good for him, but bad too, because now his APR takes a hit. He kicks Rashaad Richards off the team. Rashaad is an APR hit. Coaches, who used to have to come to grips with the fact that letting go of a student-athlete might hurt his chances at winning on the field, now are put into a position of having to decide whether or not to clean out a program knowing it could devestate the APR, causing lost scholarships, meaning it's tough to compete, meaning it's hard to win and recruit better kids, and getting into a horrible catch-22.

#4) Actually post accurate information
When you go to ISU's website and click a boxscore, there is an understanding that you are downloading the official, correct stats. Well, guess what. If you pull ISU's 2006-07 APR score off the NCAA's official web site...it ain't right. ISU had a few numbers changed on that report after an audit...some scores went up, some went down. However, if you go to the NCAA website, like all of the nation's media were sent to, the NCAA hasn't fixed the older reports to put the new stats on there. Seems like that would be something to get up there pronto. Hell, I'd like it if they just told the SIDs that the school was audited, because I didn't even think to check the numbers.

Admitting a Gaffe
This is sort of a BengalDen response, but some questions arose (legitimate ones I might add) about how the football incidents with the four guys was handled. Let me go with the best political answer I can give here. We tried something a little different. For 11...well, 10 years and 10 months, we have always been pretty quick with things like this in releasing a short statement that "X person has been suspended for a violation of team rules". However, different coaches take different tacts with them, and while I was prepared to let folks know if they asked that they were suspended for a violation of team rules, no one in the media brought it up to me. Why that is, I have no earthly clue, but it wasn't. It was also decided to not release anything about the suspensions until I was asked so as not to throw the folks under the bus so to speak, which is something I have great empathy for, and after nearly 11 years, I decided to alter my own policy stance and try something different. In the end, it was my call.

Suffice to say what can work for a coach somewhere else might not work here, and that is why I regard everything as a learning experience. I was OK with trying something different, but clearly if the Idaho State Journal is going to have something about this incident in the paper in five of the last seven days, we need to go back to the original plan of action.

While these things are discussed with coaches, the bottom line is it comes down to my call, and I went in a different direction with it....hindsight shows it was not the correct decision. We learn (me especially) and move on. I have prided myself since being here of being someone who listens to the fans, and tries to represent ISU as best as possible, and I don't mind answering questions about it. Hope that lends a little insight.

In other news, Matt Stucki needs a pick-up truck
Matt picked up four awards last night, and Michelle Grohs three at the Bennion Banquet. There is no funner event for me that the Bennion Banquet, of which I Ihave now MC'ed twice, which is great. After all the hard work during a season, I take great pride in getting to announce season awards and read the accomplishments of the award winners to their peers. Everyone is all dressed to the nines, it's a great meal....fun times.

Graduation is Saturday!