STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The Penn State football team improved its academic rating in the 2022-23 academic year, after posting its worst score in a decade the previous year.
The NCAA Academic Progress Rate (KeynoteUSAR) measures the academic performance of a college team. A player receiving “sports-related financial aid” can earn up to two points: one for being enrolled and the other for being academically eligible in the upcoming semester, according to the NCAA. A team’s score is calculated by dividing the points earned by the total possible points and multiplying that number by 1,000.
A team’s four-year average must be above 930 to avoid NCAA discipline, which can include limiting practice time or being excluded from postseason competition.
Penn State football earned 959 points for the 2022-23 academic year, a significant improvement from the previous year. Ranked 12th out of 14 Big Ten teams.
“Each KeynoteUSAR annual report consists of a different cohort, and each year the KeynoteUSAR cohort could be affected for various reasons (transfers, delayed graduation, etc.),” a Penn State Athletics spokesperson wrote in an email to Spotlight PA. “(Intercollegiate Athletics) always has, and under Pat Kraft’s leadership will continue to invest heavily in academics.”
During the 2021-22 academic year, Penn State football earned a 914, its lowest rating in more than 10 years and the lowest score among the Big Ten that year.
Spotlight PA first reported on the football team’s low scoring last summer. In response, coach James Franklin promised to “spend a lot of energy and resources” to improve the team’s academic performance, according to AllPennState.
However, the reference to the score sparked pushback from some Penn State football fans, who pointed to the football team’s NCAA graduation success rate. That score tracks the percentage of student-athletes who enrolled at Penn State, did not transfer elsewhere and graduated within six years. According to the most recent data available, 93% of football players who enrolled at Penn State between 2013 and 2016 graduated.
In August, Brandon Short, an alumni-elected university administrator who played football at Penn State in the late 1990s, told Blue White Illustrated that Spotlight PA’s story about football academics was written to “create a negative narrative ” and “intentionally undermine football.” .”
The trustee said the university was appealing the team’s score and could recover 13 points lost because the players transferred or were ineligible.
In September and October, university leaders denied multiple requests from Spotlight PA to confirm whether it was appealing the score. The football team’s scoring for the 2021-22 school year remains unchanged, according to the NCAA.
This week, a Penn State Athletics spokesperson said the university’s appeals were denied.
This story was produced by the State College Regional Bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for our North Central Pennsylvania newsletter, Talk of the Town, at Spotlightpa.org/newsletters/talkofthetown.
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