The Utah athletic department has done a great job over the years of making sure the “student” part of student-athlete is made a priority. The Utes continue to do great in the classroom, as they posted some great APR scores once again. In the world of college football, APR takes another level of importance, especially if the team is having a bit of a down season on the field. If you score well enough with APR, you could find yourself bowling if you have a 5-7 season, if there are not enough 6-6 teams to fill all the bowl slots. With Utah’s talent coming back, I wouldn’t anticipate that being an issue, but it’s always a nice fall back.
The interesting thing to me that is factored into the APR is retention... and I know it’s an epidemic across the land, but I’m curious how much that plays into the scoring, because Utah has had a lot of turnover over the years, and that continued this season with the defection of a couple of players. The men’s team did post the third highest multi-year APR in the Pac-12, however, so it appears that it’s not hurting the program too bad. The football team is also in the top third of the Pac-12. You always hear Coach Whitt talk about taking care of business in the classroom, and I know Coach K is right there with him, so the success in the class room isn’t a big surprise.
Both the gymnastics team and the volleyball team posted perfect APRs, for the forth and fifth consecutive seasons respectively, which is impressive. Both of those programs have done such a great job the last couple of seasons on and off the court. Gymnastics has won multiple Pac-12 titles and the volleyball team has become a team that threatens for the NCAA tournament, which is a nice building job since coming into the Pac-12.
For more on the APR scoring, and other programs around campus, check out the full release below from the athletic department.
The NCAA has announced its latest single and multi-year Academic Progress Report (APR) for NCAA Division I schools. The APR accounts for eligibility, retention and graduation of all student-athletes on scholarship, and provides a measure of each team’s academic performance. The latest multi-year APR calculations include scores from 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17. The average for Utah’s teams was 986 easily exceeding the NCAA minimum requirement of 930. Utah had five sports (gymnastics, men’s tennis, women’s basketball, women’s tennis, and volleyball) with perfect single-year APR scores of 1000. The volleyball team earned a perfect single-year APR score for the fifth consecutive year, gymnastics received a perfect score for the fourth straight season, and men’s tennis has been perfect for three years in a row. Cross country, gymnastics and volleyball each registered perfect multi-year APR scores of 1000. These teams, along with track, received public recognition from the NCAA for posting a multi-year APR in the top 10 percent of all athletic teams in the country. Track also posted the highest multi-year APR score for the Pac-12, while cross country, gymnastics and volleyball were all tied for the top score in their respective disciplines. The football (983) and men’s basketball (985) teams posted the third-highest multi-year APR scores in the Pac-12 for their respective sports. Football produced a multi-year APR ranking in the top third of the Pac-12 Conference for a seventh-straight year. Four Utah teams improved their multi-year scores from a year ago. Making gains were women’s basketball (+10), men’s swimming (+6), gymnastics (+4), and women’s track (+2). Baseball, football, men’s tennis, women’s tennis and volleyball all maintained the same multi-year APR.