SEC APR scores see Alabama, Missouri top the standings

The Academic Progress Rate scores for the Southeastern Conference have just come through for football teams, and it seems that although they haven’t done a lot right on the football field, the Missouri Tiger are doing good things in the schoolroom.

The NCAA says the APR “holds Division I institutions accountable for the academic progress of their student-athletes through the Academic Progress Rate, a team-based metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of each student-athlete, each term.”

It adds: “Each student-athlete receiving athletically related financial aid earns one retention point for staying in school and one eligibility point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are divided by points possible and then multiplied by one thousand to equal the team’s Academic Progress Rate score.”

It adds- and here’s the relatively interesting bit – Beginning with 2012-13 championships, teams must earn a minimum 900 four-year APR or a 930 average over the most recent two years to be eligible to participate.

Look at the numbers – Tennesee’s isn’t that great. Nor is Ole Miss’ – although it was very improved in the first year under Hugh Freeze/last one under Houston Nutt.

  1. Missouri – 982 in 2011/2, 972 in 2010/1, 967 in 2009/10 and 958 in 2008/9
  2. Alabama – 978, 970, 963, 957
  3. Vanderbilt – 973, 978, 977, 975
  4. Georgia – 968, 970, 976, 973
  5. Florida – 968, 972, 976, 961
  6. Mississippi State – 967, 959, 952, 959
  7. South Carolina – 966, 966, 954, 938
  8. Texas A&M – 954, 946, 940, 934
  9. Auburn – 950, 943, 940, 935
  10.  LSU – 944, 964, 966, 965
  11. Ole Miss – 944, 933, 939, 921
  12. Kentucky – 943, 951, 948, 951
  13. Arkansas – 938, 936, 937, 930
  14. Tennessee – 924, 931, 937, 944

Instead of going for just the last 2011-12 scores, we thought we’d go back over the last four years. Here’s what we found:

Missouri and Alabama are the cream of the crop. Both schools have APRs that have risen over the last four years without fail. Good job, Gary and Nick.

–  More focus on football at Vanderbilt? Maybe not (and maybe the kids are taking harder classes in Nashville), but Vanderbilt actually went down five points between 2011-2 and 2010-1. We wonder if this trajectory will continue.

– Most worrying trend downwards? Tennessee went from 944 to 924 over the four year period. But LSU really takes the biscuit. LSU’s APR score fell TWENTY POINTS between 2011-2 and 2010-1. That’s considerable. We wonder how many APR points LSU lost for booting Tyrann Mathieu out of school.

– Schools that saw their APR go up between 2010-1 and 2011-2: Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Auburn, Arkansas, Ole Miss.

– Schools that saw their APR go down over the same period: Vanderbilt, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Tennessee

South Carolina stayed the same.

Here’s the full release.