MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Big 12’s newest additions, TCU and West Virginia, lead the league in graduation success rates among football players.
Thursday’s report from the NCAA showed 85 percent of TCU football players who enrolled between the fall of 2003 and the spring of 2007 graduated with six years or transferred to another school in good academic standing. West Virginia’s football program showed an 80-percent success rate.
The remainder of the Big 12 football programs, in descending order: Texas Tech (72 percent), Kansas (70), Baylor (67), Iowa State (60), Kansas State (59), Texas (56) Oklahoma State (56) and Oklahoma (51).
The FBS average football GSR was 71 percent. Northwestern’s led the nation’s football programs with 97 percent followed by Rice at 95 and Notre Dame and Boston College at 94.
The graduation success rate is separate from the Academic Progress Rate reports, which are released each spring and penalize underperforming schools with postseason bans and scholarship reductions.
WVU’s men’s basketball program showed a most-recent GPR score of 100, tying with Kansas for tops in the Big 12. They were followed in that sport by Baylor (91 percent), Texas and Texas Tech (83), TCU (81), Oklahoma (69), K-State (64), Iowa State (54) and Oklahoma State (44).
The Division I men’s basketball average was 72 percent.
The four-year GSR scores (percentage) for West Virginia’s other varsity sports:
Women’s tennis 100
Volleyball 100
Rifle 100
Women’s cross country/track 100
Gymnastics 92
Women’s swimming 90
Men’s soccer 88
Women’s soccer 88
Wrestling 85
Women’s basketball 82
Men’s swimming 75
Baseball 73
Rowing 60