Cards Allowed Fewer Initial Football Scholarships This Year
May 20, 2011 | Football
May 20, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The University of Louisville's 2009-10 academic progress rate (APR) for its football team fell below a minimum requirement which subjects the football program to an initial scholarship reduction for 2011.
The APR measures academic eligibility, retention and graduation for student-athletes. U of L's 2009-10 four-year APR for football for the period from 2006-10 is 908, which is below the minimum required mark of 925. U of L will lose three of its possible 25 initial scholarships to award in 2011, but will be allowed to maintain the full 85 overall scholarship limit. In anticipation of the penalty, the Cardinals signed 21 student-athletes in the 2011 class.
"Continuity and stability among our coaching staffs lends itself to better performance and unfortunately our football student-athletes endured three football coaches in four years," said Tom Jurich, U of L Vice President and Director of Athletics. "We want to improve our figures rapidly and I'm impressed with the measures Charlie Strong has implemented in our football program. I'm confident that we are our currently headed in the right direction. We have already addressed the penalties and have put it behind us."
Second-year head coach Charlie Strong has emphasized improving the team's APR rate and the Cardinals have already made strides. Twenty-one of the 23 seniors who will be included in the 2010-11 APR report either have already graduated or are expected to graduate in August 2011. In the classroom, the team's GPA has also risen over the last three semesters.
Among the measures established for improvement include adding academic support staff to provide better monitoring and support, more frequent progress reports will be addressed with the coaching staff, additional consequences have been established for failure to meet academic requirements, and more frequent education about transfer requirements and issues will be provided to student-athletes.
The initial scholarship reduction will be announced publicly by the NCAA next week when the complete APR list is available. Football is the only one of the Cardinals' 23 sports teams (10 men's and 13 women's sports) which fell below the 925 level. Teams below that figure over a four-year period are subject to contemporaneous penalties. Five U of L teams have a perfect 1000 APR for the 2009-10 year report -- men's basketball, men's cross country, women's golf, field hockey and men's track -- with seven additional sports scoring above 980.
