The Ohio State University has undergone a process in recent years to benchmark itself against other leading public universities in America and desires to be establish and/or maintain a ranking among the very best public universities in all of its core majors.
Ohio State has never had a problem with exit standards, but state mandated entry standards did require Ohio State to admit many students who were not equipped to survive and prosper in a large university that required self-motivation and achievement. And Ohio State's rankings were diminished by the large drop-out rate from the freshman and sophomore classes.
Nevertheless, the academic standards of Ohio State graduates are comparable to the top public universities in America. Again, exit standards have never been a problem for the university.
However, we must not let our strong feelings for Ohio State cloud our objectivity about academic performance in the football program.
To be very frank, the academic performance of our student-athletes in the football program is among the nation's worst, ranking in the 10%-20% range of all football programs and in the bottom 10% of all student-athletes, according to the current NCAA APR reports.
http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/apr2/518_2004_apr.pdf
Another NCAA report shows that only about half of our football players enrolled in 97/8 have graduated. The basketball program is worse.
http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/2004/d1/schools/RPT00518.html
It is important to remember that academic performance has picked up since Jim Tressel arrived, so there is no need to experience anguish. Nevertheless, we have a serious problem.
The NCAA is threatening universities who perform at this level and the last thing we want is a 10-0 team roll into Ann Arbor knowing that it is banned from the post-season because of its academic performance. So, given the NCAA pressure that we are under to improve this, it is not surprising that Ohio State will be hesitant to take on a student that it thinks cannot pass.
This whole thing with Freddie Lenix breaks my heart. He has really worked to qualify and I have tremendous respect for him. I am heartsick for this kid, who I expect to be among the best college defensive players, if he can remain eligible.
However, I support the University in it's efforts to climb out of the APR problem that it has.