You can find this information in a variety of places on the internet. As to our upswing, I would say 22 players on the SEC honor roll for last year indicates an upswing so far. http://www.secsports.com
Here's the latest figures from the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...e_footballs_winners_and_losers/?p1=MEWell_Pos2 Turns out that ND does not have the best graduation rate, it only ranked third best with a graduation rate of 95%. Navy, with a graduation rate of 98%, had the highest graduation rate. And, LSU had a graduation rate of only 49%. Most trobuling of all is the racial gap in terms of graduation between black and white football players. The media loves to paint ND as racist, but 91% of ND's black football players graduated. Compare that to LSU, where only 37% of its black football players graduated.
I am curious how this turned into an academic comparison between LSU & Notre Dame. I doubt that anybody here would say that LSU is superior to Notre Dame in academics. This is a thread about success in the draft vs victories on the field for LSU. It has also delved into the changes that have happened for our program overall and who is responsible. Academics have changed for our school and our athletes. Maybe you missed that part? Notre Dame factors into this how? And what does the race comparison have to do with the price of tea and China? This is what you interject? Of the thousands of posters here, you are the only one that continually makes these references. I sincerely doubt the mods here would ever delete your posts because your racism and ignorance glares out with every keystroke. I am sad for the Irish that, other than 2 other posters, you are the voice of their fan base. Truly something to be ashamed of. And just in case this is over your head, comparing our academic program to Notre Dame is as valid as comparing the two football programs. You seem to be the only one doing it...
Of course, you haven't had top 20 QB prospects like us, so you haven't lost a player like Russell who affects your graduation rate. Maybe Weiss can pull in some talent this year.
The link provided doesn't work for me but I know graduation rates are impacted by players who leave early. That is usually a direct result of having a successful program. 9 straight bowl losses doesn't qualify there. LSU will start to notice that recruiting cycles will speed up and the needs you had 4 or 5 years ago are almost 2x what is necessary today. For instance, having 4 to 5 QB's on your roster instead of 3 or 4 will become an issue. Charlie can recruit year to year whereas Coach Miles will have to recruit on a 3 year cycle for key positions. Was there ever a question that BQ would stay for a 4th year? Maybe I'm wrong here but it sounds like bitter is suggesting that the black players recruited by ND are better than black players recruited elsewhere. Whatever the point, all one has to do is take a look at the class being built right now. It's lacking a bit in color. Just think, Tyler, Barksdale, and Benn could have all been playing in South Bend.
One thing that you may not be considering is how big of a deal it is to attend college at all for some of these kids. Some (maybe most) of them would be the first in their families to go to college. This does set them up for a more successful future, whether they graduate or not. On a personal note, my dad played football at Southern Miss in the early 60's. He was the first in his family to graduate from high school, much less sniff at the doors of a university. He did NOT graduate after four years, far from it, in fact. He absolutely didn't know how to succeed in college. However, he worked for a few years after his eligibility was up, then decided to go back to school, where he received a degree and later, a masters. The ripple effect of his athletic scholarship in 1960 was that when I came along, college was not a distant dream, but an expectation for me. I graduated from college, and my children will, too. We broke the cycle of poverty in our part of the family (many of my cousins, for instance, didn't go to college--only me and one other out of 12 cousins). That is what my dad's education did for him. He "hurt" Southern Miss' graduation rate at the time (if they even tracked them), but he was exposed to higher education, paving the way for his family for many future generations. Even our black players are getting the same exposure, and it will serve them well in the future. I'm not saying that graduation isn't important, but attending college at all is still a pipe dream for some children.
No, he's not. He's just trolling and suggesting that LSU is racist because our black football players sometimes drop out. An average grapefruit has a better reputation than BitterND, who apprently never learned any manners at Notre Dame.
StaceyO brings up a great point about "Breaking the Cycle" about going to college. You would almost have to take the athletes that only go to college to get into the NFl to get a beeter measurement...... The bottom line is the score in the SUGARBOWL!!!!! SCOREBOARD! :geauxtige :geauxtige :geauxtige :geauxtige
I don't know why it is that every time I start to get back involved w/ this forum, there are post made by someone who claims to be a fan of the same team that I support, that just makes me cringe. Please allow me a moment on my pedastool... Yes, Notre Dame has a better accademic performance than any other major college football program. And yes, they have higher standards that do cost them recruits. Sometimes it is not just the fact that the recruit doesn't have the minimum requirements, but rather often recruits are turned off by the fact that the university questions their scores while other schools recruiting them seem pefectly content with their scores, as they should be. HOWEVER, as a fan of the irish, I like to take pride in the fact that they have success (no need to offer opinions on the level of success, thank you) while trying to maintain a higher accademic standard. I also believe that you CAN NOT take pride in such a practice, and then turn around and complain to others, beat your chest and say "look at how moral we are", or rant about the accademic defficiencies of other programs that are successfull on the playing field. All of that is just making excuses, and most irish fans that I have met don't want excuses. I think this is also the position of current coaching staff. Having said that, I have no clue, what so ever, how any of this has anything to do with "LSU Has Had More Success in Draft Than on Field". I am a coonass (yes, I can say that), and so by nature I enjoy picking a good "fight" here. It is fun to get into the ND/LSU action here. I like wearing my ND gear to LSU football games or LSU alumni events. I also enjoy debating LSU issues here, just like I enjoy discussing ND issues on their sites that don't need to get into the school vs. school theatrics. Sorry for rambling on, I'll climb down now.....
