APR: Good News, Bad News

Temple football posted an APR score of 965 for the fall semester. That’s 40 points above the annual minimum needed to avoid penalties from the NCAA. However, the team’s four-year score is still below the minimum standard. So the Owls have been penalized and could be subject to scholarship losses, practice limitations, or recruiting restrictions – immediately.

The Temple football team posted an APR score of 965 for the fall semester, according to a report from the athletic department. That’s 40 points above the minimum annual score needed to avoid scholarship penalties from the NCAA.

However, the team’s four-year running score is still below the minimum standard of 900. So the Owls have been penalized and could be subject to scholarship losses, practice limitations, or recruiting restrictions – immediately.

The exact penalties and Temple’s latest APR scores will be officially released by the NCAA next week.

OwlsDaily.com has already acquired much of that information.

As described in a draft version of Temple’s Certification Report to the NCAA, the football team posted an APR score of 898 during the 2006-07 academic year. That boosted their four-year running score from 858 to 868. But that’s still far short of the NCAA minimum (900) to avoid a “historical” penalty.

Last year, the Owls received a public warning because their running score was 858.

Next week, they’ll get more than a warning.

According to the Certification Report, Temple was notified on November 27, 2007, that it would be penalized based on its APR for the previous four academic years. The report does not provide details of the penalties. However, the report does indicate that Temple appealed the penalty based on its recent improvement in the APR, and received a reduction on the original penalty.

The APR (Academic Progress Rate) measures the success of each NCAA school and team in retaining its players and keeping them eligible. Academically ineligible players hurt that score.

Scores are also affected when a scholarship player transfers out of a program. But the team is not penalized as long as that player is academically eligible at the time of his/her departure.

The NCAA has been using the APR since 2005. Penalties were first imposed on low-scoring teams in 2006. The Temple football program lost nine scholarships that year because of its low score in the first two years of measurement.

There are two penalty categories within the APR. Year to year, each team is required to score at least 925, or face scholarship losses if they lose any ineligible players. The Owls failed to meet that standard last year, but they avoided any scholarship penalties because they didn’t lose any academically ineligible players during the offseason.

The second category – so-called “historical” penalties – have no such failsafe, except the NCAA appeals process.

With a score of 965 during the fall semester, the Owls are in much better shape looking towards their future APR scores.

They better be.

Because the level three penalty for substandard scores can include restrictions on bowl participation.

As it is, the Owls are facing some kind of penalty this year that could include scholarship penalties, practice limitations, or recruiting restrictions.

The official word will come down next week.

In addition to the Temple football team, the new APR numbers could have an immediate impact on Temple men’s basketball, which has avoided any penalties thus far because the NCAA deemed a three-year sample too small to judge teams with fewer participants such as basketball. Also, there could be good news for Temple baseball, which received the maximum penalty (losing 1.17 scholarships) last season.

Temple’s Certification Report does not include APR information on any sport except football.