USU football program has high graduation rate

Utah State University’s football program was one of 25 in the nation recognized for its graduation rate by the American Football Coaches Association it was announced recently. The survey has been conducted by the AFCA each year since 1998.

The survey measured the freshman class of 1996-97. The overall graduation rate of the 80 Division I-A schools that responded was 60 percent, up from 59 percent last year. Northwestern achieved a perfect 100 percent graduation rate, while 24 schools received honorable mention for graduating at least 70 percent of their players. Utah State graduated 79 percent of its players in that time.

Schools on the honorable mention list include Ball State, Boston College, Central Michigan, Duke, East Carolina, Florida, Hawai’i, Indiana, Kansas State, Miami-Fla., Mississippi State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State, Rice, Southern Methodist, Syracuse, Texas Tech, Utah State, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Western Michigan and Wisconsin.

At total of 1,659 grants were awarded to football players who initially entered during the 1996-97 academic year for an average of 20.7 per institution. A total of 1,000 student-athletes graduated for an average of 12.5 per institution.