Originally Posted by
Bluedog
There is a key difference between basketball and football, though - basketball typically has only 2-3 recruits per year, so the coach can really keep a close eye on everybody and "taking a chance with questionable students" typically only involves one student every couple years - at most. In football, there are something like 30 recruits a year - much harder to keep tabs on them. You could obviously just have more resources devoted to them, however. I'd be fine for "questionable students" to come to Duke football in the same numbers - one student every couple years. But for them to come in the same percentage as basketball isn't feasible.
Let's all be honest with ourselves - the VAST majority of football players right now are far below the rest of the Duke student body. Are they much better students than most football players at other DI schools? Definitely, and their graduation rates and things they do after graduating certainly make us proud. Would the majority of them get into Duke without football? Obviously not. I think the admissions standards as they are know are as lax as they can go. I mean, they now usually require around a 1000 SAT for a football player (Vince Oghobaase had a 1020, for example; look at his scout.com profile) as opposed to the Duke student average of around 1480. All this information, I guess, is somewhat pointless for me to say anyways since I don't think Cutcliffe meant to suggest to lower the admissions standards. In fact, he has said he wants to uphold the current standards and doesn't want to use that as an excuse.
I'm not attempting to diminish the quality of our football student-athletes - by and large, they try hard, are very respectable students, and I think they do a great job. There are also some who would have gotten in without football, and I am always astonished at those who do so well in the classroom with such a big time commitment (this goes for any varsity sport). I salute them!