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College football has its hands full

By RON COLBERT, United Press International

The college football bowl season is under way, but it might have a new look next season if the Knight Commission has its way.

The commission has issued a report that says only two of this season's contests, the Capital One Bowl and the Houston Bowl, will feature schools that graduate at least 50 percent of their players. Based upon the reaction to the national championship game, that could be just the tip of the iceberg.

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The commission made a similar recommendation in 2001 and it landed upon deaf ears. If that same recommendation were in effect today, 26 of this year's 28 bowl games could not be played with their current lineups. Thirty-two of this season's 56 bowl teams failed to graduate at least 50 percent of their players, according to the NCAA's latest graduation rate report.

The numbers are not good:

Fifty-eight percent of the participating teams failed to graduate at least 50 percent of their players, and one-quarter of the participating teams failed to graduate at least 40 percent of their players.

Seventy-one percent of the participating teams graduated their football players at a lower rate than the male student body at their institutions, and only three schools with the highest graduation rates participating in bowls are Northwestern (83 percent), Boston College (79 percent) and Virginia (76 percent).

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"It is unacceptable that nearly two-thirds of the teams participating in bowl games fail to graduate at least 50 percent of their players," said commission Chairman William C. Friday, president emeritus of the University of North Carolina. "It is a reasonable -- indeed, minimum -- standard for demonstrating that academics are valued in big-time college football."

This negative news comes on the heels of the controversy about the Sugar Bowl, which matches up Oklahoma and Louisiana State in the Division I-A title game on Jan. 4.

Detractors have been numerous. The one thing most people agree on is that all season long the Sooners gave the impression that they were unbeatable. That was proven wrong when they were soundly beaten by Kansas State, a three-loss team, in the Big 12 Conference title game on Dec. 6.

According to Bowl Championship Series guidelines (poll average, computer average, strength of schedule, losses), Oklahoma had a better score than Southern California, which most people wanted because the Sooners didn't even win their conference.

Also, Gary Darnell, the coach at Western Michigan, and Illinois' Ron Turner said they would consider voting USC No. 1 in the USA Today/ESPN coaches' poll, though the OU-LSU winner will be decreed the top team.

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Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops is unapologetic.

"It doesn't matter how (the coaches) vote," Stoops said. "The rules were in place for all of us when they started the year."

That comment appears to make changes a forgone conclusion. The graduation rates and the money college football is making will be a horse of a different color.

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