Ouch...

[cto]

The dreaded lower-left quadrant...

College Football’s Grid of Shame

A Wall Street Journal writer's view of the SU program.

 

[Pyle]

You have to buy a sub, Oh Lord

 

[Whitey23]

 

[Scooch]

The vertical axis is meaningless.

 

[690West]

CTO, you'll be at the opener today right?!!

 

[CuseLegacy]

Photo: LM Otero/Associated Press
By
Andrew Beaton

• 
  Andrew Beaton
  The Wall Street Journal
• 
  In most sports, winning is everything. But college football, as its legions of loyal followers can readily attest, is not like most sports.
  
  College football is often as much about scandal as what happens on the scoreboard, which means that every program must be judged on two separate and sometimes conflicting criteria: How good are they? And how ashamed should fans be about rooting for them?
  
  With the season kicking off for most of the country this weekend, there is no better time to settle both arguments with The Wall Street Journal’s annual Grid of Shame, an exercise that quantifies how every school rates both in terms of playing football—and the nefarious depths it has waded through to attain that status.
  
  
  
  ENLARGE
  The Grid answers both these questions for the top programs in the country—all 64 teams from the five major conferences, plus a handful of others that belong in any college football conversation.
  
  The horizontal axis shows how good the team is projected to be based on a survey of preseason evaluations. Some of these use the old-fashioned eye test, others rely on complex algorithms. That’s the easy part. What’s harder is what happens on the vertical axis—or shame meter.
  
  We begin with cold numbers, a weighted calculation of academic performance, recent NCAA violations and probation, attendance figures, athletic-department subsidies and player arrests. Schools were also dinged if they have a dubious history with injury mismanagement—like the handful of programs involved in concussion-related lawsuits.
  
  But those figures don’t capture everything, and no program demonstrates this better in 2016 than Baylor. How do you rank a school that mishandled sexual assault cases involving football players, a scandal so seismic that it cost president Ken Starr and football coach Art Briles their jobs?
  
  This is where the “ick” factor comes in. When the numbers didn’t capture the magnitude of the problems at a particular program, we punished the teams that brought shame to their fans in a way that didn’t show up in any data set.
  
  
  At one end of the spectrum, there’s Northwestern, whose fans may not have high hopes of a Big Ten title anytime soon, but can at least be proud that their team has stayed squeaky clean off the field. They’re in the Grid’s top left, where grade-point averages might exceed win totals.
  
  The big winner on this year’s Grid is closest to the top right corner: Stanford, an academic powerhouse that will contend in this year’s Pac-12. This top right quadrant is the Grid’s lone safe zone: an exclusive club for programs that are both good at football and have done relatively well off the field too.
  
  But many of the top teams in the country, like No. 1 Alabama and No. 4 Florida State, can be found in the bottom right, where the football is strong but the program’s off-the-field performance leaves much to be desired.
  
  Then there’s the place where no program wants to be: The bottom left. This is where fans and professors can clink glasses and agree to watch something else on Saturdays.

 

[jgeorge322]

The vertical axis is meaningless.

Penn state should literally be off the grid on the embarassing scale

 

[sutomcat]

What did Syracuse do that was so embarrassing to college football?

A couple of players smoked marijuana, were caught and against an internal SU policy, allowed to play in games? For teams that went 3-8, 2-10, etc? No competitive advantage was gained doing this.

That makes Syracuse a neighbor of Penn State, Rutgers, Kentucky and other vermin?

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Andrew Beaton is a sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the New York Mets, baseball and other sports.

That makes him an expert on being embarrassed.

 

[sabach]

Penn state should literally be off the grid on the embarassing scale

I don't care what UNC did it is fake class scandal, how can someone think it is worse than what was done at Penn State.

 

[Scooch]

Penn state should literally be off the grid on the embarassing scale

It doesn't even matter, obviously.

Our hoops program has been "embarassing" repeatedly. We go to Final Fours. No one cares about the former, really.

 

[NashvilleOrange]

How is Ohio State admirable? It's already been said but Penn State not being the lowest on the embarrassing scale renders this chart meaningless.

 

[Mr Peabody]

Where would we be if we averaged say 40,000? Lot's of subjectivity and would appear to be a B1G fan.

 

[Rage4CUSE]

What did Kansas football do that was embarrassing? Or is thier continued terribleness that embarrassing?

 

[TheCusian]

What did Kansas football do that was embarrassing? Or is thier continued terribleness that embarrassing?

Yes

 

[FortyFourCT]

So this is a Big 10 promotion article and nothing else? He even has Penn St as not the worst! Moving on...

 

[DomeStranger]

Are they saying Boise State is somewhat of an admirable powerhouse? Seems legit.

 

[djorange1989]

When I want sports expertise I always make sure to check the Wall Street Journal.

 

[DuxburyO]

The grid makes no sense. I say we kick some Colgate ass to show them

 

[dollarbill44]

So, he's trying to quantify his opinion of each of the programs? That's awesome.

How is Vandy in the top half???

 

[suloyalfan]

Nobody mentioned Notre Dame being higher up the "sainthood" vertical axis on the chart than SU?

Maybe this article came out before they had 6 players arrested in one day in separate incidents...

 

[GoSU96]

What did Syracuse do that was so embarrassing to college football?

A couple of players smoked marijuana, were caught and against an internal SU policy, allowed to play in games? For teams that went 3-8, 2-10, etc? No competitive advantage was gained doing this.

That makes Syracuse a neighbor of Penn State, Rutgers, Kentucky and other vermin?

Exactly

 

[GoSU96]

It doesn't even matter, obviously.

Our hoops program has been "embarassing" repeatedly. We go to Final Fours. No one cares about the former, really.

And the hoops stuff has been small change weak sauce compared to the actual real wholesale cheating that goes on. And it wasn't institutional.

 

[Briancuse]

What did Kansas football do that was embarrassing? Or is thier continued terribleness that embarrassing?

I don't think they have won a game during the entire Obama administration.

 

[djorange1989]

Nobody mentioned Notre Dame being higher up the "sainthood" vertical axis on the chart than SU?

Maybe this article came out before they had 6 players arrested in one day in separate incidents...

and they forgot the girl who committed suicide after being sexually assaulted by an ND football player. Oh, and the poor kid who died after the crane collapse because Kelly thought practice was more important than the safety of a kid when there are 70 mph winds. Oh, and the academic scandals involving a bunch of kids recently, Ishaq etc. I am sure there are more.