Fans of the old site might recall an epic diatribe about the inequitable penalties dished out by the academic enforcement arm of the NCAA. For anyone who doesn’t know or recall the ins and outs of Academic Progress Reports, follow the link and learn more than you probably ever cared to know.

Today, the 2009 APR report came out. Another year, another NCAA paddling for North Texas.

The good news is that last year’s bullshit was finally set right. Basketball gets their lost scholarship restored, and Indiana basketball loses two. Football APR goes down from 917 last year to 911, and the penalties get worse. The team is now limited to 79 scholarships (down from 80) and can only issue 19 new ones this year.

On the DRC blog, TakeAKnee.net superfriend Brett Vito explains the discrepancy between the NCAA report of 79 scholarships and the UNT Athletics Department report of 81 scholarships. To summarize, last year’s 5 scholarship penalty was supposed to be worse, but the NCAA gave what’s called a “conditional APP penalty waiver”. If North Texas could manage a score above 925, the three additional scholarships penalty (on top of the 5 already lost) would be waived. But the folks at Athletics apparently anticipated that they might come up a little short of that 925 goal, and decided to voluntarily hold back two scholarships last season.

Good call. Because if you check the list of penalized teams (dig that sweet asterisk of shame!), you’ll see North Texas flagged as one that failed to satisfy the conditions of their waiver from last year. We came up short of 925.

How short? By my calculation, 34 points. We posted an 891; the worst APR score in school history.

For anyone who’s curious… Going back to the first APR report in 2003/04, this is our deduced score from each year:

2007/8 = 891
2006/7 = 920
2005/6 = 934
2004/5 = 899
2003/4 = 915 - no longer included in the 4-year average

This year, we dropped the 915 and picked up the 891 in our 4-year average. That’s why our APR score went down 6 points. And that 891 is the gift that will keep on giving… Look forward to it dragging down our scores for the next three years, too.

While the NCAA report says we’re down 6 scholarships, our compliance officials say that the hedged bet last year makes that a 4 scholarship reduction. Hopefully, they’re right. Even if they aren’t, that’s not the part of the APR penalty that really worries me.

The real concern (in my mind) is the second part of the penalty: The North Texas football team can only give out 19 new scholarships next year.

The reason that’s so scary? We’re only allowed to add 19 scholarship players in the 2009-10 class, but we have 17 seniors, and they should all be on scholarship. The only possible exception is Kevin Dickerson, and even if he doesn’t have a ship on him already, he’ll likely get ineligible 2009 recruit Chevy Bennett’s scholarship or one from a non-returning 2008 player.

That gives us a two scholarship buffer. If more than two guys on scholarship quit the team, flunk out of school, get injured and can’t play anymore, or get kicked off for rules violations… The 19 scholarship limit creates a de facto overall scholarship cap even lower than the official penalty. And since we already failed to meet a granted waiver, it’s probably unlikely we’d get any leniency on the issue.

How likely is it that at least two non-Seniors will quit or be forced to quit due to injury before next year’s APR report comes out?

Given our recent history of player retention, I’d say it’s pretty damn likely.

The players I can recall who have left the team since August 2008 are Justin Padron, Marcus King, Evan Fentriss, Greg Garden, Sam Dibrell, Bron Hager, Evan Walker, Jordan Scroggins, Giovanni Vizza, Kartay Agbottah, and Kyle Russo. Kale Krider may have left, too. And I may have overlooked someone; please chime in with a comment if I have.

When you remember that we’ve lost 12 (possibly 13) non-Seniors to those circumstances in the past 9 months… When you throw in the fact that a significant proportion of our roster failed drug tests last year and may be one strike away from getting kicked off the team… It looks like that 19 scholarship restriction is probably going to bite us twice.

What comes next? How likely is it that we’ll climb out of the academic hole we’ve dug for ourselves? What will it take to compensate for the 891 that will be part of our APR average score for the next three years?

Several of those guys who left in the past year (Garden, Agbottah, Fentriss) expressed a desire to stay in school at North Texas. If they did/do and they stay academically eligible, they won’t hurt the APR score. But Padron, King, Dibrell, Vizza, and Russo are gone for sure. Walker, Hager, Scroggins and the others; I’m not aware of their intentions or whether they’ve already left.

Whatever happens with the other 7 guys, 5 of our scholarship players who’ll be on the 2008/09 APR report are gone. In the best case scenario, all five left academically eligible and everyone else who quit stays at North Texas and stays academically solid. If that happens, and absolutely nothing else happens to lower our score, our maximum APR score for 2008/09 will be 968. Remember that as our starting point.

Aside: For a description of the rules to calculating APR scores, check last year’s story linked at the top. 78 scholarship athletes (the previous APR report penalty limit of 80 minus the two that we apparently never used to hedge our bets for this year) means a total of 156 maximum points in calculating the APR. Losing 5 points for 5 academically eligible players leaving the school gives us a 151 out of 156, or a .968. Multiply by 1000 to get a new optimal score of 968.

In order to break the critical 4 year rolling average of 925 and get back into compliance, we need to get a 955 score for the 2008/09 year. Assuming only those five who are already gone will leave, and assuming that absolutely nobody else leaves school, flunks, or gets kicked off the team, we’re already just 13 points over this threshold.

If just one person flunks (or has already flunked), we’ll drop below that 955 score. If two of the other seven guys that left the team since August leave North Texas, we’ll drop below that 955 score. If any of the guys who left the team were in academic trouble, it’s already within a fraction of a point of being mathematically impossible for us to get back in compliance by the next report.

That’s the margin North Texas is facing. We need a flawless run in both academics and retention,  and no surprises from the past year in order to barely clear the minimum APR score and get back in compliance.

Keep your fingers crossed, but it’s probably best not to hold your breath.