James Madison football coach Mickey Matthews used to receive several phone calls each spring from colleagues at major-college programs.

His Dukes belong to the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), to which players can transfer from the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly I-A) and gain immediate eligibility.

"If a youngster was in a top-notch I-A program and he had a lot of good players in front of him, you would hear from those coaches saying 'Coach, I've got a great kid, but he just can't get on the field here. He needs to transfer to play,'" said Matthews, JMU's coach since 1999.

The NCAA's academic-reform effort has this effect on Matthews: His phone isn't ringing as often this spring.

Each scholarship student-athlete at a Division I school earns Academic Progress Rate points for remaining eligible at the school at which he initially matriculated, staying in that school's sports program, and graduating. The points accumulate as a team score. Squads that fail to meet the NCAA points standard are subject to penalties including scholarship losses, recruiting restrictions and bans on postseason competition for chronic underachievers.

Matthews sees his FBS friends these days, and he says they tell him, "Coach, I can't afford to let the kid transfer. It would be better for him if he transferred as far as his playing career, but it would be bad for us in the APR."

The academic-reform movement has grown teeth, and coaches feel them. Tuesday, the NCAA slapped penalties on 123 of 329 Division I schools (218 teams). VCU basketball coach Anthony Grant said part of the homework he did as a Florida assistant in April 2006 while checking out the Rams program was a very close examination of VCU's academic-support system for athletes.

"I knew it was something that, because of the potential penalties, was going to be a factor," Grant said. "If you're lower than you need to be [on an APR score], it could affect the number of scholarships you have, how you recruit, and how your team looks for the upcoming year."

Matthews, JMU's football coach, added that in years before the APR was a consideration, his staff would focus mostly on the program's younger players to get them on the right track academically, and spend less time with the team's older players, who were in their 20s.

"Now, you spend as much time with a senior as you do with a freshman, to ensure that you're graduating that [older] kid," Matthews said.
Contact John O'Connor at (804) 649-6233 or joconnor@timesdispatch.com.