Ole Miss Tops SEC in Academic BCS

OXFORD, Miss. -- The Ole Miss football team finished second in the SEC Western Division in the 2008 regular season, but academically, the Rebels were No. 1 in the conference overall.

Higher Ed Watch's second annual Academic BCS rankings show Ole Miss as the top SEC school and No. 13 in the nation. In the league, Alabama was 15th and Georgia 17th, while overall, Boston College was the top team in the country.

Higher Ed Watch's Academic BCS formula uses all of the available public data on the academic performance of football players to compile its own ranking of the nation's college teams. The formula starts with the team's most recent federal graduation rate, which includes four classes of players who entered college between 1998 and 2001 and graduated within six years of initial enrollment.

Then, each team gains or loses points based on (A) the gap between the team's graduation rate and the overall school's graduation rate and (B) the gap between the team's black-white player graduation rate disparity and the overall school's disparity. Finally, the team gains or loses points if its Academic Progress Rate exceeds or falls below the Division I-A median.

The University of Mississippi Athletics

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