Changing the culture: Minnesota football sets program record for cumulative GPA

BleedGopher

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per Dustin:

Minnesota’s football team has made huge strides on the field under P.J. Fleck from Year 1 to Year 2, earning a trip to the postseason and defeating Georgia Tech in the Quick Lane Bowl this past season.

The Gophers are also making strides in the classroom, too.

Friday morning, Minnesota announced that the football team had set a new program record for cumulative grade point average (GPA), with the average coming in at a 3.13 for the year. In the spring term, the team had a 3.17 cumulative GPA, the best spring semester in program history.

Fleck often talks about changing the culture at Minnesota, not only on the field, but in terms of academics and character, as well. The Gophers are certainly hearing his message and delivering in the classroom, as well as the field.

https://saturdaytradition.com/minne...tball-sets-program-record-for-cumulative-gpa/

Go Gophers!!
 

Good for them.

One thought though, it seems like we constantly see these stories. Like the they can't always be better can they?

I guess if you break it down by hundredths of a point and then each semester or group of semesters and so on .... lots of room for announcements.

Also this would seem to rule out any progress if suddenly the team decided to take harder classes and did just fine but the GPA suffered a little, odd situation but I think about education stats and how they get weird once in a while. I knew a guy who played special teams for a couple B1G teams. He was explicitly told by the coach's that they really appreciated his help with the GPA....like special teams and GPA was effectively his assigned role.
 

Not a great example of culture change as Grades were high when PJ arrived - but a great accomplishment none-the-less. Congrats to the boys!


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Hats off to thee gentlemen, well done!
 

Great to hear. Team grades are an important barometer of the change in culture that was definitely needed. The team is buying in to the RTB culture.
 


It’s good everyone is on track to graduate but without context of degrees, courses, pre-college ACTs it’s difficult to draw any real conclusions IMO. Definitely a good thing but somewhat meaningless to me. If half the team were failing that would be...bad.

It would be nice to have an ongoing weekly series covering graduates and what they’re up to in the real world. How did the networking and internship opportunities help them?
 

smh. some people need to be a little choosier on what nits they pick.
 


I’ll never understand why people migrate to an online fan forum just to dump **** over a team’s accomplishment when they are supposedly a “fan” of said team


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The players' families will be pleased. Only about 0.2% of DI football players end up in the NFL or something like that. Majority of the kids are best served by doing what the Gopher Athletics is doing to increase the success of players after playing college sports.

It doesn't matter what barometer you choose. A college degree is a life changer that opens up more doors.
 

I’ll never understand why people migrate to an online fan forum just to dump **** over a team’s accomplishment when they are supposedly a “fan” of said team


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If you’re referring to me I’m just pointing average GPA YOY is less meaningful without context. Is that ok to talk about? Graduation rate, placement, and success after school seems more meaningful. I get it, it’s marketing for the program but personally I’d like to see what the guys are actually doing with their degrees. I bet parents are too.
 

The players' families will be pleased. Only about 0.2% of DI football players end up in the NFL or something like that. Majority of the kids are best served by doing what the Gopher Athletics is doing to increase the success of players after playing college sports.

It doesn't matter what barometer you choose. A college degree is a life changer that opens up more doors.

I'd like to see what long be term outcomes are like for grads of various sports excluding those who go pro.

I have a suspicion that big money sports guys even with degrees.... might not fair as well as the general public.

UNC couldn't even bother with real classes at times.
 

They went so far as to send me a letter in the mail talking about their GPA....
 




Awesome job, keep up the good work!

You have to remember very few of these kids will make a career of football, most of them are students and this education is the key to their future.
 


It’s good everyone is on track to graduate but without context of degrees, courses, pre-college ACTs it’s difficult to draw any real conclusions IMO. Definitely a good thing but somewhat meaningless to me. If half the team were failing that would be...bad.

It would be nice to have an ongoing weekly series covering graduates and what they’re up to in the real world. How did the networking and internship opportunities help them?

For me, graduation rate YOY is probably a more accurate gage of educational success, and would like to see that stat publicized more. I also think GPA is a nice way to show interim success.

It also seems like more are actually finishing degrees early. Would love to see more stories of what student athletes have done since finishing their degrees.
 

Congratulations on a nice accomplishment. No matter how you look at it you should be happy that we have a football team whose players have accomplished this.
 

I’ll never understand why people migrate to an online fan forum just to dump **** over a team’s accomplishment when they are supposedly a “fan” of said team


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Because they are boorish asshats, regardless of their "allegiance". Can you imagine living with or working with these guys every day?
 

I’ll never understand why people migrate to an online fan forum just to dump **** over a team’s accomplishment when they are supposedly a “fan” of said team

I don't think people are diminishing the accomplishment at all. It's a fantastic accomplishment. I think some are maybe taking _slight_ issue with the writer's use of this as an indicator or culture change. As others have stated, grades and graduation rates have continually been rising ever since Kill took over. Kudos to PJ for keeping it going and keeping it improving.

It would be interesting to see the team GPA for say, the last 10 seasons.
 

I’ll never understand why people migrate to an online fan forum just to dump **** over a team’s accomplishment when they are supposedly a “fan” of said team


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Some people on here (like Spoofin) dosn't actually believe what he posts. He is just trying to get people going. Hence the moniker "Spoofin".
 

Or maybe there’s actual nuance in facts and statistics. Is it that hard to believe teams attempt to engineer these things at times?

I’m one of the biggest advocates for keeping guys in school, getting degrees. That’s why I’d hate to see the teams go the professional route. That’s why I’d like to see a massive diversion of conference revenues to funding deserving scholarships rather than funding idiocy like Dabos playground and barber shops and massive AD salaries.
 


Some people on here (like Spoofin) dosn't actually believe what he posts. He is just trying to get people going. Hence the moniker "Spoofin".

Dude - the only posts I’ve made on this thread have been 1)Congratulating the team on this accomplishment; and 2)saying I like the idea of mailing out these results to fans. Not sure how I could have been any more positive?


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If you’re referring to me I’m just pointing average GPA YOY is less meaningful without context. Is that ok to talk about? Graduation rate, placement, and success after school seems more meaningful. I get it, it’s marketing for the program but personally I’d like to see what the guys are actually doing with their degrees. I bet parents are too.

If your kid comes home from school and shows you his report card saying that he had his best semester yet, do you downplay it because he had a few easier classes?

Even if there are “contexts” to GPA, why the heck does it matter in this case? You are implying If some kids were taking some easier classes, it doesn’t count and you wouldn’t care? And your argument of downplaying by needing context also implies that “easier” classes are the driving factor behind the achievement - why is that the default assumption?

If the Gophers go 9-3 in 2019, will you say “well we need to consider the context that they had an easier schedule than usual”? Can we just be happy that our program is successful rather than nit picking it for crap like this?

Sure it would be nice to see graduation rates, post grad successes, employment etc. but can we not ALSO hear about how the team is doing well while during school?


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If the Gophers go 9-3 in 2019, will you say “well we need to consider the context that they had an easier schedule than usual”?

New here?


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I’ll never understand why people migrate to an online fan forum just to dump **** over a team’s accomplishment when they are supposedly a “fan” of said team

I’ll never understand why people actually waste precious moments of their life to make a post that adds zero to the discussion and only complains about other posters.


That said, glad the team GPA is doing well. As it should. There is absolutely no reason you can’t maintain a good GPA when taking simple classes and the sheer amount of resources that go into study halls, academic centers, and tutoring for these guys.
 

If your kid comes home from school and shows you his report card saying that he had his best semester yet, do you downplay it because he had a few easier classes?

Even if there are “contexts” to GPA, why the heck does it matter in this case? You are implying If some kids were taking some easier classes, it doesn’t count and you wouldn’t care? And your argument of downplaying by needing context also implies that “easier” classes are the driving factor behind the achievement - why is that the default assumption?

If the Gophers go 9-3 in 2019, will you say “well we need to consider the context that they had an easier schedule than usual”? Can we just be happy that our program is successful rather than nit picking it for crap like this?

Sure it would be nice to see graduation rates, post grad successes, employment etc. but can we not ALSO hear about how the team is doing well while during school?


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You pretty much raised all the arguments for discussion and answered them yourself - good job. I’m not sure why it’s ok to look at a future schedule and say that hey, that looks like an easier than usual schedule but it’s not ok to say a schedule was easier than usual in retrospect. I like to deal in reality. It doesn’t bother me and it’s ok to admit something isn’t as good as it looks.

Yes, quality of classes and type of degree matters to me. Are we comparing apples to oranges between programs - inter and intra? If my kid is filling his schedule with “junk” and is not pursuing a marketable degree then as a parent I’d step in and mentor my child (they may not listen, but that’s part of the deal and granted sometimes passion wins out over economic sense...)
 

If your kid comes home from school and shows you his report card saying that he had his best semester yet, do you downplay it because he had a few easier classes?

Even if there are “contexts” to GPA, why the heck does it matter in this case? You are implying If some kids were taking some easier classes, it doesn’t count and you wouldn’t care? And your argument of downplaying by needing context also implies that “easier” classes are the driving factor behind the achievement - why is that the default assumption?

If the Gophers go 9-3 in 2019, will you say “well we need to consider the context that they had an easier schedule than usual”? Can we just be happy that our program is successful rather than nit picking it for crap like this?

Sure it would be nice to see graduation rates, post grad successes, employment etc. but can we not ALSO hear about how the team is doing well while during school?


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Mostly I just hope anything from the school isn't bad....
 

Dude - the only posts I’ve made on this thread have been 1)Congratulating the team on this accomplishment; and 2)saying I like the idea of mailing out these results to fans. Not sure how I could have been any more positive?


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Well since you don’t believe what you post I guess that makes you a hater....


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