Academic clustering among football student-athletes and exploring its relationship to institutional characteristics

With the advent of the Annual Progress in 2004, the assessment for athletic eligibility has shifted from individual measurements to aggregate outcomes among colleges and universities that participate in Division I athletics. Utilizing publicly-available data from the Fall 2011 media guides of 60 Division I football programs, the authors explored the prevalence of academic clustering among football student-athletes, extending the analysis of academic clustering across Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) automatic-qualifying (AQ) conferences. Additionally, the authors explored the relationship between organizational affiliation and academic clustering among football student-athletes. Across all FBS AQ conferences, evidence of academic clustering is prevalent and found among non-white football players at a higher rate than white football players. Findings provide further evidence of academic clustering among Division I football programs and new evidence of statistically significant correlations between the presence of academic clustering and university membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), and conference membership.