Who says Ohio State football players don't come to play school?
According to NCAA Division I academic progress rate data released Tuesday, Buckeye football received a multi-year rate of 1,000 following the 2023-24 academic year. Ohio State accompanied Harvard as the only Division I football programs to obtain a perfect multi-year score.
“It speaks to the maturity of our team. It’s cool to go to class. It’s cool to get your degree. It’s cool to do well in school,” Day said at Ohio State’s “Faces of Resilience” event on Tuesday. “It speaks to the type of guys we have and the work that they’ve done. It speaks to our assistant coaches and how much they’re involved with it. But also SASSO (Student-Athlete Support Services Office), which does an unbelievable job. Deana Ruggeri and her entire staff do a great job providing our guys with the resources they need through tutors. But ultimately, it goes back to the guys. They are the ones who have to do that. I am very proud of the work they’re doing.”
Ohio State's newest APR, which averages APR scores from the 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years, reached 989 in 2024. Of the 31 Ohio State programs mentioned in the data, nine have multi-year scores of 1,000, including men's and women's cross country, men's fencing, field hockey, football, men's and women's golf, women's soccer and women's volleyball. Another 15 programs posted scores of 990 or above.
“Obviously, the perfect score by our football program is eye-popping,” Dr. John Davidson, Ohio State's faculty athletics representative, said in a press release. “It leads the Big Ten and is matched only by Harvard across the entire nation. Beyond that, though, the concern with academics that undergirds our athletics department’s culture is evident across the board: three-quarters of our programs sit at 990 or above. This reflects the attention paid to success in school not just by students and academic counselors but by coaches in their recruiting and their mentoring.”
In the 2023-24 academic year, 227 Buckeyes received Academic All-Big Ten honors –not including spring and at-large sports that will be awarded later in June – and 811 earned Ohio State Scholar-Athlete accolades. Additionally, 56 student-athletes received their degrees at Autumn commencement, while 203 earned theirs at spring commencement.
