I'll be honest i don't care. As long as they don't go to jail and embarass the University its all good. In reallity, this is a pro football team and thats what it is.

Let me ask you something. Do you really think Ramonce Taylor could quallify for UT if he didn't play football? How about Ricky Williams? I loved Ricky but Texas' pr management was one of the most underrated achievements. How did they keep that guy from going crazy? They hid him so well. Come on be realistic. The guys that mostly do graduate are the ones that relize early the NFL is not a viabale option.

Some of you may call me heartless or whatever but its the product on the field that counts.

This is kind off topic but i went to the Missouri vs. UT game a couple of years ago and my friend who lives in another country came with me. He looked around the fans and asked where are the minorities? I said look on the field. Just a thought there.

Since we are actually talking about the education. I thought i'd bring it up. Pleas don't burn me at the stake. There is no hidden agenda here. I am just going to leave it at that.

Its certainly not the coaches number one priority. Their priority is to win games and thats that. Lets be realistic most of these guys just don't have time to graduate.

Being a college football player is a full time job now. You have practice everyday and pretty much something to do in the offseason everyday. If you are getting pounded every day would you focus on school? Most of the majors that you see guys taking are "eligibility majors" or my favorites "General Studies" "Communications" or i think with Ramonce "Undecided".

I can't help but think a couple years ago when UNC with Felton, McCants, and that fat center who sucks in the NBA. Who is it? Oh, Shawn May. The NCAA during tourney time alwasy shows the "student-athlete" and during a break in the game CBS showed Raymond Felton and his bio. Guess what his major was "African Studies" wow what a challenging major. Raymond thats going to get you far in life. There is a whole lot more i can go into that but we will leave at that it. Just embarrsing African Studies wow. You guys know what i mean.

To most coaches it is a joke and they don't care. They just tell them. Keep your ass eligiible (including you PJ). I don't know about Mack.

I honestly want to believe and believe that he stresses school and graduating. But he has to win games. And thats priority numero uno. I love VY but he doesn't sound like the sharpest tool in the shed. There have been plenty of guys that weren't exactly bright. Chris Simms, VY, Aaron Harris, Cedric Griffin to name a few. There have been though some really smart guys on the team. Who can forget Michael Huff. One of the guys that i thought was a complete dumb ass was Ced Benson.

I looked over some of his interviews and the similiarities betweeen him and Ricky go beyond the football field. I don't think Ced is crazy like Ricky but both are extremely articulate and intelligent guys. Yeah he smokes weed but lets be realistic alot of people do. I bet Mack lights it up "once in a blue moon."

I was at the Rose Bowl when they beat Michigan and had really good seats. When Mangum hit that field goal everybody started mobbing each other on the field and running out celebrating. Everybody except Ced he just kneeled on the ground and observed everything. He took it all in.

He even talked about that during an interview with "The Mag" about how he thinks and is thoughtful and not a dumbass. Don't remember it real well but how he says he is his own man and people don't tell him what to think and do.

He said "man there were guys there that never stepped foot on the field and they were mobbing each other and celebrating and i found that interesting" its something like that. He was asking and wondering how important it was and how special. Ced is one of my all time favorite Horns just a great player and good guy.You can tell both Ricky and Ced aren't airheads they know what they are doing.

Some people on "Da Bears" question his commitment to football and i think yeah Ced doesn't think its the most important thing the world. There is nothing wrong with that. It actually makes you a better person. I'm calling it Ced Benson Super Bowl MVP with 180 yards rushing 2TD's including a 50 yarder to win it in OT.

To sum it up there are airheads and idiots on the team that don't graduate and really smart guys that do graduate as well. The coaches try to make the guys that aren't going to be pros to graduate.

This article is about a year old, but it talks about Texas and graduation rates.

http://cbs.sportsline.com/collegefootball/story/9106181

I would really like to believe that graduating players is at least something the football staff works at, but it's hard to believe that with these numbers.

The thing that gets me is that Texas NEVER loses players early to the draft, so we can't even use that as an excuse. So why do so few of them graduate??? Mack has lost, what - 3 players early as a coach? Right? So wtf?

Consider the fact that these figures are through the end of the 2001 football season.  Therefore these numbers do not tell the full story of Mack's tenure.  If they're still low in a few years, then we should be concerned.
From the article posted above...
"The statistics released ... in the GSR were compiled from classes that entered during the years 1995-98," men's athletic director DeLoss Dodds said in a statement. "These rates do not reflect the work of our current student-athletes and coaching staffs. In fact, student-athletes on our campus today were attending middle school at that time. "Low graduation rates are not acceptable. ... We have made dramatic changes in this area and we project our current APR -- a snapshot of what is happening today -- will more accurately reflect true academic progress."

From what I recall on  a local news report and texasspots.com the baseball team has a great team GPA ("two grades away from having a 3.0 gpa" ) and their graduation rate is pretty high. I realize that controlling a squad of less than 20 compared to more than 60 is much different, but Augie is doing a pretty good job.

and modest as well, because he very easily could have used this forum to make a case for the non-scholarship athletes and how they should count as part of the team.  Shoot most of our kickers and punters until the last year or so were non-scholarship, at least initially right?

also, if a kid makes a decision to transfer (choice is 100% his) why in the world do you penalize the school for that?  seems to me that scholarship should be 'revoked' or whatever other word you want to use for not counting against the rest of the bunch.  Likewise, if a guy goes pro and finished up at U. Phoenix online or something then why would you not count that retroactively?

when I was at UT in the 80's the average time it was taking non-athlete students to graduate was over 5 years...so six years for an athlete that is basically pulling a full time job worth of hours as a football player strictly to entertain the rest of us couchbound coaches is just plain unfair.

I know some schools do an awesome job at graduating kids and being good programs too, but there must be a 'devil in the details' if UT doing everything that we know they do for these kids is still looked upon as Bum Steer worthy.

btw, for the most part, Texas Monthly is a completely biased all-too-typical Dallas based rag.  Except for writer John Spong, who went to UT the same time I did.  he's hillarious...