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FSU Football: Quick thoughts on ‘Noles low APR score

By Kelvin Hunt

TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 27: Head coach Willie Taggart of the Florida State Seminoles looks on in the third quarter of the game against the Clemson Tigers at Doak Campbell Stadium on October 27, 2018 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
TALLAHASSEE, FL - OCTOBER 27: Head coach Willie Taggart of the Florida State Seminoles looks on in the third quarter of the game against the Clemson Tigers at Doak Campbell Stadium on October 27, 2018 in Tallahassee, Florida. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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FSU football has the worst APR score in the nation. That shouldn’t be a problem moving forward under Willie Taggart.

FSU football has the lowest APR score at the FBS level. If you’re not sure what that is, APR stands for Academic Progress Rate of college athletes.

Essentially, how many of the athletes signing are on track to graduate on a term by term basis. FSU’s 936 score from the 2017-18 season is just above the 930 baseline to avoid possible sanctions from the NCAA.

It’s also another part of the mess left for Willie Taggart to inherit when he arrived in December 2017. Here’s look at FSU’s APR scores under Jimbo Fisher which the 2017-18 year fall under:

  • 2011-12: 954
  • 2012-13: 958
  • 2013-14: 955
  • 2014-15: 945
  • 2015-16: 939
  • 2016-17: 941
  • 2017-18: 936

As you can see, this news comes as no surprise as FSU football routinely had one of the worst APR scores under Jimbo Fisher. Notice the downward trend that coincided with FSU’s performance on the field?

I wrote about how the Noles had fool’s gold with recruiting rankings under Fisher a couple of months ago. A whopping 53 percent of the blue chip players he signed from 2015-17 either were no longer with the program or never contributed on the field.

Thoughts

The biggest problem the APR causes for Willie Taggart is he couldn’t just clean house(get rid of unproductive players) like he likely wanted to when he first arrived at FSU.

However, most of those players eventually found their way out of the program after the 2018 season.

It won’t help the APR but it will help heal the team’s culture which ultimately will be a win in the long run.

The key to improving it will be who Willie Taggart and staff recruit and sign. Thus far, he’s been able to sign players that have been able to stay eligible.

Here were my thoughts on it:

Basically, some players are so good that if they’re knuckleheads you need to take a chance on here and there if there’s a chance you can sign them.

Next. FSU Recruiting Rankings Fool's Gold Under Jimbo Fisher. dark

However, if you sign talented players of good character with the ability to make progress towards a degree things should be fine moving forward.

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