In the league I'm in, the D-II recruits' GPAs are a lot higher than D-III? Is this always the case? It certainly shouldn't be. In real D-III, you don't have athletic scholarships so the better students get more money, and schools admit based on their admissions standards. 

As a number of D-III schools are strong academically,  a lot of D-III athletes, especially those that go to the high-caliber private schools, have very good academic credentials. Yet on the D-III recruiting list, there are like 55 players with above a 3.4 GPA. 

Anyone have any explanation for this?

etta,  in this game the d3 players are all "flawed".  some are less flawed than others,   i really hadnt noticed a huge gpa diff from d2 to d3... but ill take your word for it.  if thats true, then its just one of the ways in d which the d3 players are flawed.  your job as d3 coach is to find the least flawed players, and to find players whose limited strengths fit within your program well.

in practical terms, hs gpa is a driving factor in how many study hall minutes are needed to keep a player eligible,  so it  IS nice to get players with better HS gpa  (which would allow you to reduce sh minutes and utilize them elsewhere).  and i think higher hs gpa players are often "quick learners"  who pick up team off and def more quickly (slightly)

i think most d3 coaches are happy when a recruit has hs gpa of 3.0 or better.   they will usually not need too many SH minutes.  and players with hs gpa of 2.5 to 3.0 are usually not held back from reaching thier potential by the need of study hall.  they may need a little more initially and that may will slow their inital growth slightly, but when they get to be upperclassmen, you'll be hard pressed to tell which players had hs gpa 2.5 vs those with 3.5.

in fact, i think most coaches find plenty of occasions where recruits with hs gpa of 2.0 to 2.5 will be very desireable recruits.  they may need significant study hall minutes (10-15) and that will take away from valubale skill practice. but if they have some decent strentghs coming in, they will often be worht it.

i dont want to totally dismiss the value of hs gpa,  but i think most coaches look at it as only slightly more important than a tiebreaker.   i dont think very many coaches have a cutoff where they wont recruit kids below a certain gpa.  they may be a little reluctant with the 2.2 and under kids,  but those can  be gems as well.


on the other hand,  many top coaches do have a set limit for Work Ethic and will not even look at players below that level.  some wont take anyone below 30,  or 25 or 20.  hs gpa indirectly impacts player growth... WE directly impacts it.   i will say that there are even some situations where low WE players can be useful (even as low as 10 or so)  but you will probably need to start them right away and even then you still have to understand thier limited growth and how that compares to what you would end up with with a higher WE player.  

whew... that didnt seem like so many words when it was in my head... sorry for rambling

Been a while since I coached D3 but I do remember thinking the same. Never understood why D3 players GPA's were consistently so low. If anything the D3 players should have higher GPAs.

And good to see you back oldave! The Big East in Tark wasn't the same without you. Hope to see you back in Tark one of these days.

I never look at hs football gpa during recruiting.

I've had a 4.0 HS GPA recently .... have to see how he develops in IQ.

Posted by a_in_the_b on 1/23/2014 3:43:00 PM (view original):
I've had a 4.0 HS GPA recently .... have to see how he develops in IQ.

I almost had a 4.0 recently, but went with someone else.  GPA is almost like a tiebreaker to me, that and already knowing my sets.  Honestly I'm much more interested in finding the "above average in the classroom and on the court" message than caring if he's a 3.0 or whatever.  I can't think of a guy that hasn't reached at least all reds by the time he graduates that I've had, but when it comes to having guys play earlier things like that help.

I tweak too many things to have a good study on the affect of GPA vs classroom messages with WE thrown in.  I expect them to be an A in my sets by senior year, some as juniors.

I've never had a 100pt growth guy in a year either, many 70s and 80's, but never the super growth.  Even kids with 70+ WE and starting and playing from the beginning.

Posted by guyo26 on 1/23/2014 4:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 1/23/2014 3:43:00 PM (view original):
I've had a 4.0 HS GPA recently .... have to see how he develops in IQ.

I almost had a 4.0 recently, but went with someone else.  GPA is almost like a tiebreaker to me, that and already knowing my sets.  Honestly I'm much more interested in finding the "above average in the classroom and on the court" message than caring if he's a 3.0 or whatever.  I can't think of a guy that hasn't reached at least all reds by the time he graduates that I've had, but when it comes to having guys play earlier things like that help.

I tweak too many things to have a good study on the affect of GPA vs classroom messages with WE thrown in.  I expect them to be an A in my sets by senior year, some as juniors.

I've never had a 100pt growth guy in a year either, many 70s and 80's, but never the super growth.  Even kids with 70+ WE and starting and playing from the beginning.

I didnt even realize he was a 4.0 until I was setting my practice grid. I chickened out on trying zero study hall on him tho.

Posted by guyo26 on 1/23/2014 4:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 1/23/2014 3:43:00 PM (view original):
I've had a 4.0 HS GPA recently .... have to see how he develops in IQ.

I almost had a 4.0 recently, but went with someone else.  GPA is almost like a tiebreaker to me, that and already knowing my sets.  Honestly I'm much more interested in finding the "above average in the classroom and on the court" message than caring if he's a 3.0 or whatever.  I can't think of a guy that hasn't reached at least all reds by the time he graduates that I've had, but when it comes to having guys play earlier things like that help.

I tweak too many things to have a good study on the affect of GPA vs classroom messages with WE thrown in.  I expect them to be an A in my sets by senior year, some as juniors.

I've never had a 100pt growth guy in a year either, many 70s and 80's, but never the super growth.  Even kids with 70+ WE and starting and playing from the beginning.

I'm not so sure about that "above average in the classroom and on the court" being more important than GPA.  I tracked the messages for a little while (when HSGPA was removed from internationals) and I am confident that it simply refers to a range of HSGPA shown:

Hmmm, I guess I've not seen the excellent student or not noticed it before.  Quick digging around past recruiting classes I have above average on a 3.2, 3.4, 3.1 and 3.1HS GPA, plus an international.  Maybe I've never actually signed a kid that was above 3.5, not sure.

good stuff rogelio.   i had kinda thought that, but never tracked it.

you would all agree that  "above average in the classroom and on the court" allows off and def IQ to improve a little more quickly... right? enough so that those kids might get to A+ IQs as seniors where mediocres might only get to A.    course, that depends whether they knew your O and D coming in and , mroe importantly, how much team practice time.  but lets assume they dont know your O and D and you practice O and D 20ish minutes.

Im not even sure i ever remember getting an "excellent student" message.    probably have and just forgot.  how does that read ?   same way but with excellent instead of above average?

also,  i have always assumed that the benfits of hs gpa were limited to IQ...  is it possible that helps individual skill growth, too?   im embarassed to not know that,  but i dont.

nice!   glad to see its not just me guyo

Posted by a_in_the_b on 1/23/2014 4:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by guyo26 on 1/23/2014 4:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by a_in_the_b on 1/23/2014 3:43:00 PM (view original):
I've had a 4.0 HS GPA recently .... have to see how he develops in IQ.

I almost had a 4.0 recently, but went with someone else.  GPA is almost like a tiebreaker to me, that and already knowing my sets.  Honestly I'm much more interested in finding the "above average in the classroom and on the court" message than caring if he's a 3.0 or whatever.  I can't think of a guy that hasn't reached at least all reds by the time he graduates that I've had, but when it comes to having guys play earlier things like that help.

I tweak too many things to have a good study on the affect of GPA vs classroom messages with WE thrown in.  I expect them to be an A in my sets by senior year, some as juniors.

I've never had a 100pt growth guy in a year either, many 70s and 80's, but never the super growth.  Even kids with 70+ WE and starting and playing from the beginning.

I didnt even realize he was a 4.0 until I was setting my practice grid. I chickened out on trying zero study hall on him tho.

You can absolutely get away with doing that.  I start most FR above 3.0 with 0 minutes of SH.  Usually the ones in the 3.0-3.5 range need some minutes at midterms (if you start with 0), but 3.5+ is almost always good to go with none, in my experience.  Very little downside to pushing the buck on the smart kids.  They won't come back with a 1.2 midterm if you leave 0 in SH.

And yeah, the excellent message just says "he's an excellent student in the classroom and on the court."  As far as I know, that only impacts college GPA and IQ development.  I definitely consider HS GPA, on about the same level as peripherals like Passing in bigs.

Huh.  I'm going to have to keep an eye on that more, especially with my experiment of adding in a little bit of press as a secondary defense.

Dave - yes, to me HS GPA is an indicator for IQ growth.  I have a sneaking suspicion that a low GPA/below avg student leads to slower WE growth, but that might be me just not liking how one particular guy has grown despite starting for 2 straight years.

Anyway, I'd still take a 99 WE, 2.0 GPA guy over a 4.0 and a 5 WE.