[BostonCard]

I would strongly suspect that the median unweighted GPAs/test scores/etc. of scholarship football players are lower than they are for partial scholarship or non-scholarship players in much less prominent sports.

That's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, because the demographics of a lot of other sports cater to upper middle class or wealthy families, who, on average, are going to have children with higher conventional academic achievement (grades/test scores), so a comparison of average GPAs/scores would not be appropriate.  You are probably still correct, however, that the lower bound (let's call it the threshold of grades/scores where, on average 50% of the athletes will be accepted) is probably higher for the "Sears Cup" sports than for football and men's basketball.  But even then, how much of that is due to football itself and how much of it is due to bias.  If you are an admissions officer, and you see that in the women's golf team there are a bunch of women who have 3.9 GPAs and 1400+ SATs, and you are looking at a more borderline candidate, it is hard not to compare and note that compared to the women who are already on the team that the applicant falls short.

BC

---

I would guess that out of the universe of recruits who are good enough from a strictly football perspective (for argument sake, let's say mid-3* or higher), than somewhere between 10 to 20% would be admissible if the staff approached them at a typical time (junior year) and informed them of what they would need to do in order to get admission.  Of the 80 - 90% who are not admissible, some of them could but elect not to put in the work (taking AP classes, re-taking SAT, if necessary, etc.), and some (most) of them would not be admissible even if they tried (grades already too low, no matter how many times they retook the SAT they wouldn't be able to score high enough, etc.).

The numbers are clearly there.  There are 1367 recruits with a 247 rating of 0.85 or higher (0.85 is the midpoint of 3* ratings, which range from ≥0.8 to <0.9), so even 10% would give you 136 recruits to work with, including about 35 4* + (generally the top 350) .  The key is a) identifying the recruits who have high enough academic and football potential, b) letting them know what they need to do to gain admission and, if necessary, convincing the ones who are on the fence to do it, c) ensure you close on the ones who are admitted and d) drink your coffee.  The key is starting the process early enough and managing the recruits so you get the right numbers and position distribution.

BC

[BostonCard]

I would strongly suspect that the median unweighted GPAs/test scores/etc. of scholarship football players are lower than they are for partial scholarship or non-scholarship players in much less prominent sports.

That's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, because the demographics of a lot of other sports cater to upper middle class or wealthy families, who, on average, are going to have children with higher conventional academic achievement (grades/test scores), so a comparison of average GPAs/scores would not be appropriate.  You are probably still correct, however, that the lower bound (let's call it the threshold of grades/scores where, on average 50% of the athletes will be accepted) is probably higher for the "Sears Cup" sports than for football and men's basketball.  But even then, how much of that is due to football itself and how much of it is due to bias.  If you are an admissions officer, and you see that in the women's golf team there are a bunch of women who have 3.9 GPAs and 1400+ SATs, and you are looking at a more borderline candidate, it is hard not to compare and note that compared to the women who are already on the team that the applicant falls short.

BC

---

I would guess that out of the universe of recruits who are good enough from a strictly football perspective (for argument sake, let's say mid-3* or higher), than somewhere between 10 to 20% would be admissible if the staff approached them at a typical time (junior year) and informed them of what they would need to do in order to get admission.  Of the 80 - 90% who are not admissible, some of them could but elect not to put in the work (taking AP classes, re-taking SAT, if necessary, etc.), and some (most) of them would not be admissible even if they tried (grades already too low, no matter how many times they retook the SAT they wouldn't be able to score high enough, etc.).

The numbers are clearly there.  There are 1367 recruits with a 247 rating of 0.85 or higher (0.85 is the midpoint of 3* ratings, which range from ≥0.8 to <0.9), so even 10% would give you 136 recruits to work with, including about 35 4* + (generally the top 350) .  The key is a) identifying the recruits who have high enough academic and football potential, b) letting them know what they need to do to gain admission and, if necessary, convincing the ones who are on the fence to do it, c) ensure you close on the ones who are admitted and d) drink your coffee.  The key is starting the process early enough and managing the recruits so you get the right numbers and position distribution.

BC