The University of Louisville football team was one of six programs that will share the American Football Coaches Association 2019 Academic Achievement Award, which is presented by the Touchdown Club of Memphis.
Joining the Cardinals in winning the award are: Air Force, Alabama, Clemson, Rice and Utah.
All six schools recorded a perfect 1,000 for their single-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) for 2017-18. This is the first time Louisville has been honored for the award, which will be presented to Head Coach Scott Satterfield during the Honors Luncheon on Monday, January 13, at the 2020 AFCA Convention in Nashville.
This is the second year that the NCAA’s single-year APR has been used to select a winner. The APR holds institutions accountable for the academic progress of their student-athletes through a team-based metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of each student-athlete for each academic term.
The APR is calculated as follows: Each student-athlete receiving athletically related financial aid earns one point for staying in school and one point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are divided by points possible and then multiplied by 1,000 to equal the team’s Academic Progress Rate.
From 1981 to 2007, the award was presented based on a formula used by the College Football Association and the AFCA. From 2008 to 2017, the AFCA used the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate to select a winner.
The Academic Achievement Award was established by the College Football Association in 1981. The award recognized the CFA-member Football Bowl Subdivision institution with the highest graduation rate among members of its football team. When the CFA disbanded in 1997, the AFCA stepped in to present the award.
