The sad reality is that the main difference between UNC and everybody else is simply that UNC got caught.
If you compare the average incoming SAT scores of football/basketball players to those of real students it becomes patently obvious that the football/basketball players could not possibly keep up academically.
I wanted to flesh out this argument a little bit. Here is
an article from USNR. According to the article Football players average 220 points lower on the SAT than their classmates while men's basketball players average 227 points lower.
@OrangeAfroMan may be interested to know that Florida has the biggest gap between student body and football players at 346 points.
Georgia Tech had the highest SAT score for football players, 1028. Despite that accomplishment, GaTech's football players still had scores more than 300 points below those of their classmates.
The article also lists the top-10 highest SAT scores for football players:
- 1028, GaTech
- 997, OrSU
- 997, Michigan
- 993, UVA
- 974, PU
- 973, IU
- 968, Hawaii
- 967, Cal
- 966, Colo
- 964, Iowa
Then they listed the bottom 10:
- 878, OkSU
- 878, Louisville
- 890, Memphis
- 890, UF
- 901, TxTech
- 910, Ark
- 911, aTm
- 911, MissSt
- 916, WSU
- 917, MSU
Note that the top to bottom gap between the highest SAT scores for football players (GaTech at 1028) and the lowest SAT scores for football players (OkSU at 878) is only 150. Ie, the football vs overall gap at Florida (and many other schools) is larger than the overall gap between the highest and lowest scoring football players.
Similarly, the gap between the highest scoring football players in the B1G (Michigan at 997) and the lowest scoring football players in the B1G (MSU at 917) is a mere 80 points. I would wager that the gap between Michigan and Michigan State's football players is smaller than the gap between football and non-football at every single B1G school.
To illustrate that last point, Michigan, Purdue, Indiana, and Iowa look good while MSU looks bad on that "football player average" list but now compare that to the average incoming freshman at those schools:
- Michigan: Per Prep Scholar* the average incoming freshman has a 1450 SAT. This is 453 points higher than Michigan's average football player.
- Purdue: Per Prep Scholar the average incoming freshman has a 1300 SAT. This is 326 points higher than Purdue's average football player.
- Indiana: Per Prep Scholar the average incoming freshman has a 1240 SAT. This is 267 points higher than Indiana's average football player.
- Iowa: Per Prep Scholar the average incoming freshman has a 1220 SAT. This is 256 points higher than Iowa's average football player.
- Michigan State: Per Prep Scholar the average incoming freshman has a 1190 SAT. This is 273 points higher than Michigan State's average football player.
Note, as I assumed above, that the football vs average gaps of 256-453 dwarf the 80 point gap between Michigan's and MSU's football players.
I'll also add something that I noticed a long time ago. Note that when the USNR article mentions athletes it uses the term "football players" as opposed to "scholarship football players". I am fairly certain that the gap is actually worse and that it is partially masked by the existence of non-scholarship "practice squad" walk-ons at all of the schools. It stands to reason that the walk-ons probably have scores at least close to the student body average because all (or at least most) of them got in legitimately based on their academics. Thus, if you eliminated them from the "football average" the football average would be even worse.
The bottom line is that even Michigan's relatively higher achieving football players, on average, couldn't get in to Michigan State based on academics.
There is a lot of cheating and chicanery going on because it simply isn't possible for guys with 917-997 SAT scores to keep up academically in classes with classmates whose scores are substantially better. I do not like it, but I also strongly oppose the NCAA's incessant focus on graduation rates as the cure. Focusing on graduation rates effectively encourages the schools disregard the academic shortcomings of their athletes and pass their athletes through to graduation. I do not believe that the situation is helped by handing out free diploma's to athletes at the end of their four years regardless of their actual academic merit.
*I used Prep Scholar for the average for incoming freshman because it was the first credible looking site that popped up. That said, there is obviously something wrong because the UNNR article stated that Florida had the largest football vs average gap at 346 points but comparing Michigan's average per Prep Scholar to Michigan's football average per the article yields an even larger, 453 point gap.