Oklahoma State’s rebuilding process just got harder.
OSU was the lone Big 12 school to receive a level one penalty when the NCAA APR scores for 2012-2013 were released on Wednesday afternoon. The Cowboys football program is expected to lose one practice day per week this fall after failing to meet APR standards.
OSU had an average score of 929.41 over the past four years and 943.54 over two years. A school is subject to a postseason ban if it does not earn a four-year average of 930 or two-year average of 940. The Cowboys’ two-year average allows them to escape a postseason ban but the four-year average sparked the practice restriction.
The OSU football team posted scores of 916 in 2009-10, 915 in 2010-11, 953 in 2011-12 and 934 in 2012-13.
“We have shown significant improvement over the last two years,” OSU Senior Associate Athletic Director for Compliance Kevin Fite said in a release. “We were able to demonstrate that we’ve taken strategies to address the areas where we were losing points. That’s why we received partial relief from the standard penalty.”
The penalty couldn’t have come at a worst time for OSU, which features a roster full of young players who need every practice repetition they can get. The Cowboys return 10 starters who have combined to start 129 games. OSU lost 17 players with starting experience from the 2013 squad with those players combining to start 493 games for the Cowboys.
Ideally the Cowboys would sacrifice a practice early in the week to ensure their game preparation on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is not disrupted. But with such a young team, the loss of previous game review time early in the week, to learn and correct mistakes on the field, could be a major setback for Mike Gundy’s squad.
Around the league, Kansas State leads the conference’s football programs with a 968 APR in the past four years. Oklahoma is second at 965 followed by Kansas (959), Baylor (957), Iowa State (948), Texas (947) and TCU (945).
West Virginia (942) and Texas Tech (932) joined Oklahoma State in the bottom three of the Big 12.