Hard-hitting Frogs also hit the books

A quarter-century ago, when TCU set out to return to football glory, one nagging question was whether a private school focused on academics could also compete in football against the nation’s wealthy and mighty state universities.

For inspiration and hope, Horned Frogs fans looked to student-athletes at the University of Southern California, Stanford, Miami and Northwestern. All managed to not only compete but excel, along with those at historic Notre Dame and schools such as Boston College, Duke and Vanderbilt.

Judging from the new rankings by a Washington, D.C., education-policy think tank, TCU has not only succeeded but starred.

TCU has America’s No. 1 academic football team, ranked by the New America Foundation.

In other words, the Horned Frogs are better than anybody who’s smarter than they are, and smarter than the five teams ranked ahead of them by the College Football Playoff Selection Committee.

Going into Wednesday morning’s Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl game against Mississippi — which ranks second from the bottom academically among the football top 25 — TCU led the nation based on players’ graduation rate compared to students overall.

In fact, TCU football players are even more likely to graduate than other male students.

At TCU, 77 percent of football players graduated, according to the New America Foundation. That compares to 54 percent at the other two Big 12 Conference schools in the study, Kansas State (No. 10 academically) and football co-champion Baylor (No. 16 academically).

Six TCU players were named to the Academic All-Big 12 team for students with a grade-point average of 3.20 or higher. They are tight end Bryson Burnett, a business major from Springtown; safety Geoff Hooker, a mechanical engineering major from Sherman; tight end Buck Jones, a mechanical engineering major from Matthews, N.C.; placekicker Jaden Oberkrom, a psychology major from Arlington; tackle Joseph Noteboom, a computer information technology major from Plano; and second-team selection Joey Hunt, a center and a business major from El Campo.

Every graduation is a tribute to coach Gary Patterson and TCU’s commitment to prepare athletes for the world.

This story was originally published December 26, 2014 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Hard-hitting Frogs also hit the books."