48 SMU Players Had Low Test Scores

Nearly half the football players Southern Methodist University admitted between 1980 and 1984 would not have been eligible as freshmen had the NCAA’s new admission standards been in place then, their test scores indicate.

Of the 114 football players SMU admitted during that time, 48--or 42%--had test scores below the standards adopted by the NCAA last week, the Dallas Times Herald reported today.

After a two-year phase-in period, the NCAA will require athletes to have at least a 700 score on the SAT or a 15 score on the ACT along with a 2.0 grade-point average in a core curriculum.

Athletic Director Bob Hitch said SMU’s own study of the scores produced slightly different figures, but he declined to provide them.