Blacks make up 85% of freshmen football...

Blacks make up 85% of freshmen football players who will be ineligible to play this fall because of the NCAA’s Proposition 48 academic regulations, the Dallas Times Herald reported.

A Times Herald survey of all 105 football programs in the NCAA’s Division I-A shows that 9% of 2,227 incoming freshmen--206 in all--failed to meet requirements for standardized test scores and grade-point average on 11 basic high school classes. Of those 206 players, 175 are black.

Also hit hard were two predominantly black conferences--the Southwestern Athletic Conference and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference--in NCAA Division I-AA. Thirty-five of 119 Mid-Eastern recruits and 53 of 183 SWAC freshmen are ineligible.

Bethune-Cookman College of Daytona Beach, Fla., lost 11 of 16 recruits. Alabama State lost 15 of 22. Grambling lost 14 of 28.

Among major conferences, 21 of the 22 ineligible athletes in the Southwest Conference are black, as are 10 of 11 in the Pac-10, all 25 in the Southeastern Conference, 14 of 15 in the Big Ten, 21 of 23 in the Big Eight and all 12 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.