Coaches APR released

The NCAA on Thursday released the APR for coaches of six sports at Division I schools ... OK, I may have lost you already. Here's what you need to know:

APR is Academic Progress Rate, which the NCAA has been using as a measure to determine whether programs are retaining and keeping athletes eligible. If they're not over a consistent period of time, the program loses scholarships, or worse.

This latest release tracks specific coaches, not the programs. For instance, Georgia men's basketball coach Mark Fox is tracked during his years at Nevada and the last month or so of the 2008-09 school year, after he was hired as Georgia's coach. Whether it's fair or not, the NCAA included such figures, since they were overseeing the program at the tail end of the spring semester.

(Figures for the 2009-10 school year are not available yet.)

There are no specific ramifications for these coaches' figures. It's just a way of holding the coaches accountable. To that end, you can look at the table and see whether a coach has had his team's APR above or below the national average each year.

In Fox's case, it makes it very complicated, since it lists both the APR for the 2008-09 school year at both Nevada (938) and Georgia (980). But for the four complete seasons he was at Nevada, his teams were above the average national APR three times.

Got all that? It's OK if you don't.

As for Mark Richt, since he's entering his 10th year at Georgia, the figures are basically just a rehash. For the six full seasons that APR has been measured, Richt's teams have been above the national average - in some cases well above the average - all six years.