I really don't understand how student athletes fail out of CU... I mean, it's not like we are Stanford. We DO have some bs majors available if your goal is to just stay academically eligible for football
To start with the academic "burden" on athletes at Stanford isn't comparable to their regular student body either. Both schools, as do all competing at a BCS level have extensive academic resources available to assist any athlete who wants to succeed. There are easier majors at virtually all schools. Bottom line is that most kids with a legitimate HS education should with some effort on their parts be able to at least stay eligible and have a shot at earning a degree at CU and at most schools.
Usually when kids don't make it they have choosen not to take advantage of the resources available. The don't go to class, to study sessions, to tutoring. They use that resource time for sleep or worse.
Sometimes this is because they lack discipline, sometimes it is because they don't adapt to a strange environment without their personal support system to keep them in line.
There are also some kids who even with all the resources are not ready to do even the easiest college level work. Some high schools coddle and enable athletes to keep them eligible to play at that level. Some of these use the excuse that they are "keeping the kid in school" but ignoring the fact that going to school without getting an education is not much better than not going to school at all.
Many years back when I was coaching at the HS level we had a kid who transfered in from a DPS school. Kid was a phenominal athlete, good enough that Miami (FL) was interested in him. Unfortunately he had done close to zero school work for a few years and while he was intelligent enough he wasn't even close to HS level skills. We ended up finnagling him into a special ed program where he could get some intensive academic work at the level he was at. We were never able to get him to a level where he could qualify for an NCAA scholly which he would have easily gotten based on his athletic ability. He was at least able to go to a JC and finished a trade program.
The point on this is that had he stayed at his old school they would have figured out a way to "get him through" giving him passing grades. He was intelligent enough that he might even have been coached enough to get a qualifying score on his test and been signed to a solid D1 program. At this point he would have gone to that school and even with all the help ended up failing to keep up enough to maintain eligibility and flunked out.
I don't have any idea why Jeff or any number of these other guys didn't make it academically but it is a more complex issue often than just "He didn't try." Remember that Okie State gave Dexter Manley a degree and he couldn't read.
Jeff and his family seem like really nice people. I hope that he can go home, assess where he is at, and then get himself an education and go on to a successful life. I wish that had included some big games as a Buff but I guess it wasn't meant to be.
