For reference, I've worked in higher education for 15 years now, including the last 5 at USC. So I have a little experience here. Acceptance rates have little to do with academic requirements. The primary reason most schools are hard to get into is way too many applications for the available number of spots. At UCLA, they received nearly 140,000 freshman applications for 2021. So when only 14% are accepted, people look at that and say "Ooh, they must be a great school." Sure, UCLA is a very good school, but is it Harvard? Not remotely. Conversely, UGA only received about 40,000 applications for roughly the same number of spots. So looking at acceptance rates tells you almost nothing about how academically rigorous a school is.
And schools already make exceptions for athletes. Always have, always will.