Graduation Rates for Wolverine, Spartan Football Players Revealed

As an infamous quarterback from the Ohio State Buckeyes once said, "We ain't come to play school."

For some Power 4 college football programs, that's not far from the truth. For Ohio State, they're about as average as can be for seeing their football players reaching graduation at 87%.

A graphic shared by College Football Report on X revealed the graduation rates for every Power 4 college football program since 2016 and the results weren't exactly surprising. Players who opted to join reputable academic programs seemed to graduate much more often than those who didn't.

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That said, no one team was perfect. The Clemson Tigers, which are notoriously operated in a traditional fashion by head coach Dabo Swinney, enjoy the highest graduation rate in the country at 99%.

As for the two Big Ten Michigan programs, the Michigan Wolverines outpaced most of the Big Ten, including their rivals from East Lansing, the Michigan State Spartans.

The Wolverines have a graduation rate of 89%, tied for the 10th-best percentage in the country and the fourth-best percentage in the Big Ten behind Northwestern, Penn State, and Minnesota.

The Spartans are on the other end of the spectrum. Michigan State only graduated 69% of their players, tied for the fourth-worst percentage in the nation and only better than UCLA in the Big Ten. Bear in mind, the Bruins have only been in the conference officially for a month, so in full technicality, the Spartans were at the bottom of the barrel in the conference for the entirety of the run for these stats.

Here's how the Big Ten faired altogether:

1. Northwestern: 97%
2. Penn State: 93%
3. Minnesota: 90%
4. Michigan: 89%
5. Nebraska: 89%
6. Wisconsin: 89%
7. Illinois: 87%
8. Indiana: 87%
9. Ohio State: 87%
10. Washington: 84%
11. Iowa: 81:
12. Oregon: 80%
13. Rutgers: 80%
14. USC: 80%
15. Purdue: 78%
16. Maryland: 77%
17. Michigan State: 69%
18. UCLA: 64%

While Michigan State performed poorly in this area, at least they can take some solace in not drawing much attention from the graphic because of one SEC team: the Georgia Bulldogs, which only graduated 41% of players.

Check out the full graphic below.