SAN JOSE — A losing record didn’t stop San Jose State from advancing to the postseason with a winning formula.

The Spartans are one of three 5-7 teams appearing in bowl games this year because of work in the classroom as much as on the football field.

“I’m delighted the students earned it with their No. 2 pencils,” interim president Susan Martin said this week.

The invitation to play in the Cure Bowl on Saturday in Orlando, Florida, represents a major transformation for a school once on the verge of disbanding a century-old football program because of academic ineptness.

San Jose State will help open the postseason against Georgia State because of Academic Progress Rate scores instead of yards gained and lost.

When NCAA officials didn’t have enough schools with a minimum of six victories to fill 80 bowl slots, it turned to teams with losing records.

They chose the three with the best APR scores — Nebraska, Minnesota and San Jose State. (Missouri declined to participate despite posting the second-best score).

How the Spartans reached their first bowl under coach Ron Caragher is a lesson for any school lagging behind in academics.

“It just took what had to be done and what could be done,” former coach Dick Tomey said.

It hardly seemed possible a decade ago.

Wake-up call

NCAA officials implemented the APR formula in 2003 as a way of measuring a school’s ability to keep athletes on track to graduate.

When Don Kassing became San Jose State’s interim president in 2004, he didn’t know much about the new academic standard.

He got a preview of what was to come a day before the 2004 season opener at Stanford. Six players were declared ineligible because of what then-coach Fitz Hill has described as a paperwork issue by school administrators.

Hill recounted in a book that he wanted to forfeit the game. Kassing talked his coach out of the idea, and the Spartans lost 43-3.

A few days later, legendary coach Bill Walsh met Kassing in his office.

“You guys are pathetic,” the former Spartans player told the president.

“And we were pathetic,” Kassing said.

It was about to get worse. The school had hired athletic director Tom Bowen and Tomey by the end of 2004. Neither appreciated the dire situation until the first report card arrived.

The Spartans posted APR scores in the 800s. Back then, a score of 925 out of 1,000 predicted about a 50 percent graduation rate. It’s now 930.

NCAA officials stripped San Jose State of scholarships and threatened a bowl ban. It led the school’s faculty senate to question the value of fielding a football program. Tomey wondered if he would have a team.

“When we got there, it just needed a wake-up call,” said Tomey, now an athletic administrator at South Florida. “We got that wake-up call.”

A painful one at that.

By the time the 2009 season opened, the Spartans had lost a total of 57 scholarships over the four-year period.

“It’s like trying to pull up test scores where you have an F,” Kassing said. “Poor Dick Tomey just got clobbered.”

But Tomey, Bowen and Kassing built a legacy before they left the school.

Kassing increased the academic support staff in 2005, and Bowen implemented weekly grade and attendance checks. Players who became academically ineligible would have their financial aid withdrawn.

The school also was less willing to recruit at-risk students who were exceptional football players. Classroom success overshadowed winning games.

“It is a firm line in the sand of what we’re willing to do,” said Katie Bason, a former learning specialist now at Colorado.

Academics-first culture

After Tomey retired in 2009, the school hired Mike MacIntrye to continue the mission.

The new coach helped introduce a summer bridge program for incoming freshmen to indoctrinate them into the academics-first culture.

He also brought in Bason, a North Carolina schoolteacher who became such a valued asset that MacIntrye recruited her to Colorado when taking over the Buffaloes’ program in 2013.

Bason, Colorado’s director of football academics, recently received a handful of notes from Spartans she helped when they were freshmen.

They didn’t contact her about the Cure Bowl invitation. The players wanted to know if Bason could make their graduation ceremonies.

San Jose State has not backed off the newfound emphasis on academics now that it no longer faces NCAA penalties.

Current athletic director Gene Bleymaier and Caragher have incentives built into their contracts tied to the team’s academic progress scores.

Bleymaier said the challenge isn’t over despite the big gains. Until San Jose State reaches the 1,000-point mark, “there is work to be done,” he said.

Liz Jarnigan, the associate athletic director for student services, agrees.

“It’s like keeping weight off during the holidays,” she said of the constant struggle.

The former volleyball coach uses a sports metaphor to explain the goal.

“We want to coach them up and not just survive,” Jarnigan said. “If the GPA is 3.2, it could be 3.7.”

And now the players understand it could be the difference between appearing in a bowl game or staying home.

Contact Elliott Almond at 408-920-5865. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/elliottalmond.