Today, Wednesday, April 20th, the Academic Progress Report, or APR, numbers for thousands of college athletic programs were released to the public. For many, as long as the number doesn't get their favorite team into trouble, it's hardly worth mentioning.

However, such numbers are very important to every single athletic program under the NCAA banner. A couple of bad academic years could keep a program out of the post season or limit the amount of practice time or scholarships they could use.

So what is this APR?

The APR is the NCAA method of making sure student-athletes stay in class. Think of it as basically a retention percentage for a team. You can read on how APR is calculated here.

Basically, every student-athlete who received any kind of of athletically-related financial aid is worth two points. One for being academically eligible and one for staying on the program through the full term. You take the points earned, divide it by the max points possible, multiply that number by 1,000 and you have a single-year APR score.

The publicized number is a delayed four-year rolling average; the numbers released in 2016 are for the period ending with the 2014-15 academic term, which is done to ensure accuracy. So one bad academic season won't hinder a program, but two or more will have long-term repercussions.

There have also been alterations to the APR process, which include bonus points for returning scholarship student-athletes who get their degree and those who transfer after the spring semester. That timeline can be read here.

Starting two years ago, the average score threshold for post-season bans raised from 900 to 930, with a waiver for programs whose last two years' average was above 940. Now the standard is just a four-year score of 930. Teams who fall below the 930 benchmark also incur NCAA punishments regarding practice time, scholarship limitations or even termination of coaches in tiers, which is explained here.

The NCAA once said a four-year rolling score of 930 equates to 50% of a team graduating, but that isn't a strict marker.

For each team covered here at UnderdogDynasty.com, we have made a chart showing the last four years of APR scores. These are the four-year rolling averages, not the individual scores. The year in parenthesis is the year that score was released. The "2014-15 (2016)" scores are the ones just released today.

Independents

2011-12 (2013) 2012-13 (2014) 2013-14 (2015) 2014-15 (2016) Army 971 976 981 989 Coastal Carolina 936 948 963 969 UMass 935 932 937 939

Yes we're counting Coastal Carolina as an independent as they will be an "FCS Independent" next season as they begin the FBS transition process.

American Athletic

2011-12 (2013) 2012-13 (2014) 2013-14 (2015) 2014-15 (2016) Cincinnati 943 944 962 967 East Carolina 945 941 950 943 Houston 937 937 941 944 Memphis 937 940 951 968 Navy 968 971 974 982 SMU 945 944 947 945 South Florida 970 973 970 958 Temple 963 963 969 971 Tulane 960 968 972 970 Tulsa 929 934 941 944 UConn 958 957 960 969 UCF 975 978 977 983

Conference USA

2011-12 (2013) 2012-13 (2014) 2013-14 (2015) 2014-15 (2016) Charlotte ----- ----- 943 955 FAU 932 940 943 942 FIU 930 933 933 938 Louisiana Tech 951 941 941 934 Marshall 948 948 959 970 MTSU 972 972 973 974 North Texas 951 954 970 984 Old Dominion 933 942 951 953 Rice 979 975 973 974 Southern Miss 942 940 949 955 UAB 950 943 ----- ----- UTEP 917 928 954 973 UTSA 942 945 961 956 WKU 950 952 947 950

-Charlotte did not have an active football program with scholarship student-athletes until the 2012 season (started playing in 2013) and thus did not have APR scores until 2013-14.

-UTEP did not incur any penalties in 2013 due to the post-season penalties line still being at 900 as well as 2014 due to having a most-recent two-year APR over 940.

-UAB discontinued their football program in December 2015 and thus, didn't release football APR scores in 2015. The program will return with scholarship student-athletes in Fall 2016 (restart playing in Fall 2017) and have APR scores again in 2018.

Sun Belt

2011-12 (2013) 2012-13 (2014) 2013-14 (2015) 2014-15 (2016) Appalachian State 967 963 960 955 Arkansas State 938 938 951 950 Georgia Southern 939 958 943 940 Georgia State 948 940 940 944 Louisiana-Lafayette 956 951 953 950 Idaho 919 901 896 904 New Mexico State 916 915 931 935 South Alabama 932 933 943 947 Texas State 949 956 958 961 Troy 921 931 937 937 ULM 940 951 969 967

-In 2014, Idaho was put on Level 1 penalties (going from 20 to 16 practice hours a week) and given a post-season ban for scoring below a 930 four-year APR.

-In 2014, New Mexico State was put on Level 1 penalties (going from 20 to 16 practice hours a week), but was not given a post-season ban for scoring below a 930 four-year APR as they met the "Limited-Resource Institution" four-year benchmark of 910 in 2014. At least I believe so, since there was no given explanation otherwise.

-In 2015, Idaho was granted a waiver of no penalties despite a four-year APR score of 896 due to a single-year APR score of 948 for the 2013-14 academic term.

-For this season, while Idaho is still below the threshold of 930 at 904, they aren't being penalized according to their public report. Probably due to the 957 single-year score.