College Football Program Banned From Postseason Gets NCAA Lifeline

The NCAA is allowing the Akron Zips return to College Football's postseason during the 2026/2027 academic calendar after previously not meeting the minimum standard for the organization's Academic Progress Rate (APR).

Per ESPN's Pete Thamel, "Akron has received a waiver from the NCAA that will allow the football program to be eligible for the football postseason next year. Akron was ineligible last year because of the program’s multi-year APR score."

Akron not only struggled on the field during the 2023 College Football season under Joe Moorhead, finishing with a 2-10 record and 1-7 mark in MAC conference play, but the Zips struggled mightily off of it. Moorhead righted the ship in 2024, where Akron went 4-8 and had an APR of 962.

They had fallen to 914 over a multi-year span but have corrected course since. In 2025, Moorhead enjoyed his finest record in northeastern Ohio to date, at 5-7. With Akron's ascent, it makes sense to reinstate them ahead of what could be the first bowl game for the Zips since 2017.

The Zips were suspended for the 2025/2026 postseason last May. Per The Associated Press, "The NCAA temporarily suspended some APR penalties, including postseason bans, because of the COVID-19 pandemic that began disrupting college athletics in the spring of 2020.

The NCAA's Committee on Academics voted to restore such penalties beginning with four-year scores released during the 2024-25 academic year."

What Does APR Mean in College Football?

APR is officially defined by the NCAA as "part of an ambitious academic reform effort in Division I," which "holds institutions accountable for the academic progress of their student-athletes through a team-based metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of each student-athlete for each academic term."

APR is a way to account for transfers and was chosen over graduation rate to more accurately account for academic success. Of course, there are likely issues within it that make these numbers not totally indicative of reality, but it was designed to catch culture-wide trends.

Clearly, Moorhead was not holding players accountable in any way. If the Zips were not one of the most downtrodden teams in the MAC, Akron probably would've moved on from him before the program's recent small steps forward.

It's good that the Zips are postseason eligible. The next natural progression for this team should be actually making a bowl game after a portal window that saw players come from or leave for top Power 4 brands like the Texas Longhorns, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Missouri Tigers, and Auburn Tigers.