Stockstill ranked in Top 10

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - CBSSports.com recently compiled and released the Academic Progress Rate rankings by FBS coaches and Middle Tennessee's Rick Stockstill was 10th nationally. Stockstill was the only coach in the top ten from the Sun Belt Conference and the state of Tennessee.

The top-10 coaches were: Clemson's Dabo Swinney (1st, 988), Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald (2nd, 986), Navy's Ken Niumatalolo (3rd, 981), Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson (tied for 4th, 980), Rutgers' Greg Schiano (tied for 4th, 980), Air Force's Troy Calhoun (6th, 979), Boston College's Frank Spaziani (7th, 978), Duke's David Cutcliffe (8th, 976), Boise State's Chris Petersen (9th, 975), and Stockstill (10th, 973).

CBSSports.com compiled the APR averages of 109 of the 120 coaches in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) using data provided by the NCAA. CBSSports.com's study is based on the NCAA's available data between 2003-04 and 2009-10 so 11 coaches debuting this season were not included.

Since Stockstill's arrival in late 2005, the programs APR score has made the biggest jump of any school in the country. The team has also won two Sun Belt Conference academic awards while also seeing an Academic All-American and five Academic All-District honors.

Recently, the Blue Raiders were one of just 14 FBS football programs honored by the NCAA for its Academic Public Recognition. Among the 14, eight were from automatic qualifying conferences and six came from the non-automatic qualifying leagues.

Friend of the Blue Raiders? Like us on Facebook and become part of the True Blue army today.