The University of Wisconsin will have to improve the academic standings of its student-athletes or it will face NCAA repercussions, according to a report released by the University of Central Florida earlier this week.

Richard Lapchick, director of UCF's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, accumulated the Academic Progress Rate (APR) data for each of the 56 bowl-bound college football teams.

APR, the vital statistic in the NCAA's academic-reform plans, is designed to accurately reflect the number of student-athletes who meet academic-eligibility standards and remain with their school.

According to Lapchick's report, 23 of the 56 teams, including UW, failed to surpass NCAA's benchmark score of 925, which correlates to an expected graduation rate of roughly 50 percent.

UW dismissed the findings.

"We don't like to get caught up in statistical measurements that are difficult," UW Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Relations Vince Sweeney said. "From an overall standpoint, we're very proud of [the] achievement of our student-athletes."

NCAA spokesperson Kent Barrett declined to comment on the credibility of Lapchick's report but did acknowledge he used data provided by the association.

"The more important thing than his report … is that we're gauging whether individual teams and institutions are making the grade with their athletes," Barrett said. "The NCAA is using a new scoring mechanism to possibly penalize some institutions or some teams within an institution that aren't graduating their athletes."

Introduced this summer, Barrett said the new standards have been "pretty controversial" and noted some coaches have already expressed some concern about the upcoming penalties, which will include stripping teams of athletic scholarships.

"It's really a new way of penalizing people," he said. "Before, if a student didn't make the grade, an institution didn't really get penalized."

Because of the novelty of the new process and its desire to begin imposing penalties for this academic year, the NCAA will start out by acknowledging a margin of error, which will likely buy UW more time to lift its APR above 925.

"Schools can actually fall below that and still be OK if they fall [inside] the margin of error," Barrett said. "But after four years that margin of error will be eliminated."

Sweeney applauded the NCAA for its commitment to holding its member institutions to proper academic standards, while still providing a "phase-in" period as schools adjust to the new system.

"We're working with the NCAA to make the necessary adjustments," Sweeney said. "We think we'll be fine when it does become a benchmark that everyone needs to be holding to."

If Lapchick's calculations are correct, however, certain high-profile football programs do fall outside the margin of error and could lose some athletic scholarships sooner rather than later.

Among the greatest offenders are Ohio State University, the University of Alabama, the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Oregon and Lapchick's own UCF.

"If there were a national championship for graduation rates among bowl teams, Northwestern and Boston College would have played for the national championship," Lapchick said in a release. "If there was a national championship based on APR rates, Navy and Rutgers would have played."

The actual national championship will feature the University of Texas, with a respectable score of 934, against the University of Southern California, which posted a 910 — within the margin of error. UW received a 916.

"I think it's a good idea to try and put academics at the forefront, I think that's a very good idea," Sweeney said. "How it can be done with the large base of schools that they're trying to manage gets to be a bit unwieldy, and it's hard to come up with a system that doesn't have some issues."