Academic Achievement is restricted to private schools?

According to the American Football Coaches Association, Southern Methodist University graduated 100% of it's 2000-2001 incoming freshman football class. This is great for SMU, and they deserve the award. Five schools graduated over 90% of that incoming class: Boston College, Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Southern Mississippi.

One of these schools is not like the others: of these six, only Southern Mississippi is a public school.

Twenty-three other schools graduated at least 70% of their 2000-2001 class, and the majority of those are public schools -- including Cal. However, since the majority of Div IA schools in the US are public, I'm having trouble feeling pleased about these graduation rates. Two of the foremost academic universities in the nation -- California and Virginia -- graduated over 70% of their players who entered in the 2000-2001 school year. These two schools are also regularly ranked in the top 20 of universities nation-wide, and as top 100 universities globally. It stands to reason that a student attending one of these two schools is also interested in an excellent education.

When you look at the historical data for this award, things get even worse: since 1981, only three times have public schools won it: Virginia, twice (1985 & 1986), and Kentucky (1989). The rest of the winners are the likes of Notre Dame, Northwestern, and Duke: excellent schools, all of them, and all private, with tuition and board prices of over $35,000 and billion-dollar endowments. These schools are not subject to the vagaries of their respective state legislatures.