To coincide with the beginning of college football, The Wall Street Journal released its annual article and accompanying graph, “College Football’s Grid of Shame,” last week. The graph has four quadrants with the horizontal axis ranging from “weakling” to “powerhouse” and the vertical axis ranging from “embarrassing” to “admirable.”
(source)
Our beloved UNC fell into the fourth quadrant — more specifically the bottom-right. The WSJ recognized that we were, indeed, a powerhouse, but felt that we were a pretty big embarrassment.
The article adds that the weakling versus powerhouse traits come from how good the team is expected to be using basic knowledge as well as statistics. The vertical axis, or “shame meter,” is where academic performance, behavior and, of course, scandals are taken into consideration. That, my friends, is why UNC is ranked in the lower, bottom-right quadrant.
Although we are predicted to be a very good team this year, the WSJ won’t let us forget the giant NCAA cloud looming overhead (although I doubt anyone would let us forget that).
In response to the article, I went to campus to ask fellow students what they thought about the graph and whether they thought we should feel "embarrassed” or not.
Anika Khan
