Since 2001? Don’t make me laugh. This scam was going on when I attended UMass in the 60s. Football heroes somehow never seemed to have to go to class or do homework, but they all got good grades as Phys Ed majors. They had their own Animal House, Kappa Sig, which threw a 24/7 party that often spilled out and ran amok into my dorm, neighboring Gorman House, when the lumbering drunken animals threw beer at us, smashed-out window screens, and roughed-up some smaller kids just for yuks. I have no reason to believe it ever stopped.
I finished Tebow’s book this summer, and while I admire him as a fine Christian gentleman, he makes it pretty clear that he majored in football and academics were something you needed to do to stay in the program.