WBRZ - Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE- Bad grades has put some sports programs at Southern University on punishment.

The NCAA has banned eight teams at Southern University, including football and men's basketball, from post-season play for one year. And, the football program lost 9 of it's 63 scholarships.

The university has been warned before about low grades in several sports in years past, but this year the school got serious penalties.

To help improve the grades, interim Athletic Director Sandy Pugh and her administration have started implementing a three pronged approach called the Student First Initiative - Academic Reform where:

• Higher expectations are placed in incoming freshmen and transfer-student athletes.

• More monitoring will be provided through the university's Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence.

• And, they will implement an academic grade tracking system to help improve the student's academic progress and class attendance. It's a system the university has never had before.

Southern University wasn't alone, 58 sports programs at colleges across the country got punished. A quarter of those are in Louisiana.