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The UA football team lost four scholarships as punishment for receiving a failing grade Wednesday in an academic report issued by the NCAA.

The Wildcats' score of 893 on the Academic Progress Rate report is below the Division I football average of 931. A score of 925 equals a 60 percent graduation rate by the NCAA's standards. The NCAA compiles an APR, which measures eligibility and retention of student athletes.

Arizona, which also lost four scholarships last year, was the only school in the Pac-10 to be penalized. Three of the four scholarships must be revoked from the alottment of this year's recruiting class.

Perhaps anticipating the report, the UA did not recruit the maximum amount of players (85) for the upcoming season. As such, no incoming players will lose scholarships because of Wednesday's report.

The annual report measured the 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06 academic years. In 2003 alone, the UA had three football coaches — John Mackovic, interim coach Mike Hankwitz and current coach Mike Stoops, who was hired that November.

Stoops was out of town Wednesday and unavailable for comment.

"Unfortunately, we just got ourselves in a big hole when the APR program started out," said UA associate athletic director Kathleen "Rocky" LaRose, who assembles the school's academic reports for the NCAA. "When you have three coaching changes in one year and make the right decision to stick to your recruiting commitments — and you let your new coach recruit who he can at the end of that year — you have to fulfill those commitments."

The Wildcats' punishment places them in rare company. Consider:

● No other football team from a Bowl Championship Series conference received a penalty.

● The UA football team was one of 112 teams nationwide to be punished.

● Only 10 other football programs — Florida International, Georgia Southern, Middle Tennessee State, Murray State, Northern Arizona, San Jose State, Southeast Missouri State, Buffalo, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Toledo — lost as many or more scholarships as the Wildcats.

The UA did show some APR improvement, however, in another sport.

The baseball program, which lost 1.7 scholarships last year, lost none Wednesday, leaving coach Andy Lopez "ecstatic."

The coach said he agreed with the concept of the APR. "You should go to class; you should get your degree," he said. But he contended that baseball is in a tough situation because players can be drafted after their third year of college. He joked that some players awaiting a $1.5 million payday might be tempted to miss their 8 a.m. classes.

"It's a Catch-22 for us," Lopez said. "Do we go out and recruit guys who are first- and second-rounders or do we get beat?" he said. "Do we not go get those players and … never have an APR issue again? We might never win a game."

LaRose said she knows that the football score will draw the most attention, even though sports such as women's tennis and gymnastics posted good scores.

"We do not like to see these numbers, and we know what the headline is going to be," she said. "That's not the face of Arizona athletics, and it's not the face of a majority of our student-athletes."

She maintained the football program is the victim of a numbers game, the chaos of 2003 still dragging down the average score.

"I think we've got all the tools in place to get better," she said. "We don't want to panic. We have taken this very seriously. We're looking at every angle."

The school is "continuing to work on academic progress for football, and Mike Stoops and his staff are working diligently to improve their student-athletes' academic performance," athletic director Jim Livengood said in a news release.

Livengood touted the hiring of Roger Grooters two weeks ago as a positive development. Grooters is the new director of C.A.T.S. (Commitment for Athletes' Total Success), the athletic department's academic services wing that was launched in March 2006.

Grooters said Wednesday he plans to expand the tutorial program, add a layer of help for study skills and hire a third learning specialist. He also plans to improve technology to help tutors with the flow of information.

"All I can do right now is really focus on what I see as where our program is, and what we can do to make it better," Grooters said. "I think in time we get to where we want to be."