from the Wall Street Journal:

Notre Dame (5-3) is at Wake Forest (5-3) Saturday, which—based on those schools’ performances in Graduation Success Rate—is the premier showdown of the college-football season.

If you’re not familiar with it, GSR is the metric the NCAA uses to determine the number of student-athletes on any team who actually earn a college degree. Unlike the federal graduation rate, the GSR takes into consideration transfer students, so long as they’re academically eligible.

In the latest report, which was released by the NCAA last week and was based on student-athletes who entered school from 2001 to 2004, Notre Dame’s overall GSR (99%) ranks No. 1 among the 120 major-college schools. Wake Forest (94%) is tied for No. 7. In terms of football GSR only, Notre Dame (97%) is first and Wake Forest (81%) is 16th.

But if you consider these school’s athletic programs as a whole, it’s No. 1 vs. No. 2. Eighteen of Notre Dame’s 22 teams (82%) got a perfect GSR score—the highest percentage nationally. Wake Forest’s 79% “perfection” rate is second-best. In case you’re wondering, 25% of Alabama’s teams received perfect scores (four out of 16), while just one of LSU’s 16 teams did.

—Andrew Kahn