From the 2015 article, Gurney (one of the instigators), says he now he wouldn't do it over again:
The argument in favor of class checkers is well known to Gerald Gurney, a professor of adult and higher education at the University of Oklahoma and president of the Drake Group, an organization pushing for more emphasis on academics in college sports. Gurney created the University of Oklahoma’s class checking program in 1994, when he was the university’s associate athletics director.
The program worked, he said in 2004, noting that there was a “direct correlation” between monitoring attendance in this way and improvements in athletes’ grades. But a decade later, Gurney said he only created the program at the behest of the football coach, and that he now regrets the decision. He said the practice covers up the underlying causes of athlete absences, including being overworked by coaches or being underprepared due to lax admission standards for athletes.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would certainly not do it,” Gurney said. “This is not how an educational opportunity for intercollegiate athletes is supposed to work. To actually waste money sending people to classes to make sure athletes are attending them borders on the absurd. It goes beyond babysitting. It’s craziness.”