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NACDA Directors' Cup

The NACDA Directors' Cup, known for sponsorship reasons as the NACDA Learfield Directors' Cup or simply as the Directors' Cup, is an award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics to the colleges and universities in the United States[a] with the most success in collegiate athletics. Points for the NACDA Directors' Cup are based on order of finish in various championships sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) or, in the case of Division I Football, media-based polls. A first-place finish in a sport earns 100 points, second place 90 points, third place 85 points, fourth place 80 points, and lesser values for lower finishes (exact numbers beyond fourth place depend on the sport and division.[1][2]

The award originated in 1993 and was presented to NCAA Division I schools only. In 1995, it was extended to Division II, Division III, and NAIA schools as well, then extended further to junior colleges in 2011 based on standings from the NATYCAA Cup.[3][4] Each division receives its own award.

The physical award is a Waterford Crystal trophy. Prior to 2003, the sponsor of the NACDA Directors' Cup was retail merchandiser Sears, and the award was known as the Sears Cup. Beginning in the 2003–04 season, the sponsor was the United States Sports Academy. In 2007–08, Learfield Sports assumed the sponsorship of the Directors' Cup. Learfield Sports rebranded to Learfield IMG College in 2016 and to simply Learfield in 2021.

  1. ^ The three Canadian universities which compete in the NCAA or NAIA, including Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, and University of Victoria, are also eligible for the award.

History

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill won the award in its inaugural year, but then Stanford University won the Division I award for 25 straight years until the streak was broken in 2020–21 by the University of Texas. Texas repeated in 2022, Stanford regained the cup in 2023, and Texas won again in 2024.

In Division II, UC Davis won six of the first eight awards, but its athletic program moved to Division I in 2003 and Grand Valley State has won 16 of the 19 awards since as of 2024 (the title went unawarded for two years due to COVID-19). The only other current Division II member with an award is 1999 winner Adams State. All other Division II winners (Bakersfield, California Baptist, and Grand Canyon) are now members of Division I.

Williams College has had by far the most success in Division III, having won the Cup 22 of the 27 times it has been awarded for that division. The only other D-III member with more than one Cup is 2023 and 2024 winner Johns Hopkins.

The NAIA division was dominated by Simon Fraser University of British Columbia in its early years, but in 2002, SFU transferred most of its sports programs to Canada's college athletics federation, then known as Canadian Interuniversity Sport and now as U Sports. SFU left U Sports in 2011 and has since become a full member of NCAA Division II. From 2004–05 to 2011–12, Azusa Pacific University assumed the mantle at the NAIA level, winning eight consecutive championships before moving to NCAA Division II in the 2012–13 season. Oklahoma City University has been the most successful school since that year, with three Directors' Cups in the 2010s and four overall.

For two-year colleges, Iowa Central Community College has been the most successful school, winning five of the 10 titles.

Scoring system

  1. ^ a b c Men's water polo is the only sport with an NCAA championship for which NACDA does not award any points. This is because there are only 43 schools between all three NCAA divisions which sponsor it and only six schools compete in the National Collegiate men's water polo tournament.

Tiebreaking

If two teams have the same number of points at the end of the season, the tiebreaker is the number of national championships won. If still tied the next tiebreaker is the number of second-place finishes, then third-place finishes and so on until one team wins.[5] The tiebreaker is only used for first place.

Criticism

The scoring structure has been criticized for several reasons, especially due to the number of sports counted per division. Although the number of sports counted in the scoring is based on the average number of sports sponsored by a team in that division, certain schools offer many more or many fewer sports than that. For example, Stanford's dominance at the Division I level is partially attributable to them sponsoring 36 sports teams (of which 31 are NCAA sports), the most in Division I outside of the Ivy League, which does not grant athletic scholarships, and Ohio State, which sponsors 37 sports teams (of which 32 are NCAA sports). This gives Stanford more opportunities to win titles than most other schools, especially considering that some of the sports Stanford sponsors are not played by very many other schools (5 out of 31 have championship fields under 20 teams, and one [namely men's gymnastics] has fewer than 20 sponsoring schools), all but guaranteeing a substantial number of points for the few schools that do (NACDA awards significantly fewer points for teams that finish lower than fourth in sports with less competition, but the top four teams (except in 8-team and 4-team bracket sports) always receive 100, 90, 85, and 80 points respectively). Ohio State, which sponsors teams in more NCAA sports than Stanford (5 of which, like Stanford, have championship fields under 20 teams) has never won the Cup (Ohio State has finished second 3 times, third twice, fourth 3 times, and in the top ten 7 more times).

Another common criticism is the fact that four sports are required to be counted despite some schools not sponsoring those sports. While every Division I school sponsors men's basketball, and all but two (The Citadel and VMI) sponsor women's basketball, a significant number of D-I schools do not sponsor the other two "mandatory counters" of baseball and women's volleyball. In the 2023–24 school year, 21 schools did not sponsor women's volleyball and 53 did not sponsor baseball, giving those schools an inherent disadvantage as they must count a sport for which they are guaranteed to receive no points.

Other reasons for criticism are over the way NACDA awards points in "National Collegiate" sports, which are sports where Division I, II, and III schools all compete directly against each other instead of being separated. The NCAA considers National Collegiate championships equivalent to Division I, therefore Division III schools are allowed to grant athletic scholarships in those sports, but NACDA counts points earned in National Collegiate competitions toward whatever division a team primarily competes in. Similarly, several otherwise Division III schools compete in Division I for men's ice hockey (despite Division III having its own ice hockey tournament), so there have been instances where two different Division III teams earn 100 points in the sport.[6]

Multiple suggestions have been made to change the scoring system. Some of the most popular of these include making each sport worth a proportional number of points to the number of schools that compete in it, to get rid of the limit on the number of sports counted, then divide a school's total points by the number of sports it sponsors, and to count the median number of teams per division instead of the average (the median number of teams at a Division I school, for example, is 16, which is substantially lower than the 19 sports that are currently counted). However, NACDA has never seriously considered any of these suggestions.

Past scoring system

From the creation of the award until the 2017–18 season the scoring was as follows:[7]

Past winners

NCAA Division I

Stanford and Florida are the only schools to finish within the top 10 every season. Stanford has never finished below second.

  1. ^ At the time of the competition being canceled the top 10 was as follows: Stanford, Michigan, Washington, Wisconsin, BYU, Virginia, Penn State, Louisville, Notre Dame, North Carolina[35]

NCAA Division II

  1. ^ At the time of the 2020 competition being canceled the top 5 was as follows: Colorado Mines, Western Washington, Grand Valley State, Wingate, West Chester (PA)[41]

NCAA Division III

  1. ^ At the time of the 2020 competition being canceled the top 5 was as follows: Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Chicago, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Middlebury[44]

NAIA

  1. ^ At the time of the competition being canceled the top 5 was as follows: Lindsey Wilson, Indiana Wesleyan, Eastern Oregon, Grand View, Cumberlands (KY)[45]

Schools in italics no longer compete in the NAIA.

Two-Year Colleges

  1. ^ Now known as Rowan College
  2. ^ a b c Previously Gloucester County College

See also

References

  1. ^ chart
  2. ^ "Directors' Cup Bracket and Non-Bracket Sports Scoring (PDF)" (PDF). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  3. ^ "About". Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup. 2008-09-29. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  4. ^ "Daktronics Cup Past Winners". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "LEARFIELD Directors' Cup Scoring Structure". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2021-08-06.
  6. ^ "Apr17D3LSDC (PDF)" (PDF). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
  7. ^ "Clarification - Learfield Directors' Cup Scoring Changes". Archived from the original on 2018-08-30.
  8. ^ "1993-94 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-06.
  9. ^ "1994-95 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-06.
  10. ^ "1995-96 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-04-17.
  11. ^ "1996-97 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-06.
  12. ^ "1997-98 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-06.
  13. ^ "1998-99 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-07-17.
  14. ^ "1999-2000 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-07-17.
  15. ^ "2000-01 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-07-17.
  16. ^ "2001-02 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-06.
  17. ^ "2002-03 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-11.
  18. ^ "2003-04 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  19. ^ "2004-05 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  20. ^ "2005-06 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  21. ^ "2006-07 D1 Final Standings". Archived from the original on 2011-06-22.
  22. ^ "2007-08 D1 Final Standings". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18.
  23. ^ "2008-09 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-29.
  24. ^ "2009-10 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-06.
  25. ^ "2010-11 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-01-08.
  26. ^ "2011-12 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-10-10.
  27. ^ "2012-13 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-03-26.
  28. ^ "2013-14 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-19.
  29. ^ "2014-15 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-12-08.
  30. ^ "2015-16 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-11-26.
  31. ^ "2016-17 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  32. ^ "2017-18 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 August 2018.
  33. ^ "2018-19 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-11-08. Retrieved 2021-07-02.
  34. ^ a b c d e "Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup Canceled for 2019-20 Season". Archived from the original on 2021-07-12.
  35. ^ "Final Fall DI Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup Standings". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  36. ^ "2020-21 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2 July 2021. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  37. ^ "2021-22 D1 Final Standings" (PDF). Retrieved 4 September 2022.
  38. ^ "FinalDIStandings (PDF)" (PDF). Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  39. ^ "FinalDIStandings (PDF)" (PDF). Retrieved 28 June 2023.
  40. ^ a b "2020-21 Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup Update". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  41. ^ "December 2019 NCAA Division II Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup Standings". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  42. ^ a b c "Stanford, Grand Valley, Johns Hopkins and Indiana Tech Secure LEARFIELD Directors' Cups". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. 2023-06-13. Retrieved 2023-06-29.
  43. ^ a b c "Texas, Grand Valley, Johns Hopkins and Cumberlands Secure Learfield Directors' Cups" (Press release). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. June 11, 2024. Retrieved June 27, 2024.
  44. ^ "December 2019 NCAA Division III Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup Standings". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  45. ^ "March 2020 NAIA Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup Standings". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  46. ^ "2011-12 Two year college Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  47. ^ "2012-13 Two year college Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  48. ^ "2013-14 Two year college Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-14.
  49. ^ "2014-15 Two year college Final Standings" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-14.
  50. ^ "NATYCAALDC16Top25 (PDF)" (PDF). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  51. ^ "1617NATYCAALDCFinal (PDF)" (PDF). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  52. ^ "2017-18 Two year college Final Standings" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-07-02.
  53. ^ "2018-19 Two year college Final Standings". Archived from the original on 2021-07-02.
  54. ^ "Iowa Central CC captures the 2020-21 Two-Year College LEARFIELD Directors' Cup". National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  55. ^ "2021 2022 Learfield Directors' Cup Two Year Colleges Final Results Top 30 (PDF)" (PDF). National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-11-13. Retrieved 2022-11-13.

External links