Good morning, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) fans. Happy Easter!!
College football and men’s basketball are over now – but we got the @AllSportsDACC spring football podcast series up and running – and it’s live!!! Make sure you check it out.
Many of you might not have heard of the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup. It is an award that honors institutions maintaining broad-based athletics programs success in many sports (including male and female sports). The Directors’ Cup, founded by the National Association of College Directors of Athletics and USA Today, began in 1993-1994 for NCAA Division I athletics. In 1995-96, it was expanded to include Division II, III and the NAIA. Each institution is awarded points in a pre-determined number of sports for men and women. The overall champion is the institution that records the highest number of points in their division’s Directors’ Cup standings. For NCAA Division I, there are 20 sports included (ten men’s and ten women’s).
The big story here is the Big 10 in the Final Winter Updated of the Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings. The Big Ten leads all Division I conferences in the top-10 with four institutions – Penn State (2nd), Wisconsin (3rd), Ohio State (4th) and Michigan (5th). You can the entire list of rankings here. ACC schools in the top 25 include North Carolina at #7, NC State at #12, Louisville at #15, Virginia at 20, Virginia Tech (!!!!!!) at #22, and Florida State at #23. Virginia Tech has not cracked the top 25 of the Director’s Cup ever – and might poised to do so this year – other schools are noticing the leadership team that Whit Babcock has in place (because you need good leadership if you want to do well in the Director’s Cup) and are reportedly hiring people from his staff.
While it doesn’t appear that any ACC team will catch Stanford, the ACC has done very well – and member institutions should be proud of the conference’s performance in the Cup.
The next Division I standings will be released Thursday, April 20, and will include bowling.
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