Breaking Down Boston College In The 2010-2011 Directors' Cup

The final standings were released last Friday for the 2010-2011 NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup.

For those of you unfamiliar with this, the NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup is an award given to the colleges or universities with the most success in college athletics. Points are awarded based on order of finish in various NCAA sponsored championships or college football's media-based polls, where there's no NCAA-sanctioned National Championship. E.g. 100 points for first, 90 for second, and so on down the line depending on the number of teams in the final rankings.

This year Boston College finished 64th of the 284 ranked Division I teams with 322 points. This is roughly about where the Eagles have finished in each of the last three seasons -- 63rd (2010), 75th (2009) and 69th (2008).

In the fall, the Eagles earned 169 points from women's cross country (36), football (25), women's soccer (83) and men's soccer (25). During the winter season, BC adding another 128 points, including 27 for fencing, 55 for women's ice hockey, 25 for men's ice hockey and 21 for women's track & field. Finally, in the spring, BC added another 25 points from the women's lacrosse team for a total of 322.

Stanford has owned the Directors' Cup in nearly every year it has been awarded, with the lone exception being the first year the Cup was handed out in 1994. That's 16 straight titles including this year. Now Stanford has a lot of athletics programs (34), but so does BC (31), but the Eagles haven't been able to crack the Top 50 in the last ten years.

While BC did finish 64th out of all ranked Division I schools it finished just 10th among ACC programs. Here is how the Top 25 broke down by conference:

1. SEC - 6
1. Pac-10 - 6
3. ACC - 5
4. Big Ten - 4
5. Big 12 - 3
6. Big East - 1 (with the one being Notre Dame)

The ACC fared very well in the final standings, with the conference placing four programs in the top 10, Duke (5), North Carolina (6), Virginia (7) and Florida State (9). Maryland (17), Virginia Tech (45), Clemson (47), Miami (51) and Georgia Tech (59) also finished ahead of BC.

Now, even though the Eagles won't put up points in the sports they don't play (but who wouldn't want a women's bowling team!), and are hurt by the fact that sailing isn't an NCAA-sanctioned sport, I thought it was interesting to see which programs put up a goose egg in this year's standings.

Men's -- baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, skiing, swimming, tennis, track & field
Women's -- basketball, field hockey, golf, rowing, skiing, softball, swimming, tennis, volleyball

Other than top finishes in men's ice hockey and soccer (and football, but it seems like everyone gets some points for making a bowl in FBS), the men's teams didn't do a whole lot of damage in 2010-11. The women ended up carrying the Eagles this year, capitalizing on final four finishes in both women's ice hockey and soccer and outgaining the men's programs in Directors' Cup points by a 2-1 margin. A complete program by program scoreboard after the jump.

In the grand scheme of things is this important? Probably not. But I think it does highlight the fact that despite a banner year for BC women's varsity sports, the Eagles weren't able to make any year-over-year progress in the Directors' Cup standings. Until programs like basketball and baseball/softball get back into the scoring column, BC will likely continue to finish annually in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

2010-11 NACDA Learfield Sports Directors' Cup -- Boston College program point totals