Boston College 11th Place In Fall Director's Cup Standings

There really is no perfect way to compare athletic programs in their entirety. In fact, there's not even really a good way to do it, the Director's Cup included. But being high in a ranking is better than being low in it, and Boston College chimes in surprisingly high at #11 in the Director's Cup standings following the fall championship season. According to BCEagles.com, it's the highest BC has ranked in the fall rankings under the current Director's Cup format, which went in to place in 2008. Their previous high was #14 in the fall of 2009.

The Learfield Sports Director's Cup is handed out by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, and it's the closest thing we have to a generally accepted cross sport ranking of athletic programs. Teams across all sports add points throughout the year based on their finish in NCAA championships or, in the case of FBS football, based on their spot in the final AP poll or result in a bowl game. Individual sports like track are handled differently but score the same number of total points as team sports.

The obvious flaw in this system is that NCAA tournament finish is the only factor by which teams accumulate points - nothing for conference titles, nothing for regular season performance, and a big bonus if you go on a miracle tournament run despite squeaking in to the NCAA tournament. As such, we can thank Ed Kelly and the BC soccer team's drive to the elite eight for BC's 11th place ranking so far. It helps us out also that no points have been applied for football season yet (womp womp).

In addition to men's soccer's 73 points, BC acquired points from women's cross country (28), field hockey (60), and women's soccer (25). In last year's fall rankings, BC was 59th, with the difference largely being attributable to not making the tournament in men's or women's soccer last season.

BC usually drops down from fall to spring. Outdoor track, swimming and diving, rifle, wrestling, and gymnastics are among the sports BC either doesn't compete in or never scores points in, and MBB, WBB, baseball and softball haven't exactly scored points often in recent years either. It generally falls on the hockey teams to account for BC's scoring in the winter. Last year, BC dropped from 59th to 70th from fall to spring. In 2009-10 when the Eagles started out in 14th, they finished in 63rd, despite the national title in men's hockey.

Obviously the Director's Cup isn't something anyone really pays attention to outside of the circle of AD's, but it's at least a tool we have to keep an eye on the general progress of the school's programs compared to peer institutions. Field hockey, Men's soccer and Women's soccer all showed strong year over year improvement, which manifested itself in the rankings. Hopefully women's basketball and maybe baseball or softball can join in with women's lacrosse and the two hockey teams and boost BC's ranking up a few notches at the end of the year.