Closer Look at the Directors’ Cup

The Directors’ Cup is defined on their website as “A program that honors institutions maintaining a broad-based program, achieving success in many sports, both men’s and women’s. Began in 1993-94 for Division I by NACDA and USA Today, it was expanded in 1995-96 to include Division II, III and the NAIA.”

All-Time (1994 to 2010)
Over the past 17 years of the Directors’ Cup, NC State has an average finish of 50.6 with a high of 32 in 1995 and a low of 89 in 2010.

NC State had 3 different ADs during the existence of the Directors’ Cup, Todd Turner (1994 to 1996), Les Robinson (1997 to 2000) and Lee Fowler (2001 to 2010). Here are the average finishes for each AD:
Turner – 41.7
Robinson – 50.8
Fowler – 53.2

Current School Year (2010)
NC State finished 89th in the final 2009-2010 standings , which ranks last in the ACC and 60th out of 66 BCS schools. Here are the ACC standings:
3. Virginia
5. Florida St
7. North Carolina
10. Duke
28. Maryland
36. Virginia Tech
42. Georgia Tech
44. Clemson
47. Wake Forest
52. Miami
55. Boston College
89. NC State

The only BCS schools behind NC State in the standings were Rutgers (96), South Florida (105), Pitt (112), Mississippi St (114), Cincinnati (116) and Kansas St (123).

There were 29 non-BCS schools that finished above NC State including 5 Ivy League schools and 2 service academies. The school where Lee Fowler was previously AD, Middle Tennessee St, finished 79th, 10 spots ahead of NC State. The non-BCS schools ahead of NC State were Princeton, BYU, TCU, New Mexico, Villanova, Cornell, Boise St, Hawaii, Harvard, Denver, San Diego St, St John’s, Georgetown, Kent St, New Hampshire, SMU, Utah, Yale, Tulsa, Northern Arizona, Middle Tennessee St, Penn, Central Michigan, UTEP, Army, Navy, Akron, UNLV & UC Santa Barbara.

NC State received points in W Basketball (33rd place/25 points), Baseball (49th/25), M Cross Country (27th/20), M Golf (63rd/7.2), W Golf (61st/12), M Soccer (17th/50), M Outdoor Track (60th/9.38), Wrestling (56th/16.5) and Gymnastics (31st/38.8). Surprisingly, our much criticized men’s soccer team earned the most points.

Since our new AD, Debbie Yow, was previously AD at Maryland there will be the inevitable comparisons between the Wolfpack and the Terrapins. Maryland finished 28th with 710.3 points compared to NC State at 89th with 203.88 points. If you exclude the sports that Maryland has that NC State doesn’t, that eliminates 2nd place Field Hockey, 5th place M Lacrosse and national champion W Lacrosse. Maryland would still have 460.3 points (over twice as many as NCSU) and would rank 48th (41 spots ahead of NCSU).

The Last Decade (2001 to 2010)
Here are the Directors’ Cup standings for each ACC school over the past decade:

A couple of observations from this table:
The worst finish for Duke, North Carolina and Virginia are better than NC State’s best finish.

The worst finish for Clemson, Maryland and Wake Forest is right around NC State’s average finish. Basically, a bad year for those schools is the typical year for NC State.

If you look at the yearly standings for NC State, you can clearly see a decline over the past 4 years and the trendline is definitely on the decline. In 2006 NCSU had a decade best ranking of 34th, then fell 10 spots in 2007, fell another 12 spots in 2008, 18 more spots in 2009 and 15 spots in 2010 for a total decline of 55 spots.

For comparison, how do the yearly standings for the other ACC schools look? Below are the same graphs for all the other ACC schools. As you look at those graphs, look at the sharp decline of NCSU compared to the consistancy of the plot points of every other ACC school. If you look at the trendlines, Virginia Tech is definitely on the upswing while Duke, Florida St and Virginia are also on the way up. Georgia Tech and North Carolina are also trending up but the trendlines are pretty level. Maryland’s trendline is pretty close to if not straight. Boston College, Clemson, Miami and Wake Forest are slightly trending down but are still pretty consistant and their downward trends are certainly not at the level of NCSU’s.

ACC Expansion Era (2006 to 2010)
While NC State ranked 10th out of the 12 ACC schools in average finish over the last decade, in the expansion era from 2006 to the present NC State ranks ahead of only Boston College, who at least won 2 national championships in hockey during this time period.

Conclusions
The obvious decline in NC State’s ranking in the Directors’ Cup standings, especially when every other ACC school is either improving or at least has shown consistancy, just further supports Chancellor Woodson’s decision to hire a new athletic director.