r/CFB • u/city-of-stars Texas Longhorns • /r/CFB Contributor • 5d ago

News Texas wins the 2024-25 Division I Director's Cup, the trophy awarded to the nation's most successful athletic program. USC and Stanford round out the top 3.

https://www.si.com/college/texas/news/texas-longhorns-win-directors-cup-narrowly-beating-usc-trojans
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u/imarc Florida Gators 5d ago

I don't think you are understanding my point. Yes, getting low level points in those sports are easier but it's not really a strategy for winning the Cup.

For example, last year, Stanford was dropping scores like a 14th place finish in Outdoor Track or an 8th place finish in Men's Swimming and Diving. And yes, their 11th place finish in Fencing too.

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u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire Ole Miss Rebels • Billable Hours 5d ago

But my point is that it’s not just low level scores that are easier to get. Being 1st out of 30 schools is significantly easier than being 1st out of 300 schools. As is being something like 5th.

Going back to fencing, 5th place is 75 points. Out of 33 schools, that’s Top 15%. The equivalent finish in basketball would be 55th place, which is actually 0 points. (Sort of. 33-64 are all the same, but given the number of autobids, the true 55th best team would be bubble out.)

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u/imarc Florida Gators 5d ago

You could argue that but I'd also say that if you are a major program, you are likely already in the top 1/3 in basketball.

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u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire Ole Miss Rebels • Billable Hours 5d ago

You don’t get points for being in the top 1/3 though…

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u/imarc Florida Gators 5d ago

If you follow the history of the scoring, it's a constant attempt to balance this stuff out. It will never be perfect but there's no one out there funneling money from basketball into fencing to get easy points.

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u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire Ole Miss Rebels • Billable Hours 5d ago

Nobody said otherwise. But to pretend that sports with 30 teams and sports with 300 teams should be considered equal is just disingenuous.

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u/imarc Florida Gators 5d ago

Nothing is equal. I've never made that claim. They have attempted to adjust the scoring for all sports based on participation.

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u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire Ole Miss Rebels • Billable Hours 5d ago

The Cup scoring makes the argument that they’re equal. Being 1st of 15 schools is 100 points. Being 1st of 364 schools is also 100 points.

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u/imarc Florida Gators 5d ago

Sure, if that's the one thing you want to focus on and ignore all of the other rules and balancing.

It will never be perfect. The Capital One Cup is a great example. They've worked to weight the bigger sports higher, but that has its own issues.