Texas Longhorns set to claim Directors' Cup for 4th time in 5 years
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Another trophy should soon be headed to the cases at the Frank Denius Family University of Texas Athletics Hall of Fame.
The Texas Longhorns look to have clinched their fourth Learfield Directors' Cup in the past five years following the NCAA outdoor track and field championships. The Texas women finished tied for 10th at the meet, earning 66.75 points and narrowly keeping the Longhorns in front of Southern California and Stanford in the unofficial standings. Those will become official once the Men's College World Series concludes, but none of the competing schools in Omaha can catch the Longhorns.
Texas' margin of victory was razor-thin, edging the Trojans by a count of 1,255.25 to 1,253.75. The Longhorns received an assist to capture the crystal trophy from an unlikely source: the Texas A&M Aggies men's track and field team.
The Aggies and Trojans split the men's track title, and under the scoring system used for the award, USC didn't get the full championship allotment of 100 points. The Trojans received 95 points, as did Texas A&M, because that's the average of the scores for first place (100 points) and second place (90 points). If USC had claimed the title outright, the Trojans would have jumped the Longhorns in the Directors' Cup standings.
Stanford finished third in the Directors' Cup standings on the heels of USC with 1,251 points.
Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte didn't wait for the results to become official before shouting it from the rooftops in his "40 Acres Insider" newsletter sent Tuesday.
"When the number crunchers frantically tallied in our tie for 10th-place NCAA finish, as well as those of the two programs on our heels (Stanford & USC), it was confirmed — the LEARFIELD DIRECTORS’ CUP WAS CLINCHED and will remain right here where it belongs on the Forty Acres," he wrote. "What a breathtaking and heart-pumping way to cap off another fantastic year across all sports."
The Learfield Directors' Cup has been awarded to the top overall performing athletic program in the country by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics since the 1993-94 school year. The scoring criteria features five required sports — men's and women's basketball, baseball, women's soccer and women's volleyball — plus the next 14 highest-scoring sports at a particular school.
The NACDA expanded the award to include Division II, III and NAIA schools in 1995-96, and again in 2011-12 to include junior colleges.
North Carolina won it the first year for Division I, and then Stanford won it 25 consecutive times before the Longhorns won their first in 2020-21. Texas has finished second in the standings four times, including when the Cardinal regained the throne in 2022-23. No other school has won the Division I award, so that also means Texas is the first Southeastern Conference school to win it.
The Longhorns won national titles in men's swimming/diving and softball and claimed seven top-three national finishes to go with nine conference championships. They had 10 top-five and 13 top-10 national finishes.