M finishes 2nd in FINAL Director's Cup standings
As mentioned before, a fantastic year all around for Michigan athletics, leading to a solid 2nd place finish in the Director's Cup. Since Stanford wins by a landslide every year, this is really the #1 attainable spot.
This is the second time Michigan finished second overall in the final standings, with its first time being in 2002-03.
Notable finishes:
1. Stanford
2. Michigan
3. Florida
4. Texas
5. USC
...
12. Ohio State
13. Penn State
16. Wisconsin
17. Notre Dame
20. Minnesota
...
47. Michigan State
Kind of a down year for the Big Ten, to be honest.
My own (super nerdy) analysis of the all-time rankings has us in 5th place, but creeping very close to #4 North Carolina. I thought we'd overtake them this year, but we remain 97 points away. Should be there next year.
So, you're saying, we're making a move, we're making it now, we're coming out of the sidelines?
Just put your hands up, it's a raid, yeah!
Damn! North Carolina was .18 points from not making the Top Ten this year!
Thought we'd make up some ground on them this year too!
Times in the Top Ten:
Stanford 26
Florida 26
UCLA 23
UNC 21
Michigan 20
Texas 20
USC 17
OSU 12
Georgia 10
Penn State 9
Virginia 8
California 8
Arizona 8
Duke 7
Texas A&M 6
LSU 6
ASU 6
Nebraska 5
FSU 4
Notre Dame 4
Oregon 2
Tennessee 2
Washington 2
Oklahoma 2
Minnesota 1
Kentucky 1
It's weird the UNC is in the top ten despite treating their athletes horribly (by cheating them out of an education.)
Where do we stand this year factoring in only:
- Football
- MBB
- Hockey
- Baseball
That would be interesting to see.
We're #2! We're #2! We're #2!
It's what we do.
At least we don't do it in a cooler.
who does #2 work for?
This coffee smells like shit
it is shit austin
oh good then it’s not just me
Seems to be a recurring theme with us.
If we add more sports and are great at them we can catch up to Stanford someday. More sports = bigger margin for error.
Women’s Hockey, Men’s Volleyball, Skiing, Rifle, Triathlon which is gonna become an NCAA sponsored sport soon.
Ok - so this is a Q for someone who knows the methodology behind this thing. But, would Michigan ever have a chance at winning it if Stanford had an uncharacteristic down year in its down-ballot sport but Michigan made big runs in sports that Stanford doesn't have?
For example, let's say Michigan hoops and football stay on their current trajectory and continue to compete for national titles (M makes the CFP and at least an Elite 8 tournament appearance). Then we get good performances (B1G titles and deep NCAA runs) from traditionally solid Michigan programs like wrestling, softball/baseball, field hockey, M/W soccer. But what if Michigan excels in and picks up points from sports that Stanford doesn't offer - i.e a Frozen Four from hockey and a Final 4 from M/W lacrosse (Stanford only has women's lacrosse) - would that be enough to put Michigan over the top? Especially if paired with a down year in Stanford's West Coast 'country club' sports?
I don't know why I'm so fascinated by this.
schools are only allowed to score in 20 sports as I recall. so if you add sports or even just do better at the ones you have, it's not as simple as just getting more points bc M added a sport and they finished top 10.
M would have to do both add more sports and do better at all of them to start competing with stanford I'd imagine
Rifle? That's a sport? SEC would kill us in that every year.
There are 7 schools that have won an NCAA title in Rifle ever --- WVU (when a school's mascot literally shoots off a musket after touchdowns, they will probably excel at Rifle!), Alaska-Fairbanks, Tennessee Tech, TCU, Kentucky, Murray State and Army.
I think it's the only NCAA sponsored sport where men compete directly with women.
How does Army not win this every friggen year???
The Commandant of West Point should be relieved of his command whenever Army fails to win any competition involving the shooting of firearms!!!
Underrated comment.
It would be like Ohio State losing a not-going-to-class competition.
It should never happen.
Should I be concerned about our national security because Army isn't winning this every year?
You should only be concerned if your intent is to invade Kentucky, West Virginia, or TN.
There are a lot of Appalachian residential crack shots who can't get in to West Point where they actually conduct drug tests and absolutely consider test scores.
Crackshots who can’t pass drug tests?
That makes me feel better.
If they let Marines compete Army would blow everyone away. (so to speak.) No need to worry.
Potentially literally.
I hope Michigan never adds women's hockey. Let's not light money on fire just for the sake of 50 fans and the director's cup standings
The AD has money to burn. Why wouldn't you want more student athletes to have the same opportunity to go to Michigan that you and I had?
Frankly, there's no reason why Michigan shouldn't have as many non-revenue sports as Stanford. Michigan's AD has amazing funding, great alumni support, and our football team sells out a huge stadium every year to a bunch of sports crazed fans.
Stanford's football team plays in a shitty little stadium in front of mostly students who don't really care about sports.
I disagree with the assertion that the AD has money to burn. They have been running basically break-even for the last several years (after having a surplus in the multi-million dollar range for a few years running under AD Martin, which followed a run of deficits prior to that). In order to add a money losing sport (which all are) we have to either (a) raise more money or (b) re-allocate expenses from where they are now to any new sports.
There isn't a lot of visibility into the AD's finances. I'm speculating but I think that the fact that the AD is basically break-even is a political move, since there would be an uproar if the AD was making "too much" on a yearly basis. So the AD creates expenses in order to make the accounting look better. They give a lot back to the University general fund, and transfer a lot, maybe more than strictly necessary, to the capital reserve fund. Absent a major new donor to essentially sponsor the team, adding new expenses would require cutting back on where they spend the surplus now. Again, it's hard to know what the optimal allocation of resources is, but I have to believe that if it made sense to add more teams (like we already did with lacrosse) we would have done it already.
You disagree that the AD has money to burn, but acknowledge that they run revenue neutral due to book keeping and created expenditures? OK.
The AD made shitty Pep one of the highest paid college OCs. They can afford to upgrade the shooting team from club to varsity status.
Falling back on “if it was a good idea, they would have already done it” is total nonsense. I’m trying not to be rude, but that’s really dumb reasoning.
North Dakota - probably the best supported college hockey school - had to drop women's hockey due to a lack of interest. Their operating costs were $2.3M compared to a paltry $25K in ticket sales. It's just a waste of money. If we want to give more people opportunities to go to Michigan, just endow a scholarship with the $2M/yr you're going to spend on women's hockey and you can give out way more scholarship money for kids to go to Michigan
Michigan women's hockey would be poorly attended and poorly supported for such an enormous price tag and it'll be the first sport to get cut as soon as the cable money bubble shrinks a bit
lhglrkwg, that (perhaps unintentionally) comes off as super sexist. "For the sake of 50 fans"? What about the sake of the athletes?
At this very moment, the US women's soccer team is playing before a huge sold-out crowd and massive worldwide TV audience. The US women (and frankly many other countries as well) have become great and successful for exactly one reason - Title IX, giving them a (relatively) equal opportunity to grow and excel as athletes.
Women's sports are gaining traction and improving both in competitive level and fan interest.
It's not unreasonable to argue that expanding our sports program could be better served choosing less expensive sports, but denying women an opportunity because they don't make money is a garbage argument. If that were the criterion, we would have only football and men's basketball.
Finally, UM's athletic department is hardly a tightly run ship. While I'm not an expert in athletic department finances, it seems that some other schools do as much or more with less money. In addition, PSU has a men's hockey program because they found a rich alum willing to kick in a big pot of money - if Michigan made it a priority, I'm sure we could find some rich folks willing to support a team like women's hockey.
Its not sexist. At some point every AD makes a decision about what sports to sponsor and what ones not to. Obviously its great to have both mens and womens sports. Some are always going to be more supported than others and thats life - obviously not all division 1 sports are going to be cash positive and thats perfectly normal. But womens hockey is enormously expensive and has an extremely small following. I think its an unwise sport to sponsor.
I don’t really see what the athletes scholarship opportunities have to do with the equation. What about any number of other sports we don’t give sponsor and award scholarships for? What about them? Should we just sponsor every sport possible till the AD goes bankrupt so a few dozen more athletes can get partial scholarships? You gotta stop somewhere and womens hockey is my line
In 1995, UM considered adding women’s hockey. OSU was adding a team and was hoping we would join them to create a natural rival. UM ultimately chose to add water polo instead. It was revisited again in 2011 to balance adding a men’s lacrosse varsity program and once the Ross money cannon was fired for a brand new lacrosse-only stadium the choice was very clear to add the women’s counterpart. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/sports/hockey/university-of-michigan-womens-hockey-club.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/sports/hockey/university-of-michigan-womens-hockey-club.html
“So basically, unless we get a Stephen Ross for hockey, it’s not happening,” McDowell said.
Sorry this is so long. Wanted to provide some detail.
Fundamentally, what's the purpose of the athletic department?
IMO, the PRIMARY purpose is to give 1,000+ kids the opportunity to compete in sports at a high level, enhancing their student experience. It's for them.
Secondarily, it provides financial aid (and in some cases a path to admission) for many student athletes. It gives all students, fans and alumni an opportunity to support and have lifelong attachment to the school and enhances school spirit. Athletics also employs people and provides opportunity for coaching/training/mentoring, etc.
IMO the point or purpose of college athletics isn't to make money. Virtually all sports at Michigan cost money to operate that isn't offset by ticket sales, marketing or donations.
Michigan supports 29 sports - only football and men's hoops make money. Only those 2 and men's hockey bring in substantial revenue. 26 sports are mostly funded by the athletic department.
We're fortunate that football, basketball and B1G membership bring in gobs of money that supports the entire AD - usually with a surplus of a couple million $$, despite the current football/basketball arms race re coaching salaries and facilities.
Neither you nor I mentioned anything about scholarships, so I'm not sure where you're going there. That said, I did some digging and found the average financial aid (scholarship) $ for a female athlete at Michigan is $14,500. So, some receive aid, but most don't, or at least not much.
Financial aid accounts for $26M of our almost $200M athletic budget. Not nothing, but also not the major cost. A decent chunk of that is the 100 full rides for football and hoops.
Now let's talk about women's hockey.
As I said, it's ok to argue that it might make more sense to add other sports before women's hockey. I simply reject the rationale being a lack of fan support. Almost all sports at Michigan receive minimal support if measured by attendance/merch/media. I don't think track or golf or tennis have many fans.
Even so, I don't see a budget-busting cost.
You cited North Dakota, IMO that's a poor comparison. OSU is better, because we have an exponentially larger athletic budget and far greater resources than NDU...and because we're not in freaking North Dakota. Again, it's not about revenue generation, it's about cost, just like 26 other sports.
I don't think we'd need to invest in facilities unless women's lockers/etc. would need to be added.
Women's sports average 1 head coach (avg. $150k) and 1 assistant (avg. $63k).
OSU has 23 players on their roster - based on our average, that's about $330k in scholarships for women's hockey.
OSU traveled 5 times to MN, once each to WI, NY and Las Vegas. We could expect similar, maybe a bit less. No need to travel out of our region like some sports.
Equipment has some cost, probably not much more than, say, lacrosse. I suppose utilizing Yost (ice) for practice and games adds some cost.
Am I missing something? Maybe some trainers and other staffers.
AD revenue has grown enormously - I don't see how it's bad to consider adding another sport or two, and to me women's hockey makes decent sense - would also allow us to add at least one men's sport (hockey has a bigger roster than some sports).
One last thing - as I said before, PSU got a rich donor to fund their hockey team including cost for building an arena. Seems to me if Michigan put forth some effort they could find a rich alum or two to help fund a new sports team like women's hockey.
Neither Michigan nor the B1G has done a great job of marketing/publicizing/emphasizing women's sports to raise their profile or draw fans (like UConn or Tennessee with women's hoops, for example). If they did, maybe more people would come out to support them.
Hockey is popular in Michigan, and we'd likely do well.
Just my thoughts. It's perfectly ok if you disagree.
I've always been curious in the methodology here so I flipped through their site and still have questions.
Is this only non-revenue sports? It sort of looks that way. I would see the benefit for having that sort of an award, but I'd also want to know how things shook out if we included Basketball and Football, etc.
All sports are included, including football and basketball.
shouldn't stanford lose some points from the admission scandal. wasn't it their sailing coach that was in on the scam?
take the banners down stanford.
is there anything we can't come in 2nd place in?
Allegedly the final stanza of The Victors, originally, was Bridesmaids of the West.
I think it's the only NCAA sponsored sport where men compete directly with women.
Sailing is another.
I wonder if bowling is too but I'm too lazy to DuckDuckGo that one.
I was living in Nashville when Vanderbilt won it's first ever title in Women's Bowling. I still believe they are separated.
Sailing is not NCAA sponsored
Fire Manuel!
F'n loser.
s/
Staee actually improved 3 spots over last year. Impressive.
i'm surprised sparty is that high, their athletic department is horrid.
Why of course
Has anyone looked at how Michigan compares to Stanford in the sports that they compete in head to head? I know it gets thrown around that Stanford wins due to their multitude of Olympic sports, but I don't really have a concept which schools are best at the sports where everyone competes.
If anyone has knowledge of a database with the finishes in each sport, that would be great too.
It would be interesting to add up Stanford's total in the 20 sports that Michigan used to contribute to our total. I am fairly certain they would still beat us by a fair margin.
Paging WD!
I was going to volunteer to do this, but then I realized how annoying it would be. There is no single document that includes all sports for the year; they're spread out among all the press releases throughout the year. So it would be very manual. But next week is a light work week, so....
I was thinking the same thing. I may try to compile this when I have free time at work.
That's what I was worried about.
Although in my 5 minute hunt, I might have found their pdf list with all results from the year. If I get bored this weekend, I'll try and get a python script running to get this all into a database.
Results:
https://nacda.com/sports/2018/7/17/directorscup-nacda-directorscup-current-scoring-html.aspx