NC State is No. 7 in early Director’s Cup standings

It’s been a good year for NC State athletics so far.

Thanks to a strong effort from NC State’s cross country teams this fall, the Wolfpack checks in at No. 7 in the Directors’ Cup standings. The Directors’ Cup is a useful but imperfect measure of the overall quality of a school’s athletics department—points are awarded on a sliding scale based on postseason finish.

The women’s cross country team finished fourth at nationals, and the men were 22nd. Up to this point, the only point-scoring sports are cross country and field hockey, and NC State does not have a field hockey team. Buncha darn cheaters are loading up on field hockey points!!!!!!11***

(***Not true.)

NC State’s finish in the Directors’ Cup over the last couple of years has been impressive relative to recent history, and while this metric might be a rather rough estimation of an athletics department’s health, you can at the least take it as a positive indicator. State has lots more to add to this year’s Directors’ Cup standings, especially if the basketball teams manage to make the NCAAs.

Swimming, wrestling, and baseball each are poised for big springs. (No pun intended but now that I consider it, maybe pun intended.) They’ll need help, and there are still some points on the way from women’s soccer, which reached the Sweet 16 this year but did not factor into the current standings.

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