Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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YEAR IN REVIEW Irish Notch Highest Ever Finish in Directors' Cup One national title and appearances in two other championship contests fueled Notre Dame's best finish in the 21-year history of the Directors' Cup. The Irish finished third in the annual rankings that measure a college's success across all of its sports. All but four of Notre Dame's 26 varsity sports made a trip to their respective NCAA postseason tournaments this year. Led by the men's soccer program's first national championship, the Irish put together an unprecedented year of success during their first full season as a mem- ber of the Atlantic Coast Conference. "I went into this year believing we had as many teams with chances to compete for national championships as we've had in my time here," athletics director Jack Swarbrick said. "I looked across the teams and at the things I think are the deltas between good years and great years — things like consistency in the coaching staff, holding a great staff together and quality of the student-athlete leadership. "The latter is an especially challenging variable be- cause we try to do a lot of things to identify leaders and build leadership. But, even with all that, you never know." The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics awards points for each sport based on a team's performance at national championship events — champions get 100 points, runners-up get 90 points, and so on. The 10 highest-scoring men's teams and the 10 highest-scoring women's teams from each school contribute to their final tally. The scoring is cut off after 10 teams to try to even the playing field between universities that field a different number of varsity teams. For example, perennial champ Stanford has 36 programs compared to Notre Dame's 26. This year, 11 women's teams finished high enough to qualify for points for the Irish, so the 20.5 points collected by the golf team didn't count toward the school's total. The spring was Notre Dame's strongest season this year, accounting for 430 of its 1,128.25 total points. The biggest contributors from that season were the men's lacrosse team, which lost in the NCAA title game to Duke, and the men's and women's tennis teams, which each reached the round of 16 in their 2014 NACDA DIRECTORS' CUP STANDINGS Total School Conference Points 1. Stanford Pac-12 1,482.0 2. Florida SEC 1,216.5 3. Notre Dame ACC 1,128.25 4. Virginia ACC 1,118.5 5. Penn State Big Ten 1,113.0 6. Texas Big 12 1,093.0 7. UCLA Pac-12 1,078.5 8. USC Pac-12 1,063.75 9. Duke ACC 1,051.0 10. Texas A&M SEC 1,022.0 NOTRE DAME IN THE DIRECTORS' CUP Year Total Points Place 2005 788.0 16 2006 905.5 6 2007 783.5 22 2008 760.5 21 2009 775.13 21 2010 711.0 27 2011 833.0 18 2012 843.5 17 2013 1,015.5 9 2014 1,128.25 3