Steady Slipping in the Cup Standings

By Patrick Garbin--Twitter @PGarbinDT

I was intrigued with the recent post on The Dawgvent started by @drdon50 regarding Georgia’s current ranking for the annual NACDA Directors’ Cup, whereby points are awarded to athletic programs based on their finish in polls/championship events. Stanford has won the cup for the last 20-something years in a row, which brings up a good point by @LawDawg86: Twenty sports are considered (10 men, 10 women) for the cup standings, yet Georgia participates in 18, meaning the school receives two “zeros.” The highly-ranked schools, like Stanford, compete in more than 20 sports, often excelling in country club athletics, Olympic sports, and the more obscure.

“Not defending the AD, just pointing out all the facts,” LawDawg86 concluded. In agreement—not defending or attacking Greg McGarity—I wanted to discover the facts regarding the NACDA Directors’ Cup standings and how Georgia performed during the tenures of its last three athletic directors.

The standings began being released annually with the 1993-94 academic year and have continued over the last 23 years: 11 years under AD Vince Dooley (1993-94 through 2003-04), six years under AD Damon Evans (2004-05 through 2009-10), and six years under AD McGarity (2010-11 through 2015-16). As mentioned, since schools compete in a varying number of sports, I decided to consider only the Southeastern Conference, and just the 12 schools which have been members for the duration of the time being measured (1993-94 to present), because schools in the SEC more or less/nearly compete in the same sports.

For the final 11 years Vince Dooley was athletic director, Georgia’s average national ranking in the Directors’ Cup was No. 11½, while the Bulldogs had a 2.6 average finish of the 12 SEC teams at the time. Their average point total was good for a solid second-place finish in the conference, trailing top-ranked Florida by an average of 117.7 points:

During the six years Damon Evans was athletic director, Georgia averaged 12.7 and 2.8 annual rankings in the national and SEC standings, respectively. Still, although the Bulldogs again finished second in the conference in average point total, it was a distant second behind the Gators with No. 3 Tennessee and No. 4 LSU close on their heels:

The past six years under Greg McGarity, the athletic program slipped to an average national ranking of No. 15½ in the cup standings. However, although Georgia was a distant, distant second behind Florida by more than an average of 300 points, and with LSU and Arkansas close behind, simply, the Bulldogs remained at No. 2 in the SEC (it’s the Tennessee enthusiasts who should be really alarmed!):

Notwithstanding, and again as LawDawg86 mentioned, when it comes to the NACDA Directors’ Cup, finishing first in sports like football, basketball, and baseball results in the program receiving the exact same number of points as, say, finishing first in bowling, equestrian, and the like. For this reason, there are those, like myself, who prefer the Capital One Cup standings.

Like the previous cup, the Capital One Cup also rewards points throughout the school year based on how individual sports teams finish in polls and championship events. However, sports are divided into two groups based on popularity and pool of competition, with Group B scoring three times the amount of points as Group A. For example, a national championship in football (Group B) receives 60 points compared to a national championship in tennis or golf (Group A) which earns 20 points. Also, there are separate Capital One Cups for men's and women's sports. The award started in 2010-11, or McGarity’s first year as athletic director.

Accordingly, SEC standings based on the sports’ popularity and pool of competition during the first six years of Greg McGarity's tenure resulted in Georgia finishing a distant fourth behind No. 1 Florida, No. 2 LSU and No. 3 Alabama, with No. 5 Arkansas not too far behind (still, for measurement purposes, excludes Texas A&M and Missouri):

In Capital One Cup results the last six years, you’ll notice, UGA’s women athletics was a respectable No. 3 in the SEC, with an 18.2 average national ranking. It’s the men sports which dragged the Bulldogs down, ranking only 9th out of 12 conference schools with just 118 points, while averaging around a lowly No. 42 national ranking.

What’s more, the 2017-18 academic year hasn’t got off to the best of starts for UGA athletics as the Bulldogs through January 10 had a combined zero Capital One Cup points for their men and women’s teams, whereas Alabama, South Carolina, Auburn, and Ole Miss—to name a few—have already totaled 36, 18, 9, and 8 points, respectively.