June 3Jun 3 11 hours ago, Mittens said: Texas can score points in Softball, Men's T&F and Women's T&F. Oregon St beating USC clenched it for us right?
June 3Jun 3 4 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said: Oregon St beating USC clenched it for us right? Wouldn't that depend on T&F's final results? It was posted upthread that the point projection for those is based on the rankings (men #1, women #4), as of this last week (waiting for new data for today) If the USC women do better than 4th, they will increase their points over projection. They can also lower their points if the men don't win it all Texas can earn 10 more points if they win the title in softball and could always do better than 17th (men's T&F) and 11th (women's T&F). Worse finishes by either team or the USC women doing better than 4th would make this pretty close. We probably clinch it already if baseball didn't shit the bed and just made a super regional. Edited June 3Jun 3 by Js1
June 3Jun 3 Updated rankings are out: https://www.ustfccca.org/team-rankings-polls-central/outdoor-track-field-team-rankings Texas men moved up from #17 to #13 Texas women stayed at #11 USC men remained at #1 and USC women moved up from #4 to #3 - gonna be a tight one!
June 3Jun 3 USC women moving up 1 but our men up 4 is helpful. It would be great if both teams can sneak into the top 10 in the final standings next week to offset a title or top 3 finish by USC
June 3Jun 3 5 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said: Oregon St beating USC clenched it for us right? there will be no clenching from any Texas team...
June 3Jun 3 Unrelated to this year's Cup, but for next year and beyond, is there realistic hope that men's and women's T&F will improve much? It's obviously a different recruiting game, but we're in a talent-rich region and should be able to pull enough athletes to be Top 10.
June 4Jun 4 3 hours ago, Gut Wagon said: Unrelated to this year's Cup, but for next year and beyond, is there realistic hope that men's and women's T&F will improve much? It's obviously a different recruiting game, but we're in a talent-rich region and should be able to pull enough athletes to be Top 10. If we actually find the scholarships that are proposed in the House agreement you'll see UT rocket to the top. Very few schools are even considering that
June 4Jun 4 Men's track participants in championships (where ranked in prelims) Xavier Butler, 200M, 8th fastest Kendrick Smallwood, 110M hurdles, 1st Kody Blackwood, 400M hurdles, 1st 4X100 relay, 3rd 4X400 relay, 6th Osawese Agbonkonkon, 17th, but his height is very close to 1st Kelsey Daniel, triple jump, 5th Texas Tanner, discus, 11th Texas Tanner, hammer, 4th We need to finish 13th or better to match our expected points. Last year, 13th place scored 19 total team points. Last year, we finished 12th and scored 20 total team points. Texas won the decathlon and had a 5th place finish and 2 6th place finishes to score the 20 points. If Texas can do well in the hurdles, relays, and hammer, then we have a good chance to place better than 13th.
June 4Jun 4 Though we may never do it again in our lifetimes, we need to root for the Aggies to beat USC in track. Aggies ranked 2nd compared to USC 1st in men's track. Aggies ranked 2nd compared to USC 3rd in women's track.
June 4Jun 4 One way that the NCAA T&F championships would seem to potentially poorly reflect the rankings is that the NCAA scoring system is very top-heavy; depth doesn't come into play as much as it does in swimming, and the rankings do reflect depth that is not projected to score at nationals. You can make the finals in an event and *still* not score any points for your team (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1). The ratings reflect a lot of depth in the sprints for USC but they aren't all seeded that highly (though for the most part the 100m spread in seedings is exceedingly tight). Looking at the seedings (available at https://www.rtspt.com/ncaa/d1outdoor25/), USC actually looks to me to be a bit better positioned to win on the women's side than on the men's side. We really need our hurdlers to come through on the men's side and for some (hurdlers again) on the women's side to far exceed their seedings.
June 4Jun 4 6 hours ago, Gut Wagon said: Unrelated to this year's Cup, but for next year and beyond, is there realistic hope that men's and women's T&F will improve much? It's obviously a different recruiting game, but we're in a talent-rich region and should be able to pull enough athletes to be Top 10. It wasn't that long ago that we were at the top of the sport. I posted somewhere in this thread that both the Men and Women were ranked #1 for almost all of the 2022 season before finishing 2nd at nationals. The men dropped into top 15 range after that, but the women followed that up with a national championship in 2023 and a 3rd place finish last year.
June 4Jun 4 I didn't know this before today, but the men and women were ranked #5 and #2, respectively, in the first week's rankings. They both had a larger drop in the rankings in the 3rd week. I don't follow the teams, so I don't know what happened. In contrast, there are examples of teams initially ranked between 100 and 200, who improved and made it into the top 20.
June 4Jun 4 I believe these rankings are purely mathematical based on current rankings by event. So in the beginning of the season, there is a small sample size for each event and if Texas had a lot of athletes compete early relative to the rest of the nation, they may be 'overrated'. It was very confusing how our programs fell off the map this year after competing for top 5 finishes regularly in recent years. It appears to be due to a mix of graduations and some NCAA scorers leaving us via the transfer portal. I'm not sure how things are looking for years ahead; is there a good source for T&F recruiting rankings/info?
June 4Jun 4 18 hours ago, chiu1040 said: Though we may never do it again in our lifetimes, we need to root for the Aggies to beat USC in track. Aggies ranked 2nd compared to USC 1st in men's track. Aggies ranked 2nd compared to USC 3rd in women's track. Are they playing OU? No? I'm not rooting for A&M.
June 4Jun 4 I know one of the things Del Conte is doing with the proposed House Settlement money sharing is fully funding the available spots with full scholarships. So now every sport that Texas fields a team will have every slot as a fully paid ride. Assuming something doesn't change via legislation or through the courts.
June 5Jun 5 5 hours ago, SL Xpress said: I know one of the things Del Conte is doing with the proposed House Settlement money sharing is fully funding the available spots with full scholarships. So now every sport that Texas fields a team will have every slot as a fully paid ride. Assuming something doesn't change via legislation or through the courts. Even baseball? I thought there was going to be a large increase, but not a full 34 (or whatever the proposed new roster limit would be). Actually, I found the answer. Proposal is just to 25, which is still a huge increase. https://www.statesman.com/story/sports/college/longhorns/2025/02/27/texas-announces-plan-to-add-200-scholarships-after-ncaa-settlement/80584799007/ That proposal should make both men's and women's T&F insanely competitive, henceforth Edited June 5Jun 5 by MuellerHorn
June 5Jun 5 21 hours ago, SL Xpress said: Are they playing OU? No? I'm not rooting for A&M. Yeah I'd rather Texas lose a director's cup (which is fun but ultimately who really cares) than see aggy win a national title in anything.
June 5Jun 5 1 hour ago, ztejas said: Yeah I'd rather Texas lose a director's cup (which is fun but ultimately who really cares) than see aggy win a national title in anything. I can't agree with you there. I'm not rooting for them, but I'm indifferent about their success.* Winning the director's cup is a big deal to me. I watched as Stanford dominated this thing for a couple of decades because they fielded so many more sports than we did. Now that they've limited the advantage having extra programs gives Stanford (I'm not completely on board with this, since I think fielding more teams should be incentivized, but that's a different topic) with only the top 20 results counting, Texas has been dominating. Personally, I love it. *That's not true. I get a great deal of entertainment value at watching their reactions to repeated failures. So I'm not indifferent. I also can't imagine being indifferent about them winning a national championship in football. I'm not concerned about it, but that wouldn't be an ideal outcome. I still remember OU winning a national championship in football in 2000. That was a dagger through the heart. I'd prefer they remain awful, because that's fun. But I'm not going to be too bothered if they manage to become good in something aside from meat judging. Edited June 5Jun 5 by SL Xpress
June 5Jun 5 I wonder if aggy is even aware of the role they play in this. I guess if they win, they get to claim a Natty! And of course, we couldn't have won the Cup without their help. So, advantage aggy. Or some such bullshit along those lines.
June 6Jun 6 To be honest the Aggies have won occasional championships in the minor sports, and none of us thought twice about it or even knew it happened. I doubt the casual Aggie fan is even aware. Who knew that they won women’s tennis last year?If they can help us win the director’s cup, I’m all for it.
June 7Jun 7 Popular Post On 5/29/2025 at 8:57 PM, closetojumping said: Eh, no. If you’re going to attempt to correct someone, don’t be that much of a fuck up. It’s jumping the gun. Jumping the shark is a reference to a popular something or other taking things too far into absurdity and losing its audience/impact. Jesus. Also, no shit softball and baseball are still playing? So are rowing and both gender T&F. 1 national championship for this season will be won.
June 7Jun 7 On 5/29/2025 at 7:57 PM, closetojumping said: Eh, no. If you’re going to attempt to correct someone, don’t be that much of a fuck up. It’s jumping the gun. Jumping the shark is a reference to a popular something or other taking things too far into absurdity and losing its audience/impact. Jesus. Also, no shit softball and baseball are still playing? So are rowing and both gender T&F. 1 national championship for this season will be won. This aged very very poorly 1 minute ago, Derka said:
June 7Jun 7 On 5/28/2025 at 7:56 AM, closetojumping said: I know this sounds spoiled, but it kind of sucks that it looks like Texas will only win one national title this season in college sports. A whole bunch of top 4-8 finishes is a nice consolation prize, but here’s to more titles in the 2025/2026 cycle.
June 8Jun 8 Can someone please summarize what we need to happen in T&F to close this thing out? I had been thinking that USC’s elimination in baseball followed by the Softball NC would have clinched it.
June 8Jun 8 4 minutes ago, MirrOlure said: Can someone please summarize what we need to happen in T&F to close this thing out? I had been thinking that USC’s elimination in baseball followed by the Softball NC would have clinched it. We basically need to get the points that our ranking says we will get. If we underperform our ranking, then we need usc to underperform theirs. if we meet expectations, we need them to not exceed, which they can only do by winning both titles. Edited June 8Jun 8 by Pato del Muerto
June 8Jun 8 3 minutes ago, MirrOlure said: Can someone please summarize what we need to happen in T&F to close this thing out? I had been thinking that USC’s elimination in baseball followed by the Softball NC would have clinched it. On 6/6/2025 at 6:53 AM, Mittens said: Match their finishes to their current rankings and it doesn’t matter what USC does, even if they sweep T&F
June 8Jun 8 3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said: We basically need to get the points that our ranking says we will get. If we underperform our ranking, then we need usc to underperform theirs. if we meet expectations, we need them to not exceed, which they can only do by winning both titles. Per the above, they can sweep and come Up short by 7 points
June 8Jun 8 2 hours ago, MirrOlure said: Can someone please summarize what we need to happen in T&F to close this thing out? I had been thinking that USC’s elimination in baseball followed by the Softball NC would have clinched it. Mostly it comes down to how well Texas T&F performs. Everybody is focusing on USC, but T&F needs to score some points in T&F to pass Stanford. I don't have the breakdown in points to know Stanford's projected final score. There is a limit to the number of sports that can go to the DC total, so i can't tell how many points (if any) Stanford will gain from baseball. Adding in the 50 points Texas will get from baseball, Texas needs to score at least 27 points to pass Stanford's total after 35 sports counted. The track and field point totals for T&F seems to come from the 64-team category of https://nacda.com/documents/2023/11/22/ScoringUpdate2023.pdf. In a 64-team event, a team would gotten 27 points in 2024 by finishing 47th, which would have required a team to score either 4 (men) or 5.3 (women) points in the 2024 T&F championships (https://flashresults.ncaa.com/Outdoor/2024/scores.htm), which translates to a 5th (M) or 3rd place (W) finish in just a single event. Given that Texas has runners seeded first or second in a few events (M 100 hurdles, M 400 hurdles, W 400 hurdles), this does not seem to be a high bar, which is presumably why nobody is talking about it. Winning a single event gives a team 10 points in T&F, and that would have translated to either 27th (M) or 32nd (W), which would have translated to 47 or 42 DC points. I'm assuming that Texas doesn't have other low-performing sports that are currently included in the overall count that would no longer be included in the score (though they have highly seeded jumpers on the women's side and should place fairly highly). believe that last year women's cross-country was included in the total before T&F, but those points were eventually excluded because UT passed the threshold for number of sports included in the score). I'm also assuming that Stanford is not expected to score enough points in T&F for their scores to be counted above other sports that are already included (though they have . Something doesn't add up once I add in baseball total and track projections to the totals posted above after 34/37 sports included, so we may have some low-scoring sport that gets the points thrown out after T&F. Given all of that, USC currently trails Texas by 132.75 points. They would get 135 points if their teams both finished 10th. The pivotal events for USC are the sprints (M &W 100m, M&W 200m, and M&W 4x100 relays) where they have a lot of entries (though several are on the fringe for scoring points (below 8th gets 0 points). From the seedings on the men's side (https://www.rtspt.com/ncaa/d1outdoor25/men_qualifiers.htm), Texas would by my unofficial count actually finish ahead of USC on the men's side (34 pts to 31 pts), though that would require wins in both of the hurdle events. USC men have also qualified in 4x400 and single participants in both hurdles, all 3 jumps, and shot put. Texas women do not look so good based on seedings, with only three events seeded to score (Garrett in 400 hurdles (2nd seed) and the 4x100 relay (5th seed), along with an 8th seed in shot put (1 pt), so that total is thinner. Seedings don't map to rankings, so mileage may vary. So the short answer is that there is really no short answer. Texas has to do well enough in T&F to pass Stanford's total and stay ahead of USC's total, and that's a pretty fluid picture. I would really like to know if Texas has a sport total that is expected to fall off the total after T&F and would like to know the same for Stanford. That's apparently not in play for USC. Edited June 8Jun 8 by nozatx
June 8Jun 8 Okay, I nerded out and tried to score out all of the LC sports for Stanford, UT, and USC to see exactly where things land. I think that DC Updates has one big error in his calculations which will affect USC's potential total score, but I'll get to that later. The number of sports which count are 5 required countable sports and then the next 14 highest scoring team points. My calculated scores through 34 events matches those from the Directors' Cup top 10 post above except for I'm off by 0.5 points on USC which I haven't debugged yet, but it's close enough. After throwing in the 50 points each for USC and UT in baseball, I calculated the countable scores as Stanford 1237.5, UT 1211, and USC 1019.2
June 8Jun 8 Oops, accidentally posted that before I was finished. Here's the full post: Okay, I nerded out and tried to score out all of the LC sports for Stanford, UT, and USC to see exactly where things land. I think that DC Updates has one big error in his calculations which will affect USC's potential total score, but I'll get to that later. The number of sports which count are 5 required countable sports and then the next 14 highest scoring team points. My calculated scores through 34 events matches those from the Directors' Cup top 10 post above except for I'm off by 0.5 points on USC which I haven't debugged yet, but it's close enough. After throwing in the 50 points each for USC and UT in baseball, I calculated the countable scores as Stanford 1237.5, UT 1211, and USC 1069.25 (that's off by 0.5 points from above as I mentioned). After 35 events, Stanford and Texas already have points from 14 optional sports and USC has 13. That means that the scores from the two track and field events have to be higher than the scores from the 13th and 14th optional score in order to affect the overall score. For Stanford, their current 13th and 14th event scores are women's indoor T&F at 63 pts and women's beach volleyball at 60. If Stanford somehow swept the T&F titles, they wouldn't add 200 points to the current score since you would have to also subtract out the 123 points from W ITF and BVB, since those would no longer count towareds their top 14 optional sports. In terms of O T&F, Stanford has to finish higher than 15th to add any points at all to their current total (easily doable on the women's side). For UT, the sports that would drop off are W I T&F (35.5) and M CC (27), so you have to subtract out those points before you count the points for the T&F teams. The threshold to start adding points for UT in O T&F are 38th place and 46th place. USC has men's golf at 40.5 points and everything else at 0 to subtract so that would give them a slight advantage since they will lose fewer points from the equation, but there's where I think DC Updates has an error. Beginning in 2024-2025, women's soccer is one of the required countable sports, so you have to count the score from that sport regardless of what the score in that sport might be. USC did not score any points in women's soccer, so you *have* to count that score. Without that scoring change, USC would be able to count the full score for T&F and not have to subtract out the men's golf score. That's how he got a max of 1268.75 for USC - he didn't account for the required women's soccer score. Assuming that the correct current USC score is 1068.75, that puts their max at 1068.75+200-40.5 = 1225.25, which is just barely above UT's current 1211 score. Maybe somebody with an active account on X could message DC Updates and ask if he was taking into account that women's soccer score is now mandatory. (From https://nacda.com/sports/2018/7/17/directorscup-nacda-directorscup-scoring-html.aspx, "Division I: Count 19 sports with the following breakdowns (decreased by 1, 19.1 avg.)- Five of which must be Baseball and Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, Women's Volleyball and Women's Soccer") I didn't go through and do the same calculations for UNC and UCLA, but I should do that for completeness. (One nuance in the scoring that surprised me was that teams which do not advance to nationals in golf still score points if they participated in one of the regionals)
June 8Jun 8 We basically need to get the points that our ranking says we will get. If we underperform our ranking, then we need usc to underperform theirs. if we meet expectations, we need them to not exceed, which they can only do by winning both titles. Okay this was hilarious. Well done.
June 9Jun 9 On 6/7/2025 at 12:17 AM, closetojumping said: I am going to post a reverse jinx for every team before their season from here forward. Thanks helobiouspoint
June 9Jun 9 My swag at UCLA and North Carolina shows North Carolina out of contention due to their small chances of scoring in T&F at a level for those scores to count (I have their 18th and 19th point scoring teams at 40.5 and 28.5, and their participant list for T&F is small and weak on both sides). UCLA, on the other hand, gets at least 73 from baseball after taking out UTSA and advancing to MCWS and could get 27 more which would bring their total to 1129.5 (I'm off by 4 points from DC Updates 34/37 total somewhere but I'm not going to debug it), and they will likely score some points in women's T&F (not men so much). Their 18th and 19th placed teams I currently have at 21.5 and 17 points, so that's not much of a bar for improvement via T&F. They're probably out of it, but if they win baseball, it would get a bit tighter, and they'll almost certainly pass UNC in the standings.
June 9Jun 9 8 hours ago, nozatx said: Oops, accidentally posted that before I was finished. Here's the full post: Okay, I nerded out and tried to score out all of the LC sports for Stanford, UT, and USC to see exactly where things land. I think that DC Updates has one big error in his calculations which will affect USC's potential total score, but I'll get to that later. The number of sports which count are 5 required countable sports and then the next 14 highest scoring team points. My calculated scores through 34 events matches those from the Directors' Cup top 10 post above except for I'm off by 0.5 points on USC which I haven't debugged yet, but it's close enough. After throwing in the 50 points each for USC and UT in baseball, I calculated the countable scores as Stanford 1237.5, UT 1211, and USC 1069.25 (that's off by 0.5 points from above as I mentioned). After 35 events, Stanford and Texas already have points from 14 optional sports and USC has 13. That means that the scores from the two track and field events have to be higher than the scores from the 13th and 14th optional score in order to affect the overall score. For Stanford, their current 13th and 14th event scores are women's indoor T&F at 63 pts and women's beach volleyball at 60. If Stanford somehow swept the T&F titles, they wouldn't add 200 points to the current score since you would have to also subtract out the 123 points from W ITF and BVB, since those would no longer count towareds their top 14 optional sports. In terms of O T&F, Stanford has to finish higher than 15th to add any points at all to their current total (easily doable on the women's side). For UT, the sports that would drop off are W I T&F (35.5) and M CC (27), so you have to subtract out those points before you count the points for the T&F teams. The threshold to start adding points for UT in O T&F are 38th place and 46th place. USC has men's golf at 40.5 points and everything else at 0 to subtract so that would give them a slight advantage since they will lose fewer points from the equation, but there's where I think DC Updates has an error. Beginning in 2024-2025, women's soccer is one of the required countable sports, so you have to count the score from that sport regardless of what the score in that sport might be. USC did not score any points in women's soccer, so you *have* to count that score. Without that scoring change, USC would be able to count the full score for T&F and not have to subtract out the men's golf score. That's how he got a max of 1268.75 for USC - he didn't account for the required women's soccer score. Assuming that the correct current USC score is 1068.75, that puts their max at 1068.75+200-40.5 = 1225.25, which is just barely above UT's current 1211 score. Maybe somebody with an active account on X could message DC Updates and ask if he was taking into account that women's soccer score is now mandatory. (From https://nacda.com/sports/2018/7/17/directorscup-nacda-directorscup-scoring-html.aspx, "Division I: Count 19 sports with the following breakdowns (decreased by 1, 19.1 avg.)- Five of which must be Baseball and Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, Women's Volleyball and Women's Soccer") I didn't go through and do the same calculations for UNC and UCLA, but I should do that for completeness. (One nuance in the scoring that surprised me was that teams which do not advance to nationals in golf still score points if they participated in one of the regionals) Dude - that’s a long ass post. Ain’t nobody got time for that! Hook’em!!!
June 9Jun 9 I can’t sleep and I can’t read that shit! Thank God football season isn’t going on or I’d never sleep! Fng old age and I have to be at work in four hours. Hook’em!!!
June 9Jun 9 On 6/7/2025 at 3:16 AM, perfectchaos007 said: Baseball should bump us ahead of Michigan. Then, we should pick up lots of points on both Michigan and Virginia in track. Doubt we can jump Tennessee. They will get lots of points in women's track, plus they've got another ~25 more points than us coming from baseball.
June 9Jun 9 Okay, more succinctly, DC Updates overstates USC's total score potential by 40 points due to a technical error with women's soccer and USC cannot catch Stanford's current 1237.5. UT T&F has to do place high enough to catch and stay ahead of Stanford. So, watch results for UT M&W as well as Stanford W. Despite Stanford's relatively low track ranking, it only takes a couple of really high finishes to move way up the T&F team standings. Edited June 9Jun 9 by nozatx typo
June 9Jun 9 Though I can't always match DC update's scores exactly, he did get USC soccer right. They lost in the quarterfinals and scored 73 points. That's already in the score release of the Fall sports. Looks like an official update is coming out tomorrow that will reflect everything except baseball and T&F. Edited June 9Jun 9 by chiu1040
June 10Jun 10 Here are some combinations of men and women track finishes that win us the cup, in terms of place: 10 and 21, 11 and 19, 12 and 18, 13 and 16, 14 and 15.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.