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Where the BCS Conferences Finished in the Directors' Cup
by Chris Coleman, TechSideline.com

In a News and Notes update last Friday, we took a look at how Virginia Tech stacked up to the rest of the ACC in the recently released National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Directors’ Cup Standings. Now let’s see how the ACC compares to the rest of the BCS conferences in America.

Unfortunately, the ranking system is incomplete. Only the Top 100 schools in the Directors’ Cup are listed on the on the NACDA web site (in the past, the listings were complete), and the Big 12, SEC and Big East all had teams that did not make the Top 100. Since we don’t know where those schools finished, we can’t include them in the rankings, so they don’t drag the ratings of their respective conferences down.

At any rate, here’s a look at how the BCS conferences compare to each other.

Probably the most consistent conferences in the nation were the Big Ten and ACC. The Big Ten didn’t have a team ranked in the Top 10 nationally, but they also didn’t have a team finish below 53rd overall. The ACC didn’t have a team finish below 51st, which shows good parity from top to bottom in both conferences.

Other conferences varied in their finishes. The Big 12 and SEC both placed teams in the Top 5, but Texas Tech and Mississippi State did not finish in the Top 100. The Pac-10 had an amazing seven schools finish in the top 18 overall, but the last three schools suffered a big dropoff, ending up at 57th, 63rd and 71st.

In the table above, the ACC finishes fourth among BCS standings. But it isn’t fair to not penalize the SEC and Big 12 for each having a team finish outside the Top 100. So for the sake of argument, we’ll assign 150 points to each school outside the Top 100 and give them a finish of 102nd in the nation (two schools tied for 100, thus we skip 101 and end up with 102).

With those two schools added to the mix, that would drop the SEC’s average finish to a 36.6. The Big 12 drops to an average finish 48.8. That would push the ACC up to third in the overall standings, a very respectable position.

The Big East, Virginia Tech’s old stomping ground, has a totally different look than the other BCS conferences. At 52nd nationally, West Virginia is the highest ranking Big East team in the Directors’ Cup. The Big East is intermixed, with some schools that play football and other schools that don’t. Some schools like Providence and Georgetown, who don’t play football in the Big East, made the Top 100. But Cincinnati, who does play football in the Big East, did not make the Top 100.

For those of you keeping score, if we give the seven Big East schools who did not make the Top 100 the same rating of 150 points and a 102nd place finish (which is being very generous), the Big East’s average points would drop to 202.2, with an average finish of 85.8.

So where would the Hokies have finished if they had been in another conference? If Tech was still in the Big East, their point total would have been enough for first place in the conference. But for the other conferences, they would have finished in about the same position as they did in the ACC (10th). Tech would have finished 8th in the Big 12, 10th in the SEC, 10th in the Big Ten and 7th in the Pac-10. The Hokies have come a long way in the past two years in their Olympic sports programs, but there is still quite a bit of distance between them and many schools in BCS conferences.

The Pac-10 was on top this year, but between them, the Big Ten, the ACC and the SEC, there is relatively little difference, which illustrates the parity that is in college sports today. The Big 12 is well behind the top four conferences, while the Big East brings up the rear. Don’t be surprised if those top four conferences, especially the Big Ten, SEC and ACC, continue to finish very close in the final rankings in the future.