NC State finishes 26th in final Directors’ Cup standings

It’s a testament to the work Debbie Yow did in Raleigh that it could feel a little disappointing to see NC State finish outside the top 25 in the Directors’ Cup standings. Historically speaking, a top-30 finish is a hell of a year for NC State’s athletics department.

NC State closed out the 2018-19 season at No. 26 in the Directors’ Cup, a year after finishing 15th. If the baseball team had made it out of the Greenville Regional, State would have finished in the top 20 again. Alas.

Each school gets to submit 19 programs for the final scoring, but even with that attempt at evening things up for the poorer athletics departments, it doesn’t change the fact that schools with niche sports get points by default. I mean there’s like 10 schools with beach volleyball. They had an eight-team NCAA tournament. Everybody who makes the postseason earns points. It’s a lot easier to prop up your score if you play beach volleyball and water polo and have a rowing team.

So you just have to come at it with this understanding. NC State is never going to field all of these eligible sports, but NC State can continue doing a great job of maximizing what it does have on hand. Debbie Yow was fantastic at that, and now it’s on Boo Corrigan to keep it up.