UNC Leads DI Directors’ Cup Standings After First Winter Standings Update

The University of North Carolina retains the lead in the Division I Learfield Directors’ Cup standings after the first winter ranking. The Tar Heels have tallied 843.25 points so far this season, opening an 80-point lead over Stanford.

2024-25 Learfield Directors’ Cup Division I Winter Top 10 (As of 4/8/25)

1. UNC – 843.25
2. Stanford – 760.50
3. Wisconsin – 693.70
4. Ohio State – 683.75
5. USC – 642.00
6. Texas – 623.50
7. BYU – 557.00
8. Penn State – 548.50
9. Duke – 542.50
10. Tennessee – 541.75

Women’s swimming and diving teams scored points for nine of the top ten schools in these rankings, with Penn State the only exception. The men’s swimming and diving programs scored for seven of the top ten schools, with the championship-winning Longhorns earning the maximum 100 points to help Texas reach sixth in the rankings.

Placing highly in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings is a high priority for many universities’ athletic departments. Stanford women’s head coach Greg Meehan cited it as a factor in his original decision to send NCAA qualifiers home from the ACC Championships early, which ultimately did not happen. “At Stanford, it’s always about the Directors’ Cup and trying to score as many points for Stanford as we can.”

The Cardinal won 25 Directors’ Cups straight from the 1994-95 season to 2018-19. Texas snapped the school’s streak in 2020-21. Stanford has finished in the top two spots during each of the last four seasons, reclaiming the cup in 2022-23 before Texas took it back last season.

The Stanford women stayed for the entire ACC Championships and still performed strongly at the NCAA Championships, finishing second behind Virginia. The 90 points earned from that placement helped the Cardinal maintain their second-place spot in the Directors’ Cup standings, as did the men’s team’s eighth-place finish at their NCAA Championships a week later.

UNC also had two top-ten finishes at winter NCAA Championships, courtesy of women’s basketball and men’s indoor track and field. The Tar Heels placed 17th at the Women’s NCAA Swimming Championships and 23rd at the men’s championships, earning 57 and 50.5 points, respectively.

Wisconsin, Ohio State, and USC make up the rest of the top five in the recently released standings. The men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs at each of these universities placed in the top 25 at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. The USC women placed the highest of these six teams, finishing 11th, just ahead of the Wisconsin women.

The final winter Division I standings will be published in late April. All updates to the standings are unofficial until June when the season’s winner is declared. The Division I standings are calculated by counting 19 sports team’s performances at the NCAA Championships over the fall, winter, and spring seasons.

This year, the number of countable sports—which must be included in a school’s points total if sponsored by the university—was expanded to five. Women’s soccer was added, joining women’s basketball, women’s volleyball, men’s baseball, and men’s basketball. The next highest 14 sports score for the institution, regardless of gender (except men’s water polo).

The SEC leads all Division I conferences with nine schools in the top 25 rankings as Texas (6th), Tennessee (10th), Alabama (13th), Arkansas (17th), Florida (18th), Kentucky (20th), Mississippi (22nd), Georgia (23rd), and Texas A&M (25th) all made the cut.