25-26 Director's Cup Thread

[HookemTexas]

I don't think I've ever seen cross country compete for a national championship, is it because there aren't any scholarships there and most of the track and field scholarships go to indoor/outdoor T&F teams?

[HelloThere]

1 minute ago, HookemTexas said:

I don't think I've ever seen cross country compete for a national championship, is it because there aren't any scholarships there and most of the track and field scholarships go to indoor/outdoor T&F teams?

It is an extremely hard sport to recruit, but with all the changes in rosters and scholarship limits I can see Texas becoming competitive if they want to. Before, it was hard to have a great distance and sprint program.  XC is always just an extension of your distance program for track.  Now they can fully fund the program, again, if they want to. 

[HookemTexas]

3 minutes ago, HelloThere said:

It is an extremely hard sport to recruit, but with all the changes in rosters and scholarship limits I can see Texas becoming competitive if they want to. Before, it was hard to have a great distance and sprint program.  XC is always just an extension of your distance program for track.  Now they can fully fund the program, again, if they want to. 

Thanks, I'm really clueless when it comes to some of the "lesser" sports.  Like how tennis and golf scholarships work, I assume the top 4-5 ish are on scholarship and the others are walk ons.  Typically on the roster there seems to be a lot more than what we see play in the matches.

[HelloThere]

17 minutes ago, HookemTexas said:

Thanks, I'm really clueless when it comes to some of the "lesser" sports.  Like how tennis and golf scholarships work, I assume the top 4-5 ish are on scholarship and the others are walk ons.  Typically on the roster there seems to be a lot more than what we see play in the matches.

It will start to change soon, but before it was VERY rare if anyone on XC had a full scholarship, most would be small partial ones and hope to find some academic help as well.  In XC it was well known that you wanted to be fast and smart if you wanted any money for college.  Now some schools would use their assets on distance and that would be their chance at conference or their calling card.  Schools like Northern Arizona, Tulsa, BYU, etc.  There were some for sure.  But those schools would never have any strength in the speed disciplines.  You basically had to pick a lane.  

Tennis, golf, even baseball and softball were the same when it came to mostly partial scholarships if anything.  Way more walk ons than you would think.  

With the changes, teams with money and funding can now have full scholarships for anyone on the roster.  Of course, with the new roster limits in track, there will still have to be decisions made on if you want to use them on speed or distance, but there are also full XC scholarships available if a school wants to use them and try to win at distance only. Texas is not fully funding all of the new scholarships yet, no one is, but over time they expect to.  This is why I say we can become more competitive if we want. But it will also take spending big money overseas as well.  Schools like TTU are bringing over 27 year old, Olympic age "freshman" to compete in distance.  It is not illegal, even though I disagree with anyone over 25 competing in college sports, but that is what it is going to take.  You will need a roster with some international athletes to compete in distance. 

The hard part about distance recruiting is you can go get the best runner in America as a high school senior and they may not pan out.  Distance running is weird about that.  It takes years to truly develop and you have to be running all year long, some well over 100 miles a week in season, which can cause injury.  It is just a very tough sport to be consistently good at. 

[DirectorsCupUpdates]

13 hours ago, HelloThere said:

It will start to change soon, but before it was VERY rare if anyone on XC had a full scholarship, most would be small partial ones and hope to find some academic help as well.  In XC it was well known that you wanted to be fast and smart if you wanted any money for college.  Now some schools would use their assets on distance and that would be their chance at conference or their calling card.  Schools like Northern Arizona, Tulsa, BYU, etc.  There were some for sure.  But those schools would never have any strength in the speed disciplines.  You basically had to pick a lane.  

Tennis, golf, even baseball and softball were the same when it came to mostly partial scholarships if anything.  Way more walk ons than you would think.  

With the changes, teams with money and funding can now have full scholarships for anyone on the roster.  Of course, with the new roster limits in track, there will still have to be decisions made on if you want to use them on speed or distance, but there are also full XC scholarships available if a school wants to use them and try to win at distance only. Texas is not fully funding all of the new scholarships yet, no one is, but over time they expect to.  This is why I say we can become more competitive if we want. But it will also take spending big money overseas as well.  Schools like TTU are bringing over 27 year old, Olympic age "freshman" to compete in distance.  It is not illegal, even though I disagree with anyone over 25 competing in college sports, but that is what it is going to take.  You will need a roster with some international athletes to compete in distance. 

The hard part about distance recruiting is you can go get the best runner in America as a high school senior and they may not pan out.  Distance running is weird about that.  It takes years to truly develop and you have to be running all year long, some well over 100 miles a week in season, which can cause injury.  It is just a very tough sport to be consistently good at. 

Previous scholarhship limits were 12.6 for me and 18 for woman, and that combines Track & Field and CC. Like @HelloThere said, programs basically had to pick a couple of track disciplines and invest heavily there. For Texas it has been sprints, throwing and jumping events with little resource spent on distance events/CC.

There is no longer a scholarship limit, just a roster limit. That number is 45. Texas having 45 scholarship athletes should be a good advantage over schools that won't fully fund all their spots and you can truly build a strong program in every discipline.

I have always said the most valuable athletes in terms of the Director's Cup are distance runners. Someone who can be an All American in CC, indoor and outdoor track and field can have a positive scoring effect on 3 different sports!

[SpaceCityWrangler]

What were the fall scores for the previous five years? And what were the scores for women’s soccer? 

[DirectorsCupUpdates]

2 hours ago, SpaceCityWrangler said:

What were the fall scores for the previous five years? And what were the scores for women’s soccer? 

Love this question. I put together the scores in a spreadsheet.

As you can see, Texas is not typically a strong fall program. Further, the scoring in the fall doesn't correlate well to the final score. Further, Further, the final score doesn't correlate well with Texas Final ranking. We scored 1370 in 2022 and came second yet we have won the cup with final scores of 1252 (covid weirdness year) and 1255.25.
 

We are on track for 200+ this fall. That is plenty to keep us in contention, though the forced inclusion of a 0 in W soccer would likely impact our final score tally.

[DirectorsCupUpdates]

https://x.com/TexasSoccer/status/1969858996166086821?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

Soccer continues to struggle. Bright spots, Freshmen Striker Ava McDonald nets two goals. Amalia Villareal nets a PK but also missed one earlier in the match. 

Defense and goal keeping is killing us. Ange Kelly tried out a new Freshmen Goalie tonight without improved results.

Texas Soccer is now 2-7-1 on the season and 0-3 in the SEC. 

[HookemTexas]

The odd thing is that coach Kelly seems to have always recruited a strong goalie whether through direct recruiting or the transfer portal,  this is the first year in probably a decade that the goalie has been such a major weakness.

[DirectorsCupUpdates]

13 hours ago, HookemTexas said:

The odd thing is that coach Kelly seems to have always recruited a strong goalie whether through direct recruiting or the transfer portal,  this is the first year in probably a decade that the goalie has been such a major weakness.

Here is an interesting stat, Texas has 145 shots with 66 on goal and their opponents also have 145 shots with 69 on goal. The difference, Texas has 15 goals while their opponents have 24. This could reflect less effective defense comparatively, but more than likely it means we have worse goalie play compared to our opponents.

We are scoring 1.5 goals a game and giving up 2.4. Last year we scored 2.2 goals a game and only gave up 0.86. That is a goal per game difference of -2.24 goals between the two years.

[DirectorsCupUpdates]

Cross Country Preview:

The Texas Longhorns have historically not excelled in Cross Country. There may be a variety of reasons for this in the past but most recently it has been apparent that Coach Flo has prioritized the limited scholarships that are shared between T&F and CC for non-distance running athletes. Texas has rarely had strong Cross Country runners or athletes who excel at distance events during the Track and Field Season. 

In 2022, Texas hired Greg Metcalf to lead the Cross Country teams and I was curious if this would lead to a more serious approach to distance running. Coach Metcalf was previously a coach at Washington and won CC national championships on the women's side with the Huskies. A google search will show that his time ended in Washington with some athlete complaints around issues such as verbal abuse. His tenure at Texas was brief, and while he did bring Texas a top 10 finish on the Men's side in 2023, his tenure at Texas quietly ended with him doing little to rehab his image. 

Sarah Smith now serves as the assistance coach who oversees M&W CC and distance events. Under Coach Smith, the women's team made it to nationals last year and finished in last place while the mens team finished in the top 5 at regionals.

For the women Eva Jess and Olivia Howell were the top finishers at nationals as seniors. They were followed by returners Elizabeth Pickett, Sydni Wilkins and Brighton Mooney. None of the runners finished in the top 100 overall.

In the early season, against low level competition, the longhorns have swept the podium with the above mentioned returners leading the way along with Sophomore Kaylin Rendon entering the mix. It does not appear that any new comer on campus is going to make a major impact on the team.

On the Men's side, early results point to Freshmen Aidan Torres as the lead runner on this squad along with senior Nathanael Berhane and fellow fish Jaoquin De La Cruz. All 3 of the runners finished behind athletes from lower division Texas schools so I am skeptical they will be able to finish ahead of the Division 1 programs we will be facing in the SEC championships and regionals. 

Directors' Cup Spin

I have always said that distance athletes are the most valuable athletes in regards to the Directors' Cup. Someone who can run at an all-american level in CC, indoor and outdoor track can add a lot of overall points to the Directors' Cup tally. Unfortunately, Texas Track and Field, even when at their best, typically doesn't provide a lot of resources to this program. Hopefully with scholarship limits a thing of the past, and a roster limit of 45, Texas can rise to the top of the CC world once they start providing full rides to a full host of CC athletes.

Fortunately, qualifying for the NCAA Championship is based on the teams finish at regionals with the top 2 teams being Automatic Qualifiers. Arkansas has ruled the roost in the South Central Region but Texas has often been just good enough to finish second and make it to nationals. This year, they are not ranked in the top 2 in the region at this juncture but real competition doesn't start until next month. 

An AQ for NCAA championships means at least 43 points, even with a last place finish. Finishing in the top 5 at regionals, something both teams should be able to do everywhere, equates to 27-28 points. Id expect both teams to do that and keep our fingers crossed for something better.

 

[HookemTexas]

5 hours ago, DirectorsCupUpdates said:

Here is an interesting stat, Texas has 145 shots with 66 on goal and their opponents also have 145 shots with 69 on goal. The difference, Texas has 15 goals while their opponents have 24. This could reflect less effective defense comparatively, but more than likely it means we have worse goalie play compared to our opponents.

We are scoring 1.5 goals a game and giving up 2.4. Last year we scored 2.2 goals a game and only gave up 0.86. That is a goal per game difference of -2.24 goals between the two years.

This stat is crazy and basically explains the record this year.

[Migas & Fajitas]

Really enjoy these updates