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.

Awesome recognition for Ella who has had a great bounce back season after losing her starting spot at times last season. Our hitters are killing it (literally) and it all starts with the assists from Ella.

Go ahead and give her SEC Freshman of the year! And she will battle her teammate, Torrey Stafford, for SEC player of the year!

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.

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.

Great break down of some of our super freshmen! We have experience at setter, libero and in our primary offensive weapon, partnered with freshmen playing at such a high level!

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.

Just an insanely dominate performance over #21 Baylor. Big wins in every set. Cari Spears led the offense with 18 kills while hitting an insane 0.654! She added 3 blocks Torrey Stafford had a bit of an off night, 10 kills on 26 attacks for a 0.268 percentage. She did have 2 service aces and a block as well. Freshmen Taylor Harvey is coming along as well, she led the defense with 4 blocks while adding 7 kills on only 10 attacks! Conference play begins Wednesday against Vandy and Friday against Mizzou. Both at the Greg!

Over the last few weeks 2 things have become abundantly clear: 1. This women's volleyball team has what it takes to make a deep run in the post-season and claiming their 5th national championship is certainly a possibility 2. There is a good amount of interest on this board in the team. That said, I think it would be great to host all volleyball content on one thread throughout the season. @Sarah O and @GoHorns1 have been creating separate threads for each match, but let's just throw all of those on here. It'll also be a great spot for video highlights, social media posts and any other volleyball related news. If you haven't been paying attention to this team so far, now is the time! Hook em

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!

So much to play out this year regarding the Cup. 1 bad required sport will hurt Texas but certainly not sink our chances. If Stanford puts up 0s again in W and M Bball and baseball, Texas still has a great shot. I haven't written it up yet but Cross Country also not looking super strong but you could make a good argument for every other team on campus to have very very high level success this year.

3rd in the conference in the regular season, did win the conference tournament but that carries less weight than the regular season. They were a much better squad last year. Lexi Missimo carried a lot of that weight. Mia Justus was a great goal keeper. Between those two you had a big boost on offense and defense that just isn't there this year.

High point of the game was being tied at halftime. This team is in big trouble.

A very dominant win from a team that is really hitting on all cylinders. Torrey Stafford continues to be a dominant force - recording 15 kills while hitting 0.542 while adding 3 aces and 13 digs. Cari Spears continues her strong freshman campaign with 10 kills, hitting 0.526 while adding 3 blocks. Ella Swindle with a strong performance setting with 35 assists, with the longhorns hitting 0.521 overall.

In non-conference play, the Texas Longhorns Volleyball team has wins against teams currently ranked: Creighton #18 (#12 at the time of the match) 3-0 Wisconsin #7 (#8 at the time) 3-0 Stanford #4 (#6 at the time) 3-2 Louisville #3 (#4 at the time) 3-2 Arizona State #8 (#9 at the time) 3-0 TCU #9 3-0 Next match is against #21 Baylor SEC Teams in the rankings #6 Kentucky, #14 Texas A&M, #15 Florida, #22 Missouri, #24 Tennessee, RV LSU. The SEC has a 15 game round robin format so Texas will play all 5 of these teams..

The volleyball team has a chance to add another top 10 win to their resume as TCU moves up to #9, in part due to knocking off A&M. Texas plays TCU in Austin tomorrow night, 8pm. Game will air on SECN.

Spot on all around here. Way too early to consider final point tallies but it does seem that Texas could struggle in cross country, soccer and potentially football. That’s a lot of lost points in the fall that would need to be made up elsewhere.

Cari Spears is on track to be the top freshmen volleyball player in the country and if she can continue on this trend, could go down among the top Texas Volleyballers of all time! Texas has built quite the resume, probably better than Nebraska's so far, but Nebraska continues to hold the #1 spot overall. A lot of volleyball to go but a head to head between these two programs for a championship would be epic.

The Texas women's soccer team starts off SEC play with a 3-1 loss to Missouri. I grow more skeptical of this teams post-season chances with each loss. Ange Kelly may be coaching for her job this year.

Fall Sports Recaps and Previews Women's Volleyball While we all fret about the offensive performances on the grid iron, I figured we could use a pick me up with a deep dive on our historically most successful Fall sport - Women's Volleyball. Last year was an up and down season for Jerritt Elliot's squad as the team uncharacteristically dropped winnable matches and never found their footing against top competition. Lineups, rotations and formations fluctuated throughout the season as the coaching staff searched for consistency but it never truly came. Madisen Skinner performed at a very high level but no other outside hitter really came along to help her carry the load. The 2nd place conference finish was a disappointment for a team that entered the season as one of the most likely Texas teams to secure a SEC conference championship. The struggles continued in the NCAA tournament and the sweet 16 finish was only the 2nd time in the last 20 years the team has not advanced to at least the Elite 8. Entering this season, the big questions were - How would Texas replace Madi Skinner at the outside hitter position and would they find consistency at the setter and libero position? So far, both questions have been adamantly answered in the positive. Texas found its powerhouse Outside Hitter in national semifinalist Pitt Panthers transfer Torrey Stafford. The first team All-American led all of the power 4 in hitting percentage (0.358) last year and opted to spend her Junior year in Austin. She has not slowed down one bit since suiting up for the Longhorns - leading the team with 4.5 kills per set and hitting 0.294 on the year. Making the Texas attack even more dangerous has been super freshman Cari Spears. She is 2nd on the team in kills, 3.8 per set and is hitting at a healthy 0.292 percentage. Feeding the attack has been Ella Swindle, who struggled at times last year but has been very consistent in her setting so far this season. On the defensive side, Emma Halter has been very effective in the Libero role as the team as a whole has made scoring very tough on their opponents. Indiana Transfer Ramsey Gary has also been very effective subbing in at the Libero position this season. Sophmores Ayden Ames and Nya Byunton have led the charge at the middle blocker position. If you have missed it, the Texas Longhorns have built an incredible resume through 6 matches. Wins over #12 Creighton (3-0), #8 Wisconsin (3-0), RV Rice (3-1), #6 Stanford (3-2), #4 Louisville (3-2) and tonight's victory over #9 Arizona State (3-0). Things don't exactly slow down as they are set to face two other ranked big 12 foes in #15 TCU and #20 Baylor before entering SEC play. While Texas will be the favorite to win the SEC, #3 Kentucky and #8 A&M will be stiff competition. Florida, #11, and Missouri, #23, represent the only other ranked SEC teams at this juncture. Director's Cup Spin Women's Volleyball is one of the 5 required sports for the Director's Cup and Texas is on track to secure another solid score on the volleyball court. It is early in the season but Elite 8 seems like the floor for this team with the team's 5th NCAA Championship being a strong possibility. Women's volleyball follows the 64 team bracket scoring with points starting at 25 and increasing to 50, 64, 73, 83, 90 and 100 with each win.

Fall Sports Recaps and Previews The Fall sports season is well underway with competition officially starting about 1 month ago in women's soccer. The Texas Longhorns compete in 5 Fall sports - Football, W Soccer, Volleyball and M&W Cross Country. I'll use these next few posts to look back at the previous seasons for each sport, the outlook for this upcoming season and get caught up on results that have already occurred. Football has plenty of coverage elsewhere and I will not touch on it here. So let's get started! Womens Soccer The Longhorns started competing in Women's Soccer in 1994 and over these 32 seasons the team has made 14 NCAA tournament appearances with a high water mark of the sweet 16 on 5 occassions. The team has won 2 regular season conference championships (2001 and 2022 - Big 12) and 4 conference tournaments championships (2006, 2007, 2023 - Big 12, 2024 SEC). The team has enjoyed a really strong stretch over the last 3 seasons and this should come as no surprise as the hands down best player in Texas Soccer history, Lexi Missimo, was on campus during this time. Along with the very talented Trinity Byars and strong defensive efforts from Emj Cox and Goalkeeper Mia Justus this team had a very strong core of athletes on both sides of the field. Unfortunately injuries to Byars to Cox last year limited this ceiling of this team and ultimately lead to a round of 32 exit in the NCAA tournament. The story of the 24-25 season will be written based on how the team can replace this experienced core of players. Emj Cox has recovered from her injury and has been back on the field this season but early results show she may not be as effective in her role as she was prior to the injury. Last year's injury to Trinity Byars opened a striker spot and super freshmen Amalia Villareal did a great job stepping in to fill the void. Amalia scored 9 goals and assisted on 8 others on her way to winning the SEC freshmen of the year. Through 7 games this season she leads the team with 3 goals and has contributed 2 assists as well. Her scoring counterpart thus far has been freshmen Ava McDonald who has also netted 3 goals this season. Having completed the non-conference slate at 2-4-1, this team has shown some apparent struggles in reloading their roster. Outside of Villarreal and McDonald's 6 goals, only 5 goals have been scored by 4 other players. The team has scored 11 total goals while surrendering 14. The defense has allowed opposing teams to create a lot of opportunities and our Freshmen Goalkeeper, Mateya Dessieux, has not been able to clean up enough of the mistakes. The teams 2 wins on the year have come against Long Beach State and the College of Charleston. 3 Losses have come against big 12 foes (TCU, Baylor, Houston) and the worst of the losses was against Northwestern State. In summary, this team had a lot of holes to fill coming into the season and it does not seem like this squad has been able to do that successfully. Could a relatively young team continue to find improvement over the season? Yes, and that is the hope. The SEC conference is not incredibly strong in soccer but does have 6 teams in the top 25 with 2 others receiving votes. Texas started in the top 25 but would need to drastically improve results to find themselves back amongst the ranked teams. Finishing in the top half of the SEC seems to be unlikely this season, as does making the NCAA tournament. Paging @Amanda Atwell to add her soccer expertise! Director's Cup Spin: Women's Soccer is now one of the 5 required sports for the Director's Cup. Missing the tournament would guarantee a score of 0 being included in the final tally for Texas. Making the field of 64 secures 25 points with each successive round increasing the points to 50, 64, 73, 83, 90 and 100.

What is the Director's Cup? The Director's Cup is an award presented to the collegiate athletic department that achieves the highest level of success across a variety of sports, both men's and women's, during the academic year. Points are awarded, from 5-100 points, based on each teams placement in the NCAA sponsored championship competition for each sport. Failure to be included in the NCAA sponsored championship competition equates to 0 points score. The champion in each sport is awarded 100 points and the points beyond that vary based on the size of the bracket or number of teams included in the competition. Each school can include points scored by 19 different teams, regardless of gender. 5 of the 19 teams included must be Volleyball, W Soccer, W Basketball, M Basketball and Baseball. After those 5 sports are included, the next highest 14 scores are used to determine the final score. History The Director's Cup was started in the 93-94 season by USA Today and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and continues with these relationships today with the addition of Learfield as a corporate sponsor. In the inaugural season, The University of North Carolina won the cup while Stanford finished in 2nd place. Stanford would then go on to win the next 25 Director's Cup until Texas won their first during the 20-21 season. Texas would win a second cup during the 21-22 season with Stanford winning by a thin margin in 22-23. Texas has since gone back to back once again winning the Cup in 23-24 and 24-25. The original scoring system differed from the one described above. For the first 25 years schools could include points from their top 10 men's sports and top 10 women's sports which would be added together to give the grand total score. This system made it very challenging for schools with smaller departments, including Texas, to outright win the cup. In 1993 Texas had 9 Men's sports and 8 Women's Sports. In the early 2000s sports like W Soccer, Rowing and Softball had been added on the Women's side but Texas still did not field 10 Men's teams. The scoring system was changed to the current system for the 2017-18 season and the move away from gender specific scoring, decreasing the number of sports from 20 to 19 and adding required sports has made the cup more competitive (at least slightly). Texas would have won only 1 Director's Cup under the old scoring system.

Chris Del Conte and the Texas Longhorn put a bow on the 24-25 athletic season during halftime of the Longhorns game against San Jose State by accepting a newly designed (and thankfully crystal once again) Director's Cup Trophy. This marked the 4th time the Longhorns have secured this award in the last 5 years. It is now time to turn our attention fully to the 25-26 athletic season and that is what I hope to do in this thread. While Football puts the F in OTF, the Longhorns boast many successful programs on the 40 and we will highlight those here in this thread. Any sport that isn't covered in detail elsewhere on the forum will be covered here. I don't claim to be an expert in all 20 of these sports but will do my best to bring the news to the thread and add any flavor beyond that as I am able. If you have a good understanding of a sport discussed here, please feel free to add your input and become our local expert, it would be greatly appreciated. I'll also use this thread to post Director's Cup scoring updates, predictions and other info related to the Cup. I hope you all enjoy following along through the year as Texas goes after their 5th Cup!

Thanks for the support and interest. If it is penned, I'll definitely do even more updates than planned.

Thanks for the shoutout on the show this morning. @Blake Munroe was just a few tweets away from getting to my most recent top 10. Here is the newest top 10, including this weekends basketball results.