At the end of last month, the Texas Longhorns captured their second consecutive LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup. That was thanks to three spring national championships and four overall titles by the Longhorns during the 2021-22 athletic season.
It meant Texas finished with 1,449.50 points, which cleared second-place Stanford by nearly 1,000 points (1,352.25). Three Big Ten schools made the top 25 of the LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup, including Michigan at No. 3 (1,245.25), Ohio State at No. 4 (1,184.50) and Wisconsin at No. 24 (795.00).
In the 2021-22 LEARFIELD Directors’ Cup, Iowa finished No. 55 nationally, which was second-to-last among Big Ten teams.
CBS Sports has a different set of rankings that grades the 2021-22 athletic season and it will make Hawkeyes fans much happier. CBS Sports’ “best in college sports” rankings utilizes a weighted formula that recognizes sports with broad interest.
Every FBS program is rated in three sports — football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball — along with two “wild cards” among the school’s most successful spectator sports: baseball, softball, volleyball, soccer, gymnastics, lacrosse, hockey and wrestling.
The weighted formula puts 2.5 times as much emphasis on football and 2.0 times as much on men’s basketball compared to the rest of the sports. Teams that do not finish in the final AP Top 25 in football but play in a bowl are awarded 62.5 points (25 x 2.5). (Teams that either opted out of bowl games or saw postseason contests canceled received 62.5 points in football.) Those that make the men’s NIT are given 20 points (10 x 2), while WNIT teams receive 10 points. For all titles settled via bracket, such as the NCAA Tournament, point totals are based on number of participants. All champions in the other sports receive 100 points for a national championship in the formula created by long-time CBS Sports producer J. Darin Darst. – CBS Sports.
A weighted formula probably makes sense to evaluate college sports. At the very least, it gives fans a different set of rankings to use—or ignore—in any argument on which programs had the best athletic years in 2021-22.
Let’s take a look at how CBS Sports ranked the entire top 25 and how their points were allotted.