UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Athletics is off to another superb start in the Learfield Directors' Cup, with the Nittany Lions posting their 10th consecutive top 10 fall finish.
In the final fall Directors’ Cup standings, Penn State is ranked No. 7 with 293 points, moving up three spots from the final fall 2015 rankings. The Nittany Lions have finished in the top 10 in the fall rankings in 20 of the 24 years the Directors’ Cup has existed. Penn State’s last fall finish outside the top 10 was in 2006-07 (No. 13).
Penn State and Stanford are the nation’s only institutions to place in the top 10 in the final fall Directors’ Cup standings in each of the past 10 years. North Carolina is next with nine consecutive top 10 finishes.
During the fall semester, Penn State won Big Ten championships in football and women’s soccer, and the field hockey team captured the Big Ten tournament title. The field hockey, men’s and women’s cross-country, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams all competed in their respective NCAA championships, and the football team played in the Rose Bowl.
Four of Penn State’s fall teams were ranked in their respective top 15 (final regular season ranking): women’s cross-country (No. 8), field hockey (No. 5), football (No. 5) and women’s volleyball (No. 13). The football team placed No. 7 in the final Associated Press and Coaches’ polls.
Stanford leads the Directors’ Cup with 504.5 points and is followed by UCLA (348), North Carolina (345), Wisconsin (324), BYU (312.5), Michigan (297.5), Penn State (293), USC (290), Washington (281.5) and Colorado (268.5).
The Big Ten Conference’s three teams in the top 10 are second highest among all conferences.
The Nittany Lions are among only nine programs nationwide to have finished in the top 25 in all 23 Learfield Directors' Cup final standings.
Led by Director of Athletics Sandy Barbour, Penn State has one of the nation’s most comprehensive and successful athletic programs, featuring 800 student-athletes across 31 varsity programs (16 men’s, 15 women’s). Penn State student-athletes have an NCAA Graduation Success Rate of 89 percent. The Nittany Lions rank No. 4 among all Division I schools with 195 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans all-time, including two this past fall in first-team honoree Tyler Yazujian (football) and third-team honoree Haleigh Washington (women’s volleyball).
The Nittany Lions’ 48 NCAA championships all-time (76 national championships overall) rank No. 5 among all NCAA Division I programs and are the highest total of any college or university east of the Mississippi River. Penn State has won 100 Big Ten championships since capturing its first title in 1992. The Nittany Lions’ 100 conference titles rank No. 3 among all Big Ten institutions since 1992-93.
The Learfield Directors’ Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and USA Today. Points are awarded based on each institution's finish in NCAA championships.