Utah State earns highest ever finish in Directors’ Cup

Utah State announced on Monday that it achieved its highest ever finish in the Learfield Directors’ Cup, a nationwide competition which awards points based on the institution’s success in a wide variety of sports.

Placing No. 78 in the nation, the Aggies finished fifth of 11 members in the Mountain West Conference, and above all but one member of the American Athletic Conference. In total, Utah State finished 17th of non-Power Five schools.

“I want to congratulate our student-athletes, our coaches and our administration for all of their hard work in helping Utah State to its highest finish in the Learfield Directors’ Cup in school history,” said Utah State Vice President and Director of Athletics John Hartwell. “The finish is by far the best in USU history, and where we finished in the Mountain West, ahead of five Power Five schools and all but one member of the American, we feel really good about our athletic accomplishments this year.”

The competition, which included 291 NCAA Division I programs, allows points to be scored based on performance in 19 different sports. Points are only awarded in national competitions, and several of the sports included are not currently sponsored by Utah State.

The majority of USU’s points came from the performance of the men’s tennis team as well as both the men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams. Of the 266.25 total points scored by Utah State, 133.5 came from fall sports including a No. 14 finish by the women’s cross country team at the NCAA National Championships.

Hartwell also took to Twitter to congratulate the athletes on this accomplishment.

“So proud of our student-athletes, coaches, and administration for their efforts to make this happen,” he wrote. “Also, thank you to our donors whose investment in our program made these accomplishments possible. Go Aggies!”

Utah State’s previous highest finish in the Directors’ Cup came during the 2000-01 season, when the Aggies finished No. 98. Since the inception of the competition, USU has now finished in the top-150 six times.

Stanford finished first in this year’s competition, earning 12 top-10 finishes and four national championships.