In response to a thread on the NIU board,
(here) I did a little back of the envelope calculations in regards to the last ten years of MAC schools and their athletic performance. I didn't get a lot of responses on the NIU board so I thought I could spur a little discussion here. I included as well some calculation on the NIU programs vs the rest of the main athletic programs in the state of Illinois.
I am not 100% confident that what I have is correct, so any help / thoughts / corrections / comments would be appreciated. I went through the years and ranked each program based on their final standing in the Director'c Cup for an overall performance indication. That data is at the end of the post.
I also put together some notes on the overall athletic performance based on the final Reese and Jacoby standings. Unfortunately the MAC website doesn't offer an archive of the complete results with all schools per year, so I had to cobble together standings as best I could. That information follows the Director's Cup information, and again any help would be appreciated so I can prepare the final standings.
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The Director's Cup scoring system
(here) and
(here) rewards the overall success of the athletic programs. While the scoring system is designed to be as apolitical as possible, obviously schools with higher numbers of individual programs (in some less than common sports like Water Polo, Rowing, Men's VBall etc) have a better chance of scoring points. Other sports and schools, like WSBall at DePaul, consistently score so high at NCAA that it seems to sort of make up for lack of other competitive sports.
Schools in the MAC are at an inherent disadvantage when in compitition against the rest of the big conferences and schools, due to lack of said sports, however most MAC schools sponsor the same type sports on average so the comparisions are apt within the conference.
MAC
Using the final standings per year, in the MAC the top three overall athletics programs (men's and women's) from 1997 - 2007 are
1. Kent State
2. Eastern Michigan
3. Central Michigan
and the bottom three are
10. Western Michigan
11. Bowling Green
12. Buffalo
Complete average standing 97-07
1. Kent State (run away best)
2. Eastern Michigan (about equal with CMU well behind KSU)
3. Central Michigan (about equal with EMU)
4. Ball State (about equal with Miami, well behind CMU)
5. Miami (about equal with BSU)
6. Ohio (about equal with NIU, well behind Miami)
7. NIU (about equal with Ohio)
8. Toledo (behind NIU, each of the below are apart by equal amounts)
9. Akron
10. Western Michigan
11. Bowling Green
12. Buffalo (consistently at end of final standings)
State of Illinois
1. Illinois (close to NU in final standings)
2. Northwestern (best in state last 3 years)
3. Illinois State (well behind UI and NW, close with DePaul and UIC)
4. DePaul (close to ISU and UIC)
5. UIC (close to ISU and DePaul
6. NIU (well behind Top 5, not even close to DePaul)
7. EIU (All 4 state schools pretty close)
8. WIU
9. SIU
10. Bradley (far behind the directionals, tied with Loyola)
11. Loyola (tied with Bradley)
Supporting measurment data from 1996-2007, showing place from 1-12. The data from the Director's Cup in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 only showed the Top 100 places, that is why everyone is ranked 1 or 2 for those years. The Director's cup went back to the complete standings again for 2006-2007.
School / Place / Final Average Standing
KSU 4 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 / 1.636363636
EMU 2 2 4 3 2 6 3 6 2 1 6 / 3.363636364
CMU 6 3 1 2 5 2 2 4 2 1 11 / 3.545454545
BSU 3 3 5 4 10 8 4 13 2 1 1 / 4.909090909
Miami 1 5 2 10 10 9 8 3 2 1 5 / 5.090909091
Ohio 7 5 12 5 6 4 10 8 2 1 4 / 5.818181818
NIU 10 8 7 8 7 4 7 10 2 1 2 / 6.000000000
Toledo 9 10 6 12 3 3 11 7 2 1 9 / 6.636363636
Akron 12 11 8 6 4 11 5 2 2 1 12 / 6.727272727
WMU 11 8 8 10 8 12 8 5 2 1 7 / 7.272727273
BGSU 8 5 10 12 12 12 13 9 2 1 8 / 8.363636364
Buffalo 12 12 10 8 9 10 12 11 2 1 10 / 8.818181818
Marshall 5 11 12 7 12 7 6 12 2 / whatever.....
Also, the numbers for Temple show that they would be consistently at the middle top / top of the MAC in athletic performance, while the numbers for UCF showed that sometimes they would be first by a mile, and other years come in last. Very inconsistent.
Formatting kicked my ace, sorry
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Reese and Jacoby Standings
Reese and Jacoby Trophy Standings for 2006-2007
2006-07 Reese Trophy Standings (MEN)
1. Central Michigan (10.25 - 6 sports)
2. Kent State (9.64 - 7 sports)
3. Eastern Michigan (9.13 - 8 sports)
4. Akron (8.86 - 7 sports)
5. Western Michigan (8.50 - 5 sports)
6. Ohio (6.66 - 8 sports)
7. Miami (6.64 - 7 sports)
t-8. Northern Illinois (6.25 - 7 sports)
t-8. Toledo (6.25 - 6 sports)
10. Ball State (5.96 - 6 sports)
11. Buffalo (4.47 - 9 sports)
12. Bowling Green (3.00 - 6 sports)
2006-07 Jacoby Trophy Standings (WOMEN)
1. Ohio (9.94 - 9 sports)
2. Bowling Green (7.98 - 10 sports)
3. Kent State (7.89 - 9 sports)
4. Miami (7.61 - 9 sports)
5. Ball State (7.59 - 11 sports)
6. Central Michigan (7.56 - 8 sports)
7. Eastern Michigan (7.55 - 10 sports)
8. Western Michigan (7.33 - 9 sports)
9. Toledo (6.61 - 9 sports)
10. Buffalo (5.25 - 8 sports)
11. Akron (5.13 - 8 sports)
12. Northern Illinois (4.92 - 9 sports)
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Average NIU final standings from 99-07 (excluding 2003-2004 and 2005-2006, can't find complete standings)
Reese (Men)
10th out of 12 or 13 teams (with or without Marshall)
Jacoby (Women)
10th out of 12 or 13 teams (with or without Marshall)
If anyone can find the 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 complete Reese and Jacoby standings, PM them to me and I will update. If I can get the complete Reese and Jaboby standings from 97-07, I can average out performance to get an undestanding of overall athletic department success.
Even if you can't help with the data, I thought there would be interest in the metrics and certainly with the final standings.
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Overall MAC school athletic performance
