CECIL HURT: Tide shows upward trend in athletics

The final results of the annual race for the NACDA Cup — the national all-sports trophy for collegiate programs — aren’t quite complete. There are still NCAA track and field championships for men and women coming up this weekend and, after that, the College World Series to complete.

But, based on the results released Wednesday, in the penultimate update from NACDA (the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics), the University of Alabama is certain to improve on last year’s numbers.

In 2007, Alabama finished 43rd nationally. Worse, it was ninth among Southeastern Conference teams and finished behind Vanderbilt which, as plenty of pundits pointed out, doesn’t even have an athletic department.

This year, things are better. Going into the final calculation, Alabama is 26th nationally and sixth among Southeastern Conference schools. Alabama will get points for making the NCAA field in baseball, and will probably get a few more if its distance runners do well at the NCAA track meet. That probably won’t be enough to maintain its current narrow lead on track powerhouse Arkansas, so the Crimson Tide will wind up somewhere in the Top 30 nationally and, probably, seventh among SEC teams. (Yes, that includes finishing ahead of Vanderbilt.)

That’s better — not great, but better. The overall 2007 sports season at UA was not good, and was something of an anomaly. In the two previous academic years, 2005 and 2006, Alabama had placed 21st both times.

The scoring for the NACDA Cup is based on a complex formula, but here is how Alabama has reached its current total of 586 points.

The Crimson Tide softball team netted the most points (83) with a third place finish in the Women’s College World Series. Alabama also received 73.5 points for a sixth-place finish in gymnastics, 72 points for a sixth-place finish in men’s cross country, 63 points for a 12th place finish in women’s golf, 62 points for a 13th place finish in men’s golf and 52 points for a 22nd place finish in women’s swimming.

Continuing the results, Alabama received 47.5 points for a 25th place finish in women’s indoor track; 45 points for a 26th-place finish in football, which awarded points based on the final BCS standings and recognized a multiple-team tie for 26th; 37 points for a 37th-place finish in men’s swimming; and 25 points for making the NCAA Tournament field of 64 teams in volleyball and men’s tennis. Baseball will receive the same 25 points and push Alabama’s total beyond the 600-point mark. (Last year’s Tide teams accumulated just 494.75 points.)

The point totals only matter relative to other teams, as a basis of comparison. Florida, perennially the SEC’s best all-sports program, racks up points, not by competing in more sports than Alabama, but by being consistent Top 15 finishers in most of the sports it sponsors.

Stanford, which will win the NACDA Cup for the 14th consecutive year, does sponsor more sports, but it excels in nearly all the sports. That enables the Cardinal to hold off all challengers, including an amazing late-season run by UCLA. It deserves a mention that, in the last two months, UCLA has won national championships in men’s golf, women’s tennis and women’s water polo, finished second nationally in women’s golf, third in men’s tennis and fifth in softball. Now that is a nice run.

There are a lot of reasons why UCLA and Stanford, and even Florida, can do so well. In some cases, there are geographic advantages that schools like Alabama cannot control. On the other hand, Alabama does have the resources to compete in every sport that it sponsors. It’s done well enough this year, but there is always room for improvement. Alabama didn’t get any points in basketball, men’s or women’s, or in women’s soccer. The trend in football and golf is an upward one, but UA can probably score more highly in swimming and track than it did (or, in track’s case, will do) in 2008.

The bottom line is that it is good to see Alabama showing overall improvement athletically — and it will be worth watching in 2009 to see if the trend continues.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0225.