Rutgers’ latest Director’s Cup finish is another blunt reminder of where the Scarlet Knights stood in the 2025-26 Division I race: 93rd in the country, last in the Big Ten for the fourth straight year, and dead last among Power Four programs.
The final standings, released Thursday by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, showed Rutgers 22 spots behind Maryland, the next-lowest Big Ten school at 71st, and 31 spots behind Purdue at 62nd. Cincinnati finished two places ahead of Rutgers at 91st.
It’s the second straight year Rutgers has slipped again in the competition, extending a roller-coaster stretch over the past five seasons. The Scarlet Knights hit their best-ever mark in 2021-22, finishing 48th, then crashed to 130th the next year. They rebounded to 66th in 2023-24, dropped to 80th in 2024-25 and fell another 13 places this season.
The scoring tells the story. Rutgers finished with 227.5 points, all of them coming from winter and spring sports. Nothing came from the fall, and none of the five required sports in the Director’s Cup formula - baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s soccer - delivered a point because all five missed the postseason.
Women’s rowing paced Rutgers with 57 points after finishing 11th at the NCAA championships. Women’s lacrosse added 53 points after beating Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, while gymnastics contributed 53.5 points thanks to a play-in round win over Central Michigan. Wrestling chipped in 39 points, and women’s swimming and diving added 25.
Football, which had provided 25 points in 2024-25 and 45 in 2023-24 through consecutive bowl trips, also came up empty this time. Greg Schiano’s team finished 5-7 and missed the postseason after a loss to Penn State in the regular-season finale.
For first-year athletic director Keli Zinn, the finish also carries a financial sting. If Rutgers had climbed into the top 60, she would have been eligible for a bonus ranging from 5% of her salary for finishing 51st through 60th to 30% for placing in the top 10.
Texas won the overall Director’s Cup for the fifth time in the last six years, with Stanford second and UCLA third. The Bruins were the highest-finishing Big Ten team.
USC finished seventh, Michigan ninth and Ohio State 10th. Nebraska came in 17th, followed by Penn State at 21st, Oregon at 23rd and Wisconsin at 24th.
Princeton again led New Jersey schools, taking 20th place for the fifth year in a row. No other school from the state landed inside the top 100, with Rider at 164th, Fairleigh Dickinson at 213th, NJIT at 224th and Seton Hall at 225th.
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