Last week, Sports Illustrated compiled a list of the Top 25 College Sports Programs for the 2007-08 year. Surprising many, 14-time Director's Cup defending champion Stanford did not land on top of the list.
More surprising to Ivy League fans, though, may be the team coming in at thirteenth: Princeton.
The list, which used an objective formula to determine which school had the most successful overall athletic year, awarded points based on national championships, top-30 finishes and conference championships.
Arizona State, with national championships in men's indoor track, women's indoor track and softball, earned 66 points, the most of any school.
Princeton rode its eight Ancient Eight titles and four top-30 finishes to 32 points and a No. 13 ranking. That is the highest score for any team not from one of the major conferences.
In fact, the Tigers are topped only by schools from the Pacific 10, Atlantic Coast, Southeastern, Big Ten, and Big 12 Conferences.
No other Ivy League school was listed among the top 50. Penn would have earned only three to five points, by virtue of the women's soccer team's Ivy League championship and, depending on which poll they used, a top-30 finish in men's lacrosse.
Sports Illustrated created this ranking to improve upon the Director's Cup, a ranking determined by the Collegiate Directors of America.
The magazine contests the Director's Cup Formula is "extremely complicated," adding that "Stanford will likely continue to dominate for years to come."
The magazine's rankings are not without fault, though. They include only team sports, and only 11 male and 11 female sports at that. Left off its list were many sports in which Ivy League schools excel, such as squash, fencing, wrestling and women's lacrosse.
Still Princeton's total of eight conference titles - in men's and women's cross country, men's hockey, field hockey, softball, women's swimming, women's indoor track and women's volleyball - is a feat duplicated by no other school in the nation.
And thus, though it may seem shocking to some, Sports Illustrated has recognized the school's athletic successes this past year above such nationally renowned athletic programs as Texas, Notre Dame and California.
