Athletics finishes among nation’s top 35 programs for 5th time in 7 years

For the fifth time in the last seven years, Baylor athletics ranked among the top 35 programs nationwide, according to final Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup standings released this month by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

To put that in perspective, Baylor’s highest ranking in the Directors’ Cup’s first 10 years was 39th in 1998-99; in Ian McCaw’s seven full seasons as director of athletics, the Bears have finished in the top 35 five times.

Baylor finished third among Texas’ nine Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS — formerly D-IA) programs, behind only Texas A&M (No. 8) and Texas (12), and fifth among all private FBS institutions, after Stanford, Duke, Southern Cal and Notre Dame. The Bears placed sixth among Big 12 teams in 2010-11, behind Texas A&M, Oklahoma (10), Texas, Oklahoma State (32) and Nebraska (33) but ahead of Missouri (41), Texas Tech (48), Kansas State (58), Iowa State (60), Colorado (66) and Kansas (72).

Add in Baylor’s five Big 12 titles, two Final Fours, and banner year academically, and I’d say it was a pretty good year. What do you say we do it again in 2011-12?

Sic ’em, Baylor athletics!

(BTW, this is our 1,000th post here at Baylor Proud since starting the blog in August 2007. So much to be proud of here at BU — and so much more to come!)