Stanford Wins 25th Straight Directors' Cup as the Most Successful Athletic Department in the Country By Team Performance Rankings

It's official, and a pleasure, especially as a Stanford Law School graduate, to report via Pac-12.com, that Stanford University has won an incredible 25th straight Directors' Cup as the country's most successful athletic department by team performance rankings in NCAA Division I championship competitions, as

"the Cardinal posted 16 top five finishes [and six national championships] in tallying a record 1,567.75 points."

In the 2018-2019 school year athletic performance rankings, Stanford is followed in the top five by the universities of Michigan, Florida, Texas and USC. See the full results via NACDA at https://nacda.com/documents/2019/6/27//June28DIOverall.pdf or see the complete list at the end of this posting, from top-ranked Stanford to the 295th-placed Division I school, of the Learfield IMG College Directors’ Cup rankings.

As written at PaloAltoOnline.com:

"The Cardinal has won at least one NCAA championship during each of the last 43 school (not calendar) years, dating to 1976-77. In total, Stanford varsity teams have won a record 123 NCAA championships (66 men, 57 women) and 149 national titles overall."

GoStanford.com tells us in addition that Stanford Cardinal athletes have

"produced at least one medalist in every Olympics in which the U.S. has competed since 1912."

At the Wikipedia we can read that:

"In 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, the university with most Olympic medals in the U.S. is Stanford University (27 medals), followed by UC Berkeley (22 medals) and University of Southern California (21 medals); University of Florida (13 medals) and UT Austin (13 medals) tied for 4th place." [emphasis added]

However, USC ("Southern Cal") still leads Stanford (in second place) by a slim margin in the total number of Olympic medals won all time, while UCLA is 3rd, and UC Berkeley is 4th, all California schools. Closing out the top five is the University of Michigan.

Below please find the complete list of college viz. university placements in the performance rankings of the Learfield IMG Directors' Cup for the 2018/2019 NCAA Division I athletic school year:

1 Stanford ............. 1567.75 points, a record (a national championship is given 100 points, second place is 90 points, and the remaining places for any given sport are determined by a variable structure depending on the number of teams, etc.)
2 Michigan ............. 1272.25 points
3 Florida ................ 1156.75 points
4 Texas .................. 1148.50 points
5 USC ................... 1075.75 points
6 UCLA .................. 1056.50 points
7 Florida State ........ 1046.25 points
8 Virginia ............... 1037.50 points
9 Duke .................. 1001.00 points
10 North Carolina ..... 987.00 points
For point totals beyond the top ten, please see https://nacda.com/documents/2019/6/27//June28DIOverall.pdf - which pdf, at the time of this posting, however, includes only the Spring individual sports FINALS. For the Fall viz. Autumn individual sports Finals see https://nacda.com/services/download_file.ashx?file_location=https://s3.amazonaws.com/nacda.com/documents/2019/1/9/JAN10Overall.pdf, and for the Winter individual sports Finals see https://nacda.com/services/download_file.ashx?file_location=https://s3.amazonaws.com/nacda.com/documents/2019/4/23/April25DIOverall.pdf)
11 LSU
12 Ohio State
13 Penn State
14 Kentucky
15 Texas A&M
16 Wisconsin
17 Notre Dame
18 California
19 Arizona State
20 Minnesota
21 Georgia
22 South Carolina
23 Arkansas
24 Washington
25 Tennessee
26 North Carolina State ... 794.00 points
(below 26th place, starting with 27th place Oregon at 762.25, all subsequent point totals are less than half of Stanford's winning point total, with the last place school gaining 5 points)
27 Oregon
28 Oklahoma State
29 BYU
30 Princeton
31 Alabama
32 Indiana
33 Oklahoma
34 Texas Tech
35 Louisville
36 Wake Forest
37 Auburn
38 Iowa
39 Baylor
40 Maryland
41 Arizona
42 TCU
43 Illinois
44 Mississippi State
45 Northwestern
45 Vanderbilt
47 Michigan State
48 Nebraska
49 Virginia Tech
50 Colorado
51 Missouri
52 Denver Summit
53 Iowa State
54 Syracuse
55 Purdue
56 Ole Miss
57 Harvard
58 Miami (FL)
59 Boise State
60 Houston
61 West Virginia
62 UCF
63 Kansas
64 Pennsylvania
65 Oregon State
66 Georgia Tech
67 Air Force
68 Hawaii
69 North Dakota State
70 Georgetown
71 New Mexico
72 Navy
73 Clemson
74 Yale
75 Army West Point
76 Villanova
77 UConn
78 Pepperdine
79 Utah
80 Columbia
81 Cornell
82 Rutgers
83 Northern Arizona
84 James Madison
85 North Carolina A&T
86 Portland
87 Boston College
88 Colorado State
88 Washington State
90 Long Beach State
91 Dartmouth
92 Cincinnati
93 Liberty
94 Furman
94 Kansas State
96 South Florida
97 Akron
98 Kennesaw State
99 Campbell
100 Murray State
101 Southern Utah
102 Fresno State
103 Sam Houston State
104 UNLV
105 San Diego State
106 Marquette
107 Central Michigan
107 San Diego
109 Gonzaga
110 Monmouth
111 Lipscomb
112 South Dakota
112 South Dakota State
112 UC Davis
115 Wofford
116 Buffalo
116 Colgate
118 Brown
119 Northern Iowa
120 Stephen F. Austin
121 Southern Mississippi
122 Rice
123 Iona
124 Stony Brook
125 UC Santa Barbara
126 St. Mary's College of California
127 Quinnipiac
128 Alabama State
129 Indiana State
130 Arkansas State
131 Providence
132 New Hampshire
133 Illinois State
134 Montana State
135 Middle Tennessee State
135 Vermont
137 Pittsburgh
138 Towson
139 Loyola Maryland
140 New Mexico State
141 Northeastern
141 Old Dominion
143 Pacific
143 Utah State
145 Jacksonville State
145 Maine
147 Weber State
148 East Carolina
149 St. John's (NY)
150 Nevada
151 Wyoming
152 Temple
153 Memphis
154 San Jose State
155 Creighton
155 Florida Gulf Coast
155 Loyola Marymount
155 UC Irvine
159 Albany
160 SMU
161 Incarnate Word
161 Missouri State
163 Bethune-Cookman
164 Tulsa
165 Georgia Southern
165 Kent State
167 Eastern Michigan
167 Grand Canyon
169 Northwestern State
170 Southeast Missouri State
171 Eastern Washington
171 Massachusetts
171 VCU
174 DePaul
174 Drake
176 Rhode Island
177 South Alabama
178 American
179 Maryland Eastern Shore
180 Louisiana Tech
181 Boston University
182 Miami (OH)
182 Texas State
184 Belmont
184 Florida International
184 North Texas
184 South Carolina State
188 North Florida
189 Cal Poly
190 Abilene Christian
190 Bradley
190 East Tennessee State
190 Fordham
190 High Point
190 Hofstra
190 Illinois Chicago
190 Louisiana Lafayette
190 Mercer
190 Radford
200 Appalachian State
201 Tulane
202 Samford
203 George Washington
204 Ohio
205 Bowling Green
206 Central Connecticut State
206 Seattle
208 Lehigh
209 Fairleigh Dickinson
210 Rider
211 Sacramento State
212 North Carolina
212 Sacred Heart
214 Eastern Kentucky
215 Southern Illinois
216 Saint Francis (PA)
217 Marist
217 Robert Morris
219 Duquesne
219 Nicholls State
219 Saint Joseph's
219 William & Mary
223 Arkansas Little Rock
223 Bryant
223 Central Arkansas
223 Charlotte
223 Elon
223 Fairfield
223 Georgia State
223 Howard
223 LIU Brooklyn
223 Montana
223 Richmond
223 Saint Louis
223 Santa Clara
223 Southern
223 Toledo
223 UMBC
223 Wagner
223 Western Michigan
241 Nebraska Omaha
243 Detroit
244 Marshall
244 Troy
244 UAB
247 Utah Valley
248 Northern Illinois
248 Stetson
251 Norfolk State
252 Coastal Carolina
252 Florida Atlantic
254 Prairie View A&M
255 North Carolina Greensboro
256 Binghamton
256 Cal State Bakersfield
258 Wichita State
259 McNeese State
260 Cal State Fullerton
260 Wright State
262 Northern Colorado
263 NJIT
264 Coppin State
265 IUPUI
266 Florida A&M
266 Longwood
266 Alcorn State
266 Austin Peay State
266 Cleveland State
266 Dayton
266 Delaware
266 Gardner-Webb
266 Jacksonville
266 Lamar
266 Loyola Chicago
266 Morgan State
266 Northern Kentucky
266 Portland State
266 Tennessee Tech
266 Texas A&M Corpus Christi
266 UC Riverside
266 Winthrop
266 Wisconsin Green Bay
266 Wisconsin Milwaukee
287 George Mason
288 UTSA
288 Xavier
290 Houston Baptist
291 North Dakota
291 Drexel
291 SIU Edwardsville
291 UMKC
295 North Carolina Central

2019 Preseason College Football Top 25 Rankings by Wayne Staats at NCAA.com Put Nebraska at #20

At NCAA.com Wayne Staats has just published his college football 2019 preseason Top 25 rankings.

See College football rankings: Preseason Top 25 for 2019 | NCAA.com

We find it interesting that Staats puts the Nebraska Cornhuskers at #20 in his preseason rankings.

Going into the 2019 season, there is a significant amount of expectation in football land that Husker head coach Scott Frost, his coaching staff, and his players can greatly improve on last year's disappointing 4-8 record. Staats thinks that the Huskers should at least double their win total this season.

We are adopting a wait and see attitude. Frost and his coaching staff had such amazing success at UCF that there is little doubt about their capabilities.

But now only in their 2nd year, do they have the horses to get the job done?

Our analysis of last season's net average yards per play stats on offense and defense indicates that the Huskers had a net improvement equivalent to about one touchdown on the field. To become a championship contender, they need to improve two more TDs per game, as judged by net yards per play analysis, offense and defense. That said, it may as yet be too early to hope for too much.

At UCF, Frost and staff were in Florida, with its vast recruiting potential, where they could quickly find more of the kind of players they needed for their system.  Getting the right players to come to Lincoln, Nebraska is more difficult, so that patience is probably required ... as roster depth surely remains an issue.

The 2019 ESPN Preseason College Football Power Rankings Have Some Surprises

The ESPN 2019 Preseason College Football Power Rankings are for the most part predictable, but contain a few mild surprises.

Everyone is ranking Clemson 1st, but every time in recent years that Clemson has been predicted in the preseason to win the national championship, it is Alabama who has emerged as the actual winner at season's end.

Or will there be a surprise winner this season?

We will be rooting especially for the success of Michigan (#6), Nebraska (#19), Stanford (#20) and Syracuse (#21), where members of family have studied.

Our main attention this year -- at least to start -- will of course be on the Cornhuskers of Nebraska, where the Huskers will be in their second season under head coach Scott Frost and staff.

Can they come close to repeating the miracle they worked at UCF two seasons ago? If the season starts out strong for NU, the sky could be the limit!

Go Big Red!

Profit-Seeking Newspapers Block Sports News for Fans in Europe Due to a Boycott of European Data Protection Law : Can the NCAA Allow It?

Way back when, we delivered newspapers door to door by bicycle, folding the papers within their own page sections or wrapping them in a roll bound by a strong rubber band and then throwing them like baseballs to the front doors and porches of subscribers -- with even an unintentional occasional wild-winged toss to the roof of a veranda.

It was an era where newspaper delivery boys were the most important people (and worst paid, viz. most exploited of  all) -- the last mile, as it were -- in the process of getting the current news to the citizenry. That was the past.

Perhaps a kind of door to door news delivery may even mark the future ;-)

But for now we want to discuss the "news business" at the present, where the journalistic industry has in many respects lost sight of its true news purposes, dabbling instead in what many jurisdictions have declared to be illegal privacy-invading "data mining", an activity far removed from delivering "all the news that is fit to print", which once was claimed as the job of a top newspaper.

Well, what has happened to journalism in our digital age?

Today we were confronted with several "journalistic" events online, showing that "the news" now operates in a different era, under vastly changed conditions.

We wanted to read about the just headlined joining of America's two largest newspaper chains, GateHouse and Gannett. So, off to the chosen link ....

We found ourselves faced with the commercial "darkness" of the Washington Post, which instead of producing the news that our link was seeking, rerouted us to the Washington Post subscription page to tell us inter alia that "Democracy Dies in Darkness".

Was this like the "darkness" of the blocked news page we sought to read?

Rather, at the rerouted page, we were further urged to "Support great journalism" and told that "We rely on readers like you to uphold a free press." The sole message was for the newspaper's benefit, not ours ... subscribe!
 
Undaunted, we searched further online for another item of our interest, the Amway USA Today Coaches' Poll with the FBS Preseason College Football Rankings for 2019, which had just been published.

We were there presented with the following text at the rerouted page, which urged us to "learn more".... a usurpation of the job of educational institutions?

"USA TODAY NETWORK EUROPEAN UNION EXPERIENCE
A MESSAGE FROM USA TODAY NETWORK
It appears that you’re visiting us from a location in the European Union. We are directing you to our EU Experience."

... which turns out to be a page of junk links to more or less junk pages, rather than the football link originally clicked.

Is the NCAA and are the 62 college football coaches whose vote makes up this Ranking Poll aware that publishers such as Gannett block all users in Europe from seeing their vote and that the user is redirected to junk pages of the newspaper publishers?

Wayne Staats writes in College football rankings: Every poll explained and how they work Guide to the college football Coaches Poll:

"Like the AP Poll, the Coaches Poll starts with a preseason Top 25 and continues weekly on Sundays during the season and after the bowl games. There are 62 coaches voting in the poll, which gives teams points on a scale from 1 to 25 (25 for ranking a team No. 1, 24 for No. 2, etc.)."

Should Amway and/or USA Today be forbidden from publishing these polls under their names if they are discriminating against overseas viewers for political reasons, i.e.discriminating against users simply for the fact that they do not like European privacy law lawmaking....

The deeper problem here is a totally unnecessary confrontation of publishers such as Gannett and its owned USA Today with Europe's Data Protection Law, the GDPR. It is a confrontation newspaper publishers have no chance of winning, and it constitutes gross stupidity. As written at EU GDPR.Org:.

"[A]d networks and the publishers who collect revenue from them are among those most put off by the EU law. As GDPR went into effect a year ago—on May 25, 2018—hundreds of American news outlets, including the Chicago Tribune and others owned by Tribune Publishing, decided that rather than go GDPR-compliant, they would simply block anyone coming to their sites from Europe. It stands as one of the largest-ever news blackouts in the Western world, and it’s still going on a year later. For Cubs and Bears fans marooned in Europe, the data-privacy rule has made it far more difficult to get decent back-home coverage of their beloved teams. When news outlets as large and as storied as the Tribune and its corporate siblings, such as The Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News, feel obliged to bar European visitors from their websites, it’s evidence of how ambitious data-privacy rules could reshape the news industry if they spread." ["and they will spread", emphasis added by LawPundit]

 The EU GDPR.Org website regards the GDPR to be landmark legislation:

"The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years." 

The GDPR is a sign of the times. Unregulated data mining is being battled everywhere. Companies had ample time to prepare their websites for these EU regulations, so that the news blackout is an intentional user-damaging non-abiding challenge to EU law. It tries to bypass Europe's legislation -- i.e. laws and regulations which aim to protect online users from increasingly encroaching privacy-invading data mining.

Recall that Europe is a market of ca. 500 million inhabitants, so that this is not just some trivial legal matter. It has to do with the rule of law. Adam Satariano at the The New York Times wrote about this entire matter in 2018 at its inception in U.S. News Outlets Block European Readers Over New Privacy Rules:

"American news outlets including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and The Arizona Daily Star abruptly blocked access to their websites from Europe on Friday, choosing to black out readers rather than comply with a strict new data privacy law in the European Union that limits what information can be collected about people online. 

The new rules, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, strike at a core element of businesses that offer free content online but that make money by collecting and sharing user data to sell targeted advertising. The shutdowns came as a surprise to readers of the publications, because companies had two years to prepare for the new regulations." [emphasis added by LawPundit]

As a matter of necessary perspective, at the same time as this is going on, college athletes are being exploited to the hilt, including the very same coaches making the rankings, coaches who command princely salaries so high that the highest paid government employee in most every state is a head college sports coach. So writes Matthew Michaels in Business Insider, "The highest-paid public employee in most states is a college football or basketball coach, according to a new report from ESPN.")

Nevertheless, the interests of online users and sports fans are being quashed by the newspaper publishing industry to boycott sensible data protection legislation and privacy laws that limit the amount of private information that companies can collect about users. Not user rights or advantages are the focus of activities, but only the profits of the firms.

Lastly, as a University of Nebraska (and Stanford Law School) graduate, when we try to access the major newspapers of the state of Nebraska to inform ourselves about e.g. Nebraska Cornhusker Big Red Husker athletic fortunes, both the Lincoln Journal Star and Omaha World Herald continue to greet us with virtually the same rule-of-law-denying notices:

Lincoln Journal Star

"451: Unavailable due to legal reasons
We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact webmaster@journalstar.com or call 877-760-6006."

Omaha World Herald

"451: Unavailable due to legal reasons
We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact webmaster@omaha.com or call 402-444-1000."

"Unavailable due to legal reasons?" That statement is nonsense per se.
To metaphor Roman Hruska, that statement is a mediocrity of legal thinking.
Nothing in law prohibits U.S. newspapers to abide by the GDPR. Many do.

However, after 20+ years of downward-spiraling mediocrity in Husker football fortunes, the Cornhusker football team has a new head coach and staff which make an escape from mediocrity likely, at least in football. 

Frost hails from Wood River, Nebraska, a stone's throw from Hastings, Nebraska, the home town of former Cornhusker football head coach Tom Osborne. Both towns are a stone's throw from Funk near Holdrege, our own first residence in the USA, and we have talented fraternity brothers who reside in Lexington and Kearney. This is a corner of Nebraska in which quality and performance prevail.

People must rise above the stagnation of inert mediocrity that marks backward newspapers, also in Nebraska, and also in the attitudes toward the GDPR -- which is an eminently sensible piece of modern legislation in our runaway privacy-invading digital era.

Boycotting the GDPR is just mediocrity in action.

2019 College Football Preseason Top 25 at Bleacher Report Starting at 25 Nebraska Northwestern Washington State Army Iowa State Wisconsin Stanford Utah UCF Syracuse Texas A&M Washington Auburn Oregon Penn State Notre Dame Florida Michigan LSU Texas Ohio State Oklahoma Georgia Alabama Clemson

The College Football Preseason Top 25 at the Start of Fall Camp 2019 has been projected by David Kenyon at Bleacher Report. 

Starting at Number 25 and moving to Number 1 his projection is
Nebraska Northwestern Washington State Army Iowa State Wisconsin Stanford Utah UCF Syracuse Texas A&M Washington Auburn Oregon Penn State Notre Dame Florida Michigan LSU Texas Ohio State Oklahoma Georgia Alabama Clemson.

Kenyon's article is interesting for the reasons given for each team's ranking.

Obviously, not everyone will agree: college football player, coach, administrator, fan or otherwise sports interested person (we are thinking here of sports journalists and journals).

Take a look at Bleacher Report.

The Irish Shane Lowry an "Iconic Figure now" and "A National Hero" for his Open Championship Golf Tournament Victory 2019

As reported at the Irish Examiner, Shane Lowry, the 2019 Irish winner of the Claret Jug, i.e. The Open Championship (also called the "British Open"), one of the four major championships in golf, has for his victory been called "an iconic figure now, he’s a national hero...."  by Shane Peter Nathaniel Ross, the senior Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport of the Government of Ireland.

Stanford and Michigan Head Division I Learfield IMG NACDA College Directors’ Cup June 6, 2019 Standings for the 2018-2019 Athletic Season

As a Stanford Law School graduate together with his better half holding a degree from the University of Michigan, we are pleased to see the newly posted  Division I Learfield IMG College Directors’ Cup Standings (National Assocation of Collegiate Directors of Athletics - NACDA) where Stanford University and the University of Michigan stand first and second, followed by Virginia, Texas and USC to round out the current top five.

As noted at NACDA.com:

"Trophy Presentation for the 2018-19 Learfield IMG College Directors' Cup winners will take place in conjunction with the 2019 NACDA Convention on Wednesday, June 12 at the World Center Marriott Resort in Orlando, Florida during the Directors' Cup Awards Luncheon."