MORGANTOWN — Despite a seemingly strong athletic season, West Virginia athletics had a worse performance in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings. The Mountaineers finished 50th in the final standings for the 2025-26 year, which was eight spots down from last year’s rankings at 42. The Learfield Directors’ Cup standings are the rankings of all Division I athletic programs around the country based on national performance.

WVU tallied 137.50 points for the spring, 224 for the winter and 169 for the fall for a total of 530.50. 530.50 was tied with the Big 12’s Baylor for the 50th spot, and tied with the Bears for ninth in the Big 12. The Mountaineers scored 595 points last year.

Even after falling from last year, the Mountaineers finished ahead of rival Pitt, who came in at 84, and just edged out Virginia Tech at 55. Penn State finished far ahead of WVU at No. 21 and North Carolina cracked the top 5 at fourth. Texas took home the Learfield Directors’ Cup for the fifth time, and BYU was the leader of the Big 12 at 25.

The Mountaineers’ best finish was 30th in the 2007-08 year.

By looking at just the highlights, WVU had a strong year. The Mountaineers hosted four NCAA tournaments, including baseball, men’s and women’s soccer and women’s basketball. Multiple of them were for the first time in over a decade, and made postseason runs.

Baseball hosted a regional and, for the first time, a super regional. Both were in front of sold-out crowds, and the Mountaineer fans set an attendance record in the super regional against Cal Poly. WVU headed to the College World Series for the first time and made it all the way to the semifinals. Baseball was awarded 83 points for a top-4 finish.

Women’s basketball had a similar season, hosting an NCAA regional for the first time in decades. The regional drew massive crowds, but couldn’t make it out of the second round, losing to Kentucky, even with the large home crowd. WVU won the Big 12 tournament, which helped tack on some points for 50.

Both men’s and women’s soccer couldn’t make too much noise in their respective conference tournaments, but both hosted and won at least one game in the NCAA tournament. Both teams scored 50.

Other teams had strong seasons, like the rifle team winning the national championship, which was the highest scoring sport at 100 points, wrestling being ranked in the top 25 (50.5) and men’s basketball didn’t have too much of a drop-off, being .500 in the Big 12, but was one of the many sports to score 0 points. Golf received 28 points for 43rd and women’s track and field tallied 26.5 this spring, helping, with baseball, as the three sports to score for the spring. Cross country received 69 for a ninth-place finish.

There were highlights, but there was some drop-off and poor showing from other sports. Football had a drop-off, posting its worst season in recent history, finishing 4-8 and receiving 0 points. In the last year of Neal Brown, WVU wasn’t much better, but still, 6-7 adds a couple more points. Other sports struggled, like women’s tennis, women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s swimming and women’s rowing, women’s gymnastics, who all received 0 points this spring.