Who Had the Best Year in College Sports for 2025–2026?

[ASFN Admin]

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Dec 6, 2025; Atlanta, GA, USA; A view of the Alabama Crimson Tide logo on the field before the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs during the 2025 SEC Championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

CBS Sports has been tallying all sports performances for several years now. Stanford tends to win many of the bogus Directors’ Cup because that organization equates a football national title at the same rate as a women’s water polo championship. CBS has much more accurate and sensible way to calculate.

“Using a scoring system centered on six of the highest-profile college sports — football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, softball and volleyball — we evaluated which schools delivered the strongest all-around performance this year. Think of it as a more focused version of the Directors’ Cup. Instead of measuring overall athletic department depth, we focused only on the sports that drive the most national attention, TV ratings and fan engagement.

“The goal wasn’t simply to reward championships. It was to measure sustained success across multiple sports, with postseason performance weighted more heavily than regular-season results.”

[It’s unclear how volleyball is weighed more than gymnastics – or women’s soccer for that matter – just because some bored Nebraska fans filled their football stadium for a volleyball match.]

Below are CBS’s top 20:

1. Texas
2. Alabama
3. Michigan
4. Texas A&M
5. Nebraska
6. UCLA
7. Oklahoma
8. Georgia
9. Tennessee
10. Miami-FL
11. Texas Tech
12. Ole Miss
13. TCU
14. North Carolina
15. Kentucky
16. Louisville
17. Duke
18. Oregon
19. Indiana
20. Arizona State

For the the Nos. 21-68 rankings and deeper explanations, click the link.

For most of the sports, the Crimson Tide and Longhorns look to be pretty close. However, it appears that volleyball put the UT over the top.

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SPORT	TEXAS	ALABAMA
FOOTBALL	No. 12, no CFP	No. 9, CFP Quarterfinal
MEN’S BASKETBALL	10th in SEC, First Four> Sweet 16	2nd in SEC, Sweet 16
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL	3rd in SEC, Final Four	11th in SEC, Second Round
BASEBALL	6-seed, 1-2 in CWS	7-seed, 0-2 in CWS
SOFTBALL	National Champs	Semifinalist
VOLLEYBALL	Final 8	14-13, no post-season

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