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Texas Athletics Report Cards: grading every program at the University of Texas in 2024-25

by:Evan Vieth•10 hours ago
Chris Del Conte
Chris Del Conte (Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK)

Summer might be firmly underway for most of America, but it’s report card time in Austin!

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Earlier this week, Texas was announced as the winner of the Learfield Director’s Cup, the Longhorns fourth win in the last five years and their second in a row. The award denotes the top athletic program in the nation, securing Texas’ spot as the best of the best as it barely edged out Stanford and USC for the top spot.

This year’s standings were the closest they’ve been in years, and Texas relied on championships from Softball and Men’s Swim and Dive as well as a late rally from the track team to secure the Cup. With athletic director Chris Del Conte expecting excellence in every sport that Texas hosts, grades may be harsh for programs that aren’t competing at a national championship level. But the expectation at Texas is to be champions, and that’s why the Longhorns are once again the best in the business in college athletics.

Men’s Golf

Junior trio Christian Maas, Tommy Morrison and Luke Potter kept legendary coach John Fields’ group competitive throughout the whole season, finishing as the No. 5 overall team in the country. However, major tournaments plagued the Longhorns, finishing tied for seventh in the SEC championship and losing a close match to Florida in the quarterfinals. Texas will be competing for a national title next season

Grade: B+

Women’s Golf

It feels like deja vu talking about these two teams. Women’s Golf also hovered around a top-five ranking all year, finishing at No. 6 with a quarterfinals loss. With their best golfers still underclassmen, it being head coach Laura Ianello first season and a third place finish in SEC play, the Women’s team gets a slight bump in grade.

Grade: A-

Men’s Swim and Dive

Can’t get much better than a national championship, can you?

Grade: A+

Women’s Swim and Dive

It’s hard to complain about a dominant SEC championship win and third place in the NCAA tournament, even when your counterparts lifted the ultimate trophy. Texas is a swimming school, after all, so these fantastic results should shock no one.

Grade: A

Men’s Tennis

Texas Men’s Tennis had one of it’s best seasons in recent memory. An SEC championship, dropping just one point in regional and super regional play and an NCAA semi-final appearance is nothing to scoff at. Losing to TCU in the semi’s stung, but ultimately a great season with the chance at a natty in 2025-26.

Grade: A

Women’s Tennis

It’s been a stagnant few years on the women’s side of things, finishing the 2024-25 season 18-11 with a loss in the SEC Championship quarterfinals and falling in a close super regional to Michigan. Texas is hoping for more from a team that won it all just three years ago.

Grade: C

Cross Country

One of the more underperforming groups this season, the men failed to qualify for the NCAA championships while the women placed 31st. Not what you want to see when Texas does so well in so many non-revenue sports.

Grade: D

Track and Field

Given the legacy that head coach Edrick Floréal has built in his time at Texas, this season’s Track results were odd. The indoor team finished in the bottom half of the SEC on both sides and finished the season 26th and 35th. On the outdoor track, Texas was better but still fell much lower than one would expect given the program’s history. 34th for men was a bad result in the NCAAs, but the women did finish 10th. Floréal isn’t on a hot seat, but CDC was likely not a fan of how close the final results got in deciding the Director’s Cup.

Grade: C-

Beach Volleyball

Texas doesn’t compete against the SEC for this one, but it did win the CCSA tournament title over FSU in a sweep. Texas fell to eventual champions TCU in the quarterfinals but had a fantastic season given the program’s youth.

Grade: A

Rowing

Anytime the Rowing team doesn’t win a natty it feels like a failure, but an SEC title and a close third place behind Stanford and Yale for the NCAA championship is nothing to scoff at.

Grade: A

Soccer

Expectations for Texas soccer are generally pretty low heading into the year, so Ange Kelly’s team winning Texas’ first-ever SEC championship was not on many people’s bingo cards. Still, Texas finished the season ranked 21st and didn’t make it past the second round of the NCAA tournament. Odd season, but decent given what you expect from the program. Kind of hard to go far when your star player is out after five games.

Grade: B

Volleyball

Now into the top tier of engagement sports at Texas, Volleyball is probably the hardest to rank. Texas came second in the SEC but was upset many times, and failed to get past Creighton in the regional semi-final. With hopes of three-peat heading into the season, it’s hard to see this as a success.

Grade: B-

Softball

Though it was a wild ride to get there, Texas Softball secured its first national title in program history this season, getting the Sooner-shaped monkey off its back in Oklahoma City and eventually defeating Texas Tech in the finals. What a year for this program.

Grade: A+

Baseball

Another hard one to grade. In Texas’ first year in the SEC, and first season under head coach Jim Schlossnagle, the Longhorns won the SEC outright in the regular season. Had you told a fan that preseason, they would’ve given this year an A+. Unfortunately, being No. 1 all season means a loss in your own regional is a huge disappointment. Still a good year, but it felt like there was a lot left on the table.

Grade: B+

Women’s Basketball

Vic Schaefer has done a tremendous job with this team, but the final step is being able to beat South Carolina. Texas lost four games all year, three coming at the hands of the Gamecocks. A Final Four appearance and the introduction of Madison Booker to stardom is an amazing season that can’t be discounted, no matter what Dawn Staley has done to this team.

Grade: A

Men’s Basketball

It was a failure through and through in Rodney Terry’s final season at the helm. Tre Johnson was the best player Texas has had arguably since Kevin Durant, and the Longhorns finished 14th in the conference without an NCAA tournament win. This is, frankly, unacceptable from a revenue sport and wasting the one season of a potential top-five pick like that is the reason Terry no longer runs the show here in Austin.

Grade: F

Football

Ah, what you’ve all been waiting for. Texas entered the season with mighty expectations and more than met them. The Longhorns won both major rivalry games, took down the defending national champs in their home and made an SEC championship game and a CFP semifinals appearance. Unfortunately, Georgia bested Texas twice and Ohio State broke any dreams of a national championship from the minds of Longhorn fans. It felt like Texas could’ve taken the SEC or even the Cotton Bowl, but a top-four finish and almost winning the SEC in year one is a fantastic season.

Grade: A

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Overall, it’s pretty nice to see A-‘s or better in nine of the team’s sports, especially given the expectations put on those coaches. While the schools running program needs to be improved upon and Sean Miller is expected to turn this MBB team around, there’s really not much you can critique from the people behind a Director’s Cup title. Many of these teams look like true national title contenders in 2025-26, and Texas will need it to compete with a much more competitive Director’s Cup field.

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