It's Memorial Day, which means one thing and one thing only: Selection Monday in college baseball.
The field of 64 is set in the NCAA Division I baseball tournament, setting the stage for the final event in the 2021-22 athletic year. This means it's time for us here at FootballScoop to catalogue how many schools reached the postseason in each of the major team sports -- also known as the AD Report Card.
In football, between the 42 bowl games, the 24-team FCS bracket and the Celebration Bowl, a total of 110 postseason bids were awarded. Add in the 68 for men's and women's basketball and the 64 apiece for volleyball, softball and baseball -- sorry not sorry, soccer and hockey, we're sticking with American sports here -- and you get a total of 438 postseason slots.
How many did your school claim? Which ADs are popping champagne today?
Our first group will be schools that qualified for a bowl (or FCS playoff) game and appeared in March Madness. This cuts our list of 258 football-playing Division I institutions to 32, 12.6 percent of the roster.
Twenty-one are Power 5 schools. They have the lowest bar to clear: more bowl bids in December and January, more at-large spots in March, and so it makes sense this group is the largest. They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Baylor, Iowa, Iowa State, Kentucky, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Purdue, Rutgers, Tennessee, Texas Tech, UCLA, Virginia Tech and Wisconsin.
The next group consists of seven Group of 5 schools. These schools occupied a collective 38 bowl bids, but either had to win their conference tournaments or win nearly every regular-season game in order to reach the Big Dance. They are: Boise State, Georgia State, Houston, Memphis, San Diego State, UAB and Wyoming.
Finally, four FCS schools cleared the highest bar. Their football postseason rewards just 26 total teams, and most come from 1-bid basketball leagues. They are: Davidson, Montana State, South Dakota State and Villanova.
Our group of 32 is cut down to an Elite Eleven to qualify for the postseason in all three major men's sports.
Those 11 are: Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Miami, Michigan, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas Tech, UCLA and Virginia Tech.
Now let's add in the major women's fall, winter and spring sports.
Six schools reached all three major men's postseasons and the NCAA volleyball tournament: Miami, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas Tech and UCLA.
The list is cut down to three when moving to basketball: Miami, Michigan and Tennessee.
Include softball and the list of 258 schools is cut down to two all-sports victors: Michigan and Tennessee.
2021-22 has been a landmark year for the Champions of the West.
Jim Harbaugh's football team knocked off Ohio State for the first time since 2011, won its first Big Ten championship game and reached the College Football Playoff for the first time. But you knew that already.
Elsewhere, Juwan Howard's men's basketball team upset No. 3 seeded Tennessee to reach the Sweet 16; Kim Barnes Arico's women's basketball team reached the Elite Eight; Erik Bakich's baseball team won the Big Ten tournament to qualify for the Louisville regional; and the volleyball and softball teams also reached the regional round. (And though we don't count them here, Michigan also reached the Frozen Four in men's hockey, the Elite Eight in women's soccer, and the second round in women's field hockey and women's lacrosse.)
On Rocky Top, Josh Heupel led the football team to a 4-win improvement and a Music City Bowl berth in his debut season; Rick Barnes won the SEC men's basketball tournament; Eve Rackham Watt led the volleyball team to its first NCAA tournament win since 2018; Kellie Harper guided the women's basketball to its first Sweet 16 since 2016; Karen Weekly's softball team hosted their own regional; and Tony Vitello's baseball team enters the postseason as the No. 1 overall seed and a heavy favorite to win its first College World Series.
ADs Warde Manuel and Danny White get a deserved A-pluses on their report cards.
Honorable Mentions:
-- Miami did not go 6-for-6 like Michigan and Tennessee, but it wasn't because the Hurricanes' softball team failed. There is no Hurricanes softball team. How does Miami, of all schools, not have a softball team?
-- Though they never played in the bowl game they qualified for, UCLA made this list in five of six sports, and their women's basketball team reached the WNIT finals. The Bruins basketball team reached the Sweet 16 and the softball team is in the Women's College World Series.
-- Though the football season collapsed into a flaming mess down the stretch, it's been a highly successful year elsewhere at Texas. The men's basketball team won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 2013; baseball begins its hunt for back-to-back College World Series berths as the No. 9 seed; and all three women's sports reached the final eight. Last year, Texas became the first school other than Stanford to win the NACDA Directors Cup since the trophy's first year in 1993-94, and multiple Olympic sport national titles will make the Longhorns a threat to repeat in 2021-22.
-- Other schools that went 5-for-6: Arkansas (missed in volleyball), Kentucky (baseball), LSU (volleyball), Ohio State (baseball), Oregon (men's basketball), North Carolina (softball), Notre Dame (volleyball) and Virginia Tech (volleyball).
All-sports success is, obviously, great. But given enough glasses of champagne, every the AD of every department on this list would trade their year for Georgia's, right?