My apologies for posting this a bit late, but the final winter standings for the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup were finalized last week.

As you probably know already, the Directors' Cup measures overall athletic department strength by awarding points for how schools finish in up to 20 sports (10 men's, 10 women's). So it's a good snapshot of a school's total athletic clout, not just the revenue sports.

The Big Ten is doing extremely well in the 2009-10 race, as the league has three schools in the top five, four in the top 10 and six in the top 20. You'll see the complete school-by-school ratings at the bottom of this post.

But for once, I don't really care about how the Big Ten is doing. Expansion is the biggest story in college sports right now, and as the Big Ten studies potential additions, I want to see how the candidate schools are doing.

So let's take a look at the expansion candidates in the current Directors' Cup standings.

As you can tell, I'm casting a very wide net here.

Missouri: 42nd, 324 points
Rutgers: 78th, 162 points
Nebraska: 6th, 617.25 points
Pittsburgh: 83rd, 158 points
Notre Dame: 31st, 409 points
Connecticut: 49th, 288.5 points
Syracuse: 58th, 235.5 points
Texas: 23rd, 457 points
Boston College: 43rd, 317 points
Kansas: 90th, 146.5 points
Iowa State: 22nd, 458.5 points
Maryland: 21st, 461.8 points
Virginia: 8th, 610.5 points
Kentucky: 16th, 534 points

A few things stand out. Nebraska brings a lot to the table as a total athletic department, and so do ACC schools like Maryland and Virginia, which haven't been mentioned much in the expansion buzz. Iowa State's ranking also surprised me a bit. Rutgers and Pittsburgh both continue to rank outside the Big Ten's range for the Directors' Cup, but Rutgers would be added primarily for its geography and potential in football. I also thought both Texas and Notre Dame would rank a little higher (Texas A&M is actually ahead of Texas at No. 14).

As promised, here's where the Big Ten schools stack up, in order:

Ohio State: 2nd, 813.5 points
Penn State: 3rd, 726.8 points
Minnesota: 5th, 681.75 points
Wisconsin: 9th, 607.5 points
Michigan: 19th, 482.5 points
Michigan State: 20th, 470.8 points
Illinois: 35th, 389.8 points
Indiana: 39th, 381 points
Iowa: 47th, 296.5 points
Purdue: 51st, 276.5 points
Northwestern: 66th, 200.5 points