The football team’s national championship led a program-record tying 12 Gator athletic teams among the nation’s top 10 in 2008-09 national competition, propelling the University of Florida to third in the 2008-09 Learfield Sports Directors’ Cup. The finish matches the second-highest for the Gator program, second only to Florida’s tie for second in the 1998-99 standings.

Florida is the only program in the nation to finish among the nation’s top 10 in each of the last 26 national all-sports standings. Stanford won its 15th consecutive Directors Cup title in 2009 while North Carolina was second.

A school-record tying 12 Gator athletic teams turned in top-10 finishes
in 2008-09, marking the eighth consecutive year that 10 or more Gator
athletic teams finished among the nation's top 10. This is the fifth time 12 Florida teams were among the nation's top 10 in a single season (1992-93, 2001-02, 2003-04, 2007-08, 2008-09).

Florida’s 2008 BCS National Championship in football was the apex of
the 2008-09 for the Gator program. Three other teams were NCAA runner-ups. The softball team was runner-up in its first Women's College World Series Championship series appearance in June. At the NCAA Track & Field Championships, the Florida men’s team took second in both the indoor and outdoor meets.