So I'm looking around the landscape of college soccer (w) and trying to project the 2019 CC. Here's what I've got so far. Interested in your opinion. FSU Key losses Natalia Kuikka (AA Key player) Megan Connolly (key sub), Anna Patten (key sub swiss army knife player for us transferred to USCe), Dallas Dorosy (dynamite off the bench), Kaycie Tillman (starting MF), Olivia Bergau (solid sub). Newcomers Expect Nesbeth (Bahamas) and Nighswonger along with Madril (injury year) to make impacts. Will Kristina Lynch be back from ACL at full speed? My take. 1st in ACC and strong chance for run to CC. Stanford lost a ton of talent. Cook, DiBiasi, Xiao, McGrady, Davidson and Jahansouz. That's a lot of talent to make up for even with Smith and a good class coming in. My take is Stanford takes a slight step backwards. 2nd or 3rd in PAC, but will push for a CC run (at least elite 8) UCLA Only loses Hallie Mace and Julie Hernandez if my roster check is accurate and no underclassmen leave. Good recruiting class. My take is UCLA will be a huge threat and my favorite to win PAC 12. CC run. USC Loses a good bit of talent headlined by Ally Prissock and Leah Pruitt. Also lose Jessie Holmes, Hailey Hite and Megan McCashland. The first 2 hurt. That said they have a top ranked class coming in. I'd say USC was odds on 2nd in PAC 12 and a threat for CC. Penn State Amanda Dennis GK, Ellie Jean, Kaleigh Riehl, Kristin Schnurr among key losses. Top ranked recruiting class plus added Sam Coffey via Transfer. In order for them to challenge CC, they will need Coffey and the 'croot class to really pan out. My take. Penn State to go Elite 8 with outside shot of CC. UNC lost some key talent, but have a lot coming back. Lost Julia Ashley, Dorian Bailey, Annie Kingman and Alex Kimball. Think I read where Jessie Scarpa may be granted another year. If so, that helps. They always play a ton of people, so experienced bodies will not be a problem. Another very good recruiting class. I think they will have a hard time replacing Ashley. My take. UNC will start out slow, finish 2nd in ACC and challenge for Elite 8 and a possibility of another CC run. UVA in honor of 007. Losses Betsy Brandon (key backup), Briana Westrup (sub), Ayan Adu (sub), Montana Sutton (st MF). No real key losses. 2 top 25 recruits should bolster them. My take. Second or Third in ACC and return to Elite 8 with outside shot at CC run. Georgetown Key losses Schectmann stud GK, Carusa, Farrell, The latter two were their goal scorers. Hard to imagine a return to Elite 8 or CC. Early CC picks FSU, UCLA, USC and ???? Stanford, UNC, UVA, PSU. I only feel strongly about FSU and UCLA quite frankly. What say you? Who else would you throw in the mix?
Actually, all the players you named will still be on the 2019 roster. The losses from the 2018 roster are: Maddie Nolf, Emily Ogle, Charlotte Williams, Alina Ortega Jurado, and Marissa Sheva. PSU has the #1 incoming class for 2019, so lots of gifted freshmen who've played on US youth teams. I expect they will make a serious run at the CC in 2019.
When I looked on the PSU roster, they must have already updated it for 19. Sorry. I won't argue with your assessment.
1. Stanford 2. UCLA 3. SouthernCalifornia 4. NorthCarolinaU 5. Georgetown 6. WestVirginiaU 7. FloridaState 8. Duke 9. VirginiaU 10. SouthCarolinaU 11. PennState
That's the way I feel about UConn in women's bball and Alabama in CFootball. We certainly haven't dominated soccer like the teams I mentioned, but each to his own. I'm sure he has analytics to support his ranking. I'm just surprised to see FSU so low and Georgetown so high considering their losses. TBH, I haven't looked that closely at WVU or Duke.
Your analysis seems to lack objectivity. are you talking 1st in the ACC re season ( FSU were 7th last year) or ACC tournament ? Easier to just post this in the FSU section as thats really where it belongs !! Your take on the other teams is pretty limited. No disrespect intended
I don't claim to be an expert on all the other teams. I took a quick look at other contenders and who they lost. Got it wrong on PSU. Didn't claim it to be a CPT analytics type of analysis. That is why I added on the following.Early CC picks FSU, UCLA, USC and ???? Stanford, UNC, UVA, PSU. I only feel strongly about FSU and UCLA quite frankly. What say you? Who else would you throw in the mix? The "What say you?" and "Who else would you throw in the mix?" is soliciting opinions. This is meant to promote some off season discussion to get people's takes and opinions. I value that. Heck I value your opinion, should you decide to offer your analysis instead of tearing down someone else's post. If it were on the FSU thread, I wouldn 't get the variety of opinions I'm seeking.
Not really. My system is based on where teams are trending going into the coming year. As I've pointed out earlier, FSU has a tendency to be a little up and down, which means their overall trend going into next year isn't as good as one might expect, relative to others. And, their regular season record last year wasn't that good, which has an impact on my system. One thing my system won't pick up is if a team has had a critical roster change. Because of this, it almost always will have some outliers. On the other hand, on average it will be better than most humans. Perhaps Georgetown will turn out to have had a critical roster change. I think that as a group, the teams my system came up with are pretty reasonable as potential College Cup teams.
Your input is always welcome CPT. I may not agree with where you have FSU and Georgetown, but this board and thread is about opinions. I know yours is based on a system. Mine is very human with a slant towards FSU!
In most women's sports, you have the usual suspects. Women's basketball, softball and soccer are three I'm fairly familiar with. If you give me 4 teams before the season begins, I'm 90% going to win with one of them. I'm guessing lesser numbers of top prospects going to a select few schools might explain it.
Not tearing down your opinion at all. For me there is not much to discuss. you are an FSU fan and all power to you.
I have Tennessee next on the list at #12. And, to be hyper-technical, I "redact" (to use a term currently in the news) my own thinking and strictly limit the rankings to what the numbers say -- except that in determining where a team is trending, I give myself the choice of three "trend" methods and see which method seems to best fit the team's history.
CPT It will be interesting to do a postmortem this December to check the results versus your rankings. Of course, Stanford, UCLA, USC and UNC are a pretty formidable group to start your rankings.
Those should be some exciting games to watch. I always like seeing the preconference match schedules.
Tennessee will be young this year as the Vols lost five starters--including Bunny Shaw and a very good keeper (who, though not drafted, just made the roster for the Washington Spirit.) (I've not heard a word on where Shaw will play professionally--I assume she will.) That's the bad news. The good is that Pensky can recruit and the team will have a lot of talent--plus three big-time returnees in Cousins and M.A. Vignola (excellent outside back) and Erin Gilroy if she fully recovers from her knee injury. He's got a large and very strong class coming in (ranked #6 by Top Drawer, for what that's worth)--including U.S. NT players Lindsey Romig and Isabella Cook), a Jamaican NT player, a French U20NT player (nifty starting mid), plus grad transfer Michelle Alozie from Yale (co-offensive player of the year in the Ivy League two years ago); the freshman of the year in the Big West conference (a transfer), and several other talented prospects. If Pensky can organize the group and make good personnel decisions the Vols could/should be good even in a rebuilding year and next couple of years. Not usual suspects good--but one can hope!
I can't help but believe that any preseason rankings or expectations of UCLA should have an asterisk behind them. There has to be some uncertainty as to if Amanda Cromwell will be implicated in any way in the college admissions scandal. There's another thread to discuss the scandal but this comment is pertinent to this thread because if Cromwell is implicated there will be a negative impact on the Bruins' team.
Realizing that the spring season is not official, and that injuries will have a big impact on some teams, reports are that UNC looks strong, especially in 0-0 tie vs. Washington Spirit. Lost 3 key starters (Bailey, Ashley, goalie) plus one current uncertain injury leaving 4 open starting positions, but Claudia Dickey set to step into net (she played a lot as a backup last season), and three incoming players ranked in top 40 by Top Drawer Soccer (Maycee Bell - D, Tori Hansen - D, Maggie Pierce - M) sync up by position with the open starting spots, combined with a really deep bench both returning and coming in with the freshman class, so plenty of competition pushing the starters. Not sure how the potential national team callups can impact the fall season, but if all else equal I will make the bold call for UNC to win it!