OK. It's been two months since I've really looked at it and things in the 2010 recruiting picture have changed. Below is my current list of the TOP 35 D-1 schools for 2010. It will change again by the signing date. Some notes: Penn State is tops. Texas and Texas A&M somehow how have dropped down to only two listed recruits each. My minimum cut off for calculation is three recruited players. Surely in the months ahead these two strong women's soccer schools will announce bigger classes, and when they do, they'll rank pretty well. Auburn in the top 10??? I guess it's how one sees the presence of 2 U-20 national team players from Mexico, and a U-17 national team player from Trinidad-Tobago (plus a solid ODP player...) I'll take a lot of flack for this one. The other interesting thing I noticed is that there is not big gaps in the strength of 2010 classes. The ratings slide gently down with the numbers. Here's my list. More discussion to follow. I'm sure there'll be lots of disagreement. 1. Penn State 2. UNC 3. Stanford 4. Cal 5. UCLA 6. Notre Dame 7. Michgan 8. USC 9. Portland 10. Auburn 11. Duke 12. LSU 13. Arizona 14. Wisconsin 15. Ohio State 16. Georgia 17. ASU 18. Santa Clara 19. Santa Barbara 20. Louisville 21. Wake Forest 22. Florida 23. Oklahoma 24. Kentucky 25. Clemson 26. Boston College 27. Michigan State 28. Yale 29. West Virginia 30. Purdue 31. SMU 32. FSU 33. UVA 34. Illinois 35. Indiana
I recently found out that Illinois has a commitment from GK Lauren Parkin of Edwardsville, IL. She plays club for St. Louis Gallagher. I don't see her anywhere in the Top Drawer rankings, but I know the Illinois coaching staff thinks highly of her. She would be the fifth commitment in the 2010 class.
Based on the Google website info. No Points given for any high School, GPOY, Parade. Only where there were actual competitions involved at Regional or National Level. Points awarded for ESP Camp, Regional Team, Regional trip, Interregional Camps, National Team, National Team Trip, International National Team, Int. National Team Trip. 1 Bonus point for Golden Glove or Boot and ODP Champions. You get points for being a Regional or National Team player once. EXAMPLE :If you went to Regional camp 3 times you only get the points once, same for National Team. If you were or are in National team Pool or camp and you have Regional participation you get points only for the National participation. Same thing for Trips- points for one trip Not Perfect but my attampt 1 LSU 2 Duke 3 Stanford 4 Penn St 5 California 6 UCLA 7 Arizona 8 Portland 9 Notre Dame 10 UNC 11 Georgia 12 Michigan 13 Santa Clara 14 USC 15 Ohio State 16 Auburn 17 Boston College 18 Yale 19 SMU 20 UC Santa Barbara 21 Marquette 22 Michigan St. 23 Florida 24 Nebraska 25 Virginia 26 ASU 27 Wisconsin 28 FSU 29 Wake Forest 30 Lousiville 31 UW Milwaukee 32 Indiana 33 South Carolina 34 Clemson 35 Alabama 36 Connecticut 37 Iowa 38 Dartmouth 39 West Virginia 40 James Madison 41 Oklahoma 42 Villanova 43 Texas 44 Northwestern 45 Tennessee 46 Georgetown 47 Texas A & M 48 Cincinnati 49 Kentucky 50 Lasalle
Your 2010 listing is interesting attackerp. Food for thought. It would be useful to reflect on how we may deduce the strongest class. Many topics to discuss, but size of the class is a potential red herring. I really don't think that 4 or more freshman are going to start on a good D-I team, unless there are highly unusual circumstances. The real issue is how the 3rd, 4th, or 5th player in the class develops over the years. While you and I agree in general, there are a few large discrepancies. LSU (who you rated #1) is perhaps the most curious. A large class with 10 recruits, 9 of which apparently come from the Region III ODP team and five made regional international trips. But none of them thus far have proved to be national caliber. Three were invited up to the national pool as 14 year-olds, but never traveled with a national team and were not invited back after the spring of 97. So LSU has a lot of ODP players. It may turn out that they've hit the jackpot and these kids will develop well and be a national force. But how are they the #1 class in the face of other schools that have recruited multiple players that have remained in the national pools and attended national camps all along and have been selected for national teams traveling internationally? Notre Dame, for instance (you rate them 9th) has 6 players for 2010 all of whom were ODP and all have traveled on international teams with that program and three of them are continuing on national pools at U-17 and U-18. Anyway, just some questions to start with. Ranking recruiting is fun and interesting but has so many questions surrounding it.
One of the assumptions using regional ODP international trips as a measurement is that all players invited can afford to go. My understanding is that some regions pay for travel (both domestic and international) while others - Region One for example - pass the cost of the trip on to the player. Some families cannot fork over $1600 for their kid to travel around Italy with the regional team or $1800 to go to Portugal. In fact the cost for a regional player from the northeast to attend the Boca event is about $750 (flight and program fee) before incidentals. The NT trips are different of course as all is covered.
NE Nellie Region III does not pay at all. They dont even pay for the itnerregional camps. I did my ratings for fun based upon what I thought was fair and reasonable from what I have seen in my 13 years of soccer and having gone thru the recruiting process twice. Money is a factor for these things as well as the maniuplation of the recruiting, Regional and National team process. How prevalent it is, who knows? I have seen on several different occassions where a player was Regional over and over until she committed and it was like flipping a switch. I know of players that dont commit until NT coaches make decisions on National Team. Then you have injuries, players change Club teams and I'm sure there are others. Sorry its my opinion that there is a small line between National Team and Regional teams. Having said that, if you have been or still are on the NT pool/team they still recieved double the points for it vs Regional and I applied that to the trip also. If you made an Interregional camp you received points that were in between Regional and NT value. I dont think you penalize LSU just because they have 10 recruits. Next year they may not make the top 50, who knows. But that class has a ton of accolades. I would rather be a UNC, Stanford or Notre Dame and add 4-6 NT players every year to a roster that has been doing that for the past 10 years. Of LSU's 10 recruits 7 of them have been to Interregional camp and 5 of them have traveled. I am only going by what is on that Google Recruiting site. I only see 2 listed on Notre Dame with any 2009 NT participation, but It doesnt matter because if you made it once you got the points. It is also rumored that Nicole Duarte has committed to LSU, but until its on the site I am not counting it. You no longer see her listed with Pepperdine. SMU has a recruit that has been to NT camps and Interregionals but has nothing by her name, but I couldnt add the points until the site has it posted because that is what I'm using. I'm sure there are others with the same issues. Lauren Cheney plays on the FULL National Team and she's a great player but I dont think she has completely dominated College soccer. She has made a difference like many others. There are other girls that go to college that have never been in or on the NT pool /team and got great coaching and were invited to participate. Remember just for fun, it wasnt even scientific, just my way of thinking. I will respect all rankings.
Neel Bhattacharjee of Boston College is a fantastic recruiter. I am afraid BC is going to pass FSU the next few seasons talent wise. In fact a number of ACC teams had/have better recruiting classes than FSU for '09 and '10. Two straight classes for FSU nary a youth full national team member field player.
With the stud recruiting class of '08 and the overall youth of the team, why would any NT players come to FSU? Wouldn't they want to play right away? I can see them sitting for a while at Stanford or ND (maybe even BC) b/c of the prestigous education, but not FSU.
Just an FYI - I don't think Bhattacharjee had much if anything to do with the class of 2010. Those recruits were mostly verballed last fall (08) when Chris Hamblin was still involved. Not taking anything away from him, it's just the process starts so early with the girls now that most of the work on 2010 was completed before he arrived. I would wager the 2011 class is all his.
Hamblin left on what appeared to be very good terms to start his own business having something to do with recruting and recruiting videos. He is also a coach at a youth club NEFC in Massachusetts. Nice guy. Again I did not mean to take anything away from the new guy - as he is no doubt quite good too.
Boston College prestigious? Huh? Maybe athletically but it's 4th banana academically and far behind the Top 3. I would think winter training in 80 degrees and sun outweighs running through a sloppy 12" of snow anyday....scoreboard Florida
Think August preseason and you might come to a different conclusion. PS. BC covers their football stadium for training. PSU and even mild Maryland have similar indoor setups.
August pre-season in Florida and even September (hence 2/3 of the regular season) sounds absolutely horrendous to some of us. Boston....great city culture. Tallahassee?? Anyhow, no bashing intended but FSU is plain and simple a state university in a mediocre town. Out here in Denver and Boulder we like snow. Not that I would pay out of state tuition to go to CU either.
Colorado in the summer is glorious - never been anywhere else where I could take a 10 mile bike ride with such beautiful views and not sweat a drop. The noontime thunderstorms are kinda bummer but you can plan around them since they're like clockwork. We colder country folks have to stick together!
I have lived in Boulder for the past 18 years. I thought I had the weather figured out for the first couple of years - 4 P.M. summer thunderstorms, 90 degree days in August into Spetember, high winds in November and March, possible early snow in September and then not again until March and April. Suddenly everything changed. Take this year. Record highs in October and November, record low and record snow in October, mild summer temperatures with wetter than normal spring. Not a compliant. Today is sunny, clear, with a high in the 60s. Extended forecast is for temperatures in the 60s. Sorry for the digression in this thread.
Where the are Maryland girls? I looked at 2010....only a few girls listed. Only 3 girls listed for 2011. Should be a lot of commitments from U17 Frederick, SAC, Laurel, and Freestate.
Although some of us would like to think that we have a reasonably rational system for making recruiting class rankings, I will agree that it is all heavily speculation-based. (How else could it be?) But for the record, here is how I rank the classes. * I rank each player on a 1-10 scale (by 10ths if necessary) * then I average the top three players' scores to get a "basic class score" (I think that, realistically, it's only the top three players in a class that make any real impact in the first year.) However, I do award additional bonus points to the class scores when there are more than three quality players. I do not rank a class unless it has at least 3 players. My system for class ranking does not attempt to match the "fit" of the recruit class to the team's needs, nor does it take into account coaching, future development potential, or other factors. It is simply a raw score based on what can be known about the quality of players coming in. The hardest part, of course, is to correctly score the individual recruits. So here's how I do that. First, if I actually have any direct knowledge of a player (seen her play, or spoken with any one who has seen her play or has true inside information) then this knowledge will seriously modify the score. However, for 99.9% of the players I have no personal knowledge and must rely on public information to score the recruit. Here's how I do the scoring when I have no personal information. Admittedly this system can be challenged on a number of grounds. Like I said, it's all speculation.) 10= US National Team or very strong leader on US national youth team (ie a 90-minute player of note) 9= Member of a US national youth team (traveled with a US national youth team U-16 or up) or foreign NT 8= US national pool (U-16 or up) or foreign national youth team player 7= US U-15 national pool (only) or foreign national youth team pool (any age) 6= Regional ODP Travel team (ODP interregional play or ODP international travel) 5= ODP Camp (only) or National High School Stand-Out (All-American) 4= Strong club player on team advancing in regional (inter-state) play 3= Strong club player on strong club team at state level or state high school standout 2= Strong player local Club 1= Courtesy recruit, or unknown After calculating a "basic class (3-recruit) average" I then modify it for class size and additional quality. I add bonus points for: Add 0.3 - for each additional recruit scoring 9.0 or + Add 0.25 - for each additional recruit scoring 8.3 - 8.9 Add 0.2 - for each additional recruit scoring 7.6 - 8.2 Add 0.15 - for each additional recruit scoring 6.6 - 7.5 Add 0.1 - for each additional recruit scoring 5.6 - 6.5 Add 0.05 - for each additional recruit scoring 4.6 - 5.5 For instance, a very strong class (UNC 2010) scores 9.0 based on 1 national youth team 90-minute player, 1 national youth team starter, and a national pool player. Then add 0.2 for another pool player,, 0.05 for an ODP camper, and 0.05 for a HS All American. The final class score is 9.3. In 2010, Stanford has (compared to it's recent recruiting success) a relatively weak class. The Card has 4 national youth pool players and one ODP travel player for a class total of 8.3 by my system. Applying my system to the (unusual) example of LSU's 2010 class: Basic Class Score = 7.0 (Based on 3 U-15 pool players.) Add 0.15 (for an additional U-15 pool player.) Add 0.3 (for 3 ODP regional travel players.) Add 0.15 (for 3 additional ODP camp players.) LSU's class is then ranked at 7.6 by my system. AS I SAID.... it's only a speculative system, but it allows the ranking of classes by some (barely) objective standard. Given that it's all based on ODP and national youth team exposure, it has the obvious weakness of not fairly ranking players who do not play in that system. Recruiting coordinators for the universities obviously know a lot more than I do, so I am always eager to see the girls play in person. And, oh yea. I'll have to go back and re-do my list once again as things have changed....
OK... The 2010 recruiting season is essentially wrapped up. There are no more quality players unspoken for (unless a foreign player pops up such as Lucy Bronze in 2009.) (A 2011 thread should be started as that is where all of the action is now.) But to wrap up, below is my 2010 class ratings as of 12/28/09. (Based on the system outlined above.) There's not much to separate the first three (PSU, UNC, Cal) and the next four (UCLA, ND, Michigan, Stanford) are close behind. After that there are no big gaps, but a steady regression in quality in small increments. 1. 9.20 PSU 2. 9.17 UNC 3. 9.07 Cal 4. 8.63 UCLA 4. 8.63 ND 6. 8.55 Michigan 7. 8.47 Stanford 8. 8.15 Auburn 9. 8.02 Portland 10. 8.02 Georgia 11. 7.97 Duke 11. 7.97 Arizona 13. 7.77 USC 14. 7.72 Florida 15. 7.67 Wisconsin 16. 7.60 LSU 17. 7.33 MSU 18. 7.18 Louisville 19. 7.15 Santa Clara 20. 7.10 ASU 20. 7.10 Ohio State 22. 7.05 BC 22. 7.05 Memphis 24. 6.67 UCSB 24. 6.67 SMU 24. 6.67 OK 27. 6.53 S.Carolina 28. 6.33 Wake 28. 6.33 WVU 28. 6.33 Connecticut 28. 6.33 Northwestern 28. 6.33 Purdue 33. 6.10 Virginia 33. 6.10 UNLV 33. 6.10 Marquette 36. 6.05 Oregon State 36. 6.05 Clemson 36. 6.05 Nebraska 39. 6.00 FSU 39. 6.00 UW Milwaukee