It's a bit early, but wanted to discuss who people think will be next season's (2017) top ten! Here are my top 10 and key players 1) Penn St. - This team will be loaded. (GK Chandler, D Elliston, D Riehl, M Ogle, F Crouse) Top newcomer - M Tagliaferri 2) Stanford - Loaded team gets attacking reinforcements. (M Sullivan, D Cook, M Davidson, M Xiao, M DiBiasi) Top newcomer - F Kuhlmann 3) UCLA - Loaded upfront, questions on defense. (M Flemming, D McCullough, F Pugh, F/M Rodriguez, M Canales) Top newcomer - F/M Sanchez 4) Duke - Deep team gets back injured all conference trio. (D Quinn, M Racioppi, M/F Stevens, F Dorsey) Top newcomer - M Paschall 5) UNC - Under 20 players return to final four stalwarts. (F Scarpa, F Andrzejewski, M Buckingham, D Otto, D Bill) Top newcomer - F/D Fox 6) FSU - Should be stronger with key players around all year. (M Connelly, F Castellanos, D Koivisto, D, Kuikka, GK Miller) Top newcomer - F Daly 7) Virginia - Solid recruits revamp midfield. (D Peterson, F Latsko, M Brandon, D/M Morse, F Ziemer) Top newcomer - M Torres 8) Notre Dame - Solid defense gets attacking under 20s members back. (F Westendorf, F Jacobs, M Flores, D Flores, D Heard) Top newcomer - M Dyke 9) Texas A&M - Return of Watts, bolsters strong nucleus. (F Watts, M Harvey, M Malherbe, F Pounds) Top newcomer - GK Ausmus 10) Florida - Jordan replaced by Canadian wnt striker. (M/F Roberts, D Cardano, D Seiler, M Pelayo) Top newcomer - F Rose Honorable Mention: USC, Arkansas, NC State, Cal, Michigan
Being from these parts and watching quite a bit of UM soccer, this team is nowhere near the level of most of those you list in your top ten (frankly I don't think A&M is all that good either). Not sure what you are basing your opinion on, however. Sleeper next year - DePaul; they play a nice game that will surprise next year. I think they will dominate the Big East. Been wrong before, hopefully big blue will surprise!
Mostly as a reference point, here's a top 20 list that comes from projected ARPIs for next year, based on a combination of teams' ARPI trends over time and how long the current coach has been there. For coaches in place for 9 years or more, the trend period is 8 years; for 4 to 8 years in place, 6 years; and for 1 to 3 years in place, 2 years. Stanford 1 NorthCarolinaU 2 FloridaState 3 VirginiaU 4 FloridaU 5 NotreDame 6 UCLA 7 Rutgers 8 PennState 9 SouthernCalifornia 10 WestVirginiaU 11 TexasA&M 12 Duke 13 VirginiaTech 14 SouthCarolinaU 15 SantaClara 16 BYU 17 UCF 18 Marquette 19 BostonCollege 20 In the "accuracy as to future performance" work I did in developing this list, one of the things that was apparent to me is that who the coach is is very important at least when looking at the entire NCAA Division I list of teams. Individual players come and go, and could justify modifications to a list like this, but the prime determiner is the coach. There may be a couple of oddities in the list, but it actually doesn't look too bad overall.
My opinion is based off of how many key contributors are returning, and how strong the recruits are. I mentioned Michigan because the have Sarkisian back, they also get back star defender Yukka. Plus, they have the #1 freshman gk (Beal) and Canadian superstar Stratigakis coming in. They should do well. I actually should have mentioned West Virginia. Even though they lose Buchanon and Lawrence, they've got some strong players returning. I think Tamu is going to surprise you. What they didn't have last year (goal scorers), they get this year with Ally Watt returning. I think they'll be top of the SEC for sure
mrp, as I was scrolling and reading, I noticed WVU missing right away. Then I knew you talking about Michigan (blue/gold) and Yekka (reminded you of fellow Canadian Abam) would trigger the WVU thought. Then, it did.
You're right. I probably would delete Michigan in favor of WVU right now. My first thoughts on next years WVU team was that they lost too much firepower. But looking at what they expect back, they still have top ten potential. And, Abam returns! To me, that goal against UNC was crazy good! One of the best I've seen because of her footwork to get that off.