First UNC suffers a huge upset, they fall from #1 Portland today gets upset by Purdue, they will fall. Texas or Stanford will likely be the new #1 when the polls come out. 8 of the preseason top 10 in the NSCAA poll have a blemish on their record. The only 3 that don't, were all tied for 9th in the preseason poll. Boston College, Stanford and Texas. That's a little crazy.
What fun (unless your team has lost!) Actually, this is fun. Which team rises to the top may depend on the poll. If I have a vote, Stanford goes to the top for defeating two top ten teams (Notre Dame, Virginia). Of course, one may now ask how good is Notre Dame? Tough weekend for Notre Dame, but an impressive weekend for Stanford. I'm influenced by what I saw with Texas. I don't see them as a number one team, even though they beat UCLA. I think they're still geling. But if they defeat Arizona tonight, they will be #1 in a number of the polls. Santa Clara deserves a #3 ranking IMO. But they've been all over the place in the polls. Some polls took into consideration their injuries. Soccer America did not factor them in, it would appear. Will Stanford rise to #1 in the SA poll since Santa Clara tied Virginia? (BTW, that's one heck of a tournament. You have to give props to Santa Clara's scheduling.) Given Boston College's schedule, I don't think you can propel them into the top five.
I would guess that nscaa will put Stanford 1st with North Carolina 2nd. Both soccer times and soccer buzz will have North Carolina as number 1. Soccer america may keep Santa Clara ahead of North Carolina. Sophister
I think you will see this: 1. Stanford 2. UNC 3. UCLA 4. SCU 5. Texas A&M 6. Portland 7. Florida 8. UConn 9. BC 10. Texas SCU's big win over ND doesn't look as good when you look at ND's overall record.
The top teams are dropping like flies. This season seems to be very wide open, might see some new faces at the College Cup this year. This is good for the game.
I saw the Arizona/Texas game. Texas didn't play like a top 10 team but they weren't awful either. Arizona actually looked pretty good.
ND's overall record has the two losses of this past weekend (one the aforementioned thumping by SCU, one in OT to the upthread-mentioned Stanford), a win at Florida, and a scoreless draw vs. Michigan where the Wolverines were comprehensively outplayed during regulation. I don't really see how SCU's win is diminished by ND's record. The only weak opponent of the lot is Michigan.
I am with the group concensus, should definitely be Stanford #1 (given their schedule and results to date). My top 5 rankings: 1. stanford 2. santa clara 3. north carolina 4. portland 5. ucla
You may be projecting a bit. I'm not sure how well UCLA will do, though I'm hoping for the top. Their loss, and play against Illinois was not convincing. Lots of attack, but suspicious D. As I say, I'm hoping (praying) for them to get it together. For a team that only lost 2 starters from last year, I'm concerned. Santa Clara may be for real, we'll see when they come down here, along with Portland, later in the fall. The Bruins play 5 WCC teams, so we should know alot before the conference season starts.
I don't know what happened to ND out west, but what's killing them right now in the home games I've seen is they don't have the level of playmaking around the opposition penalty area that they need to have in order to turn domination of possession into clear scoring chances. It cost them two points against Michigan and three points against Oklahoma State.
Saw both games out West and it was not the offense that was their problem in santa clara tournament - their execution and finish rate was pretty good. However, they had lots of trouble in the back staying organized and got overwhelmed often at midfield (just didn't seem very aggressive on 50/50 balls). Having said that, they are a talented team and season is long...think they will do fine once settle in.
The west is the best The west is the best Get here, and we'll do the rest - JIM MORRISON, THE DOORS NEW TOP 30 SOCCER BUZZ 1.Stanford 2.Santa Clara 3.Portland 4.Texas 5.Texas A&M 6.Virginia 7.UCLA 8.North Carolina 9.Boston College 10.Florida 11.Florida State 12.Marquette 13.West Virginia 14.Penn State 15.Connecticut 16.South Carolina 17Notre Dame 18.USC 19.Tennessee 20.Purdue 21.Rutgers 22.BYU 23.Washington State 24.Oklahoma State 25.Missouri 26.California 27.Louisville 28.Villanova 29.Ohio State 30. Illinois Is this the year for a team from the West? My money is on Portland! But it's early...
Some of it depends on who plays as the holding midfielder. Brittany Bock is very aggressive tackling, IMO the best player for that position. However, Waldrum seems to feel that he needs her playing farther forward, as she played as the withdrawn forward for the entire game vs. OSU with Lauren Fowlkes holding (and given ND's sometime struggles to score, it's hard to argue with him trying to play a talented player farther forward). Fowlkes isn't as strong in the tackle as Bock. Even notwithstanding that, though, ND controlled the midfield for large stretches of the game against both Michigan and OSU. In both games, there were over 20 shots taken (not sure how many on goal), but only one goal scored between them on a FK by Hanks. I don't think ND's had a huge problem with organization on the back line in the games I've seen, but the Irish have had some difficulty handling speedy forwards running at them on the counter. Such a play led to the winning goal scored by OSU. (The other OSU goal was a perfectly placed long shot off a turnover in the back. I wouldn't say it was much of a scoring chance, but every now and again you put one of those shots in the right place, and I'd like to have seen it closed down better.) Right now, if you asked me who ND was missing the most from last season, I'd say it was neck-and-neck between Buczkowski and Lorenzen. I think Lorenzen's role in the defense last year was underrated by just about everyone -- I thought so at the time, and I think it's being proven this year.
The best thing that has happened to UNC this season is to lose a couple and lose the target on their foreheads for a bit. Don't count us out yet. This weekend we showed alot of promise and with Robyn Gayle back from the World Cup we'll get better. Watch out!
So Stanford drops a 1-0 match to Denver. I guess it's Santa Clara's turn at #1. What a wild season and it's still September.
And September comes to a close with another #1 losing, SCU loses to Cal 2-0. I have no idea what is going on this season. With Portland and Texas A&M also losing this weekend, I guess Stanford will go back to #1?
Common theme - hard to stay #1 as women's soccer game so competitive now so "on any given day" upsets are possible and likely. Hard to dominate other teams and games by the elite programs so luck factor plays a bigger role. My two cents.
The new Soccer America poll is hilarious. 1. Stanford (8-1-0) 3 2. Texas (8-1-1) 6 3. UCLA (5-1-2) 9 4. Santa Clara (7-1-1) 1 5. Virginia (7-1-2) 4 6. Missouri (7-2-0) 19 7. Tennessee (7-1-1) 10 8. Penn State (7-2-1) 11 9. Purdue (10-1-1) 20 10. USC (8-1-1) NR 11. Boston College (7-0-2) 8 12. California (8-2-0) NR 13. Portland (6-3-0) 2 14. Clemson (8-1-1) 14 15. North Carolina (7-3-0) 7 16. Texas A&M (7-2-1) 5 17. BYU (8-0-2) 17 18. Georgia (9-1-0) NR 19. San Diego (7-1-2) 22 20. Notre Dame (5-4-1) 24 21. Wake Forest (6-3-1) 23 22. Florida State (6-3-1) 12 23. Oklahoma State (7-2-1) 13 24. Connecticut (8-2-0) NR 25. Indiana (8-1-1) NR 25. South Carolina (8-3-0) 15 25. Washington State (6-1-2) 18 Soccer Buzz also has their new rankings out. 1. Stanford 2 2. Santa Clara 1 3. Virginia 4 4. UCLA 8 5. Texas 7 6. Boston College 9 7. USC 14 8. Portland 3 9. Tennessee 16 10. Texas A&M 5 11. Penn State 11 12. Purdue 15 13. Connecticut 13 14. North Carolina 6 15. Missouri 21 16. BYU 17 17. California 7 18. Wake Forest 28 19. Clemson 29 20. Florida State 10 21. Georgia RV 22. West Virginia 20 23. Villanova 22 24. South Carolina 18 25. Notre Dame 27 26. Indiana NR 27. Marquette 12 28. Duke RV 29. San Diego RV 30. Washington State 23