BYU’s strength has not been a surprise to me. I have seen them play, in person, and the way they shredded South Carolina looked about right to me, for what I had seen of BYU. I think there is a tendency to underestimate the overall strength of teams from the western states. BYU had a tie with Utah and and a loss to Utah State (and Santa Clara). Santa Clara had ties with Cal and Seattle and losses to UCLA, Stanford, San Francisco (in a non-conference game), and Portland. I am reasonably confident the strength of the not-Power 5 conferences in the west is something not seen elsewhere in the country. This, and the relative isolation of the west in terms of cross-regional competition, makes this a problem when trying to compare teams from the west to those from other parts of the country, both for those using data to rank teams and for those using their eyeballs. This has been a particularly serious problem this year, with teams whose homes are in the western states playing 90 percent of their games in-region (presumably for Covid and financial reasons), which is even fewer games than the normal roughly 80 percent (which itself is not enough for good cross-region comparisons).
Pilot fan's love bragging about west colleges doing well. Where was everyone when Santa Clara went years without college cup appearances? Everyone thought Jerry Smith didn't have it anymore. BYU and SC doing well doesn't make Portland Pilots good.
Biblically the sabbath is Saturday. Constantine and whoever else have weighed in on changing it to match their Interpretation and thus it’s been changed. But biblically it’s the last day of the week. I’m not arguing the bylaws. I’m saying it’s a silly line in the sand for the school when their recruits, coaches, and athletes spend their lives playing on sundays. I’m just saying the keeping the sabbath holy isn’t that big of a deal to them until all of a sudden it is.
The Sabbath in the Bible was from Friday at Sunset to Saturday at Sunset. Many Christian faiths celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday as the Lord's day, the first day of the week and the day of Christ's resurrection. It is a big deal to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is a big deal to many members of the church, although all members choose whether it is a big deal to them or not. I grew up in the South in the 60s and early 70s and it was a big deal all over the South. No stores other than the occasional gas station was open on Sunday in my small town. As time has progressed, the observance of the Sabbath day has lessened. To me it's still a big deal, what we might call one of the top 10 commandments, but I leave it to you to make your own judgments. Individuals can choose to believe and do as they will, but you may know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will consider it a big deal! Having the women play on Friday and Monday is more conducive to high quality soccer in the finals and more fair to these women. Doing it Friday and Monday is like having a Football team (oblong) play Sunday and Thursday!
Back to CC convo. If I had to rank the teams coming in on recent performance I would rank them 1. BYU . . 2. FSU 3. Tie with Rutgers and Santa Clara In 2018 FSU came into the NCAA with 4 losses and 3 ties. We were ranked like 6th in the ACC. To be fair we lost several international players for several games each. We got hot in the ACCT and continued that stretch into the NCAAT. BYU seems to be on just such a stretch.
Don't know what your criteria would be here. As far as I can tell FSU and Rutgers both struggled in their last two games and they were at home. Santa Clara has had to gut out some wins, but did so three time zones away from home, scoring two on Duke in the first half on Duke's home field. BYU has a major advantage in Provo for multiple reasons, but is indeed hot right now, as they have been for at least the last two years. Recent performances will go out the window now though since Santa Clara will be at home, and BYU has been at Santa Clara twice already this year. LOTS of BYU grads in the Bay Area also and they literally crawl out of the woodwork for any BYU team in town, descending in a large, loud, and rowdy blue crowd. If BYU is in the final, the opponent is going to feel like they're in Provo...
To be sure, anyone of the CC participants could win this. The CC we won in 18 was in NC and lo and behold, we had to conquer them after beating Stanford in the semis. I think Santa Clara and BYU have the best create your own shot forwards in the tourney. I haven't watched Rutgers, but FSU depends on many players and lots of opportunities.
This discussion about playing on Sunday is ridiculous, because no one should have to play a championship match with 1 day in between the semis and the finals. You won't catch the football championship played 3, 4 or 5 days after the semis. In fact, I believe it's 2 weeks later. TV is disrespecting the game and the women by trying to mandate or coerce for TV sakes, Friday and Sunday games. It's wrong to make them play that close together! They did something similar to NCAA softball. They condense the schedule in ways that they do not for the men's CWS. In the last WCWS FSU played 2 games on Saturday. The last finished after midnight. They then had to turn around and play Sunday early afternoon. Enough complaints were made that they have made some (not enough) changes to the length of the tournament. Women's soccer needs more of an outcry. Personally, each team deserves enough rest to be playing at their best physically! Rant over.
LOL! Nevertheless, it is a fact that the NCAA rating system, on average, underrates teams from the west.
The nature of soccer is that it’s a cruel sport. The best team doesn’t always win. That said, it takes A LOT to get to a College Cup. Only 34 programs have ever done it in Womens Soccer (BYU the newest member to this elite club). Almost 100 have made it to the Final Four in Mens Basketball. Any of these four teams can win it. Santa Clara is grinding out wins but are not that exciting to me. I’m hoping for an FSU/BYU final. BYU playing great soccer, but they do have more of a home advantage than most teams. I think having to play away for the college cup brings them down at least on par with FSU. If FSU had to play in Utah it might be lights out. What’s the elevation in Tallahassee? 5 feet?
I haven't seen enough to break down all the rosters but it seems to me that a Rutgers-BYU final would look very different then a FSU-Santa Clara final. Esp since Rutgers/BYU would have the extra rest and would make it the high pressing track meet they seem to prefer. That is probably why we won't see either of those games! Although I'm pulling for both Rutgers and BYU as the 'new kids on the block'. If I were betting though, I'd take FSU to win. Should be fun and at least on the regular ESPNU cable channel for all to see with late (et) kickoffs!
Tom, I generally enjoy your posts, but this one is so far off. On gender, it's the same for men. On sport, it's the same for most sports. Even your example has games on back-to-back days if not doubleheaders (same for baseball). The other cash cow for the NCAA, basketball, does it the same. If the athletes are not back to shape after nearly 2 days to rest then they need to work on their conditioning. The only thing that you get when you give more time is for coaches to game plan around the opponent (and going into the Cup they probably have plans in place for both possible opponents in the final already) or give fans more of a chance to coordinate getting to the final.
No. Tom is dead on. The demands on a body for basketball and softball is no where near soccer and it’s been well documented and discussed, so if you’re making the “well they should be in better shape” argument, it’s really not worth discussing this with you. yes the players and coaches need to raise holy hell. The coverage, the regional seeding, the scheduling…it’s all insanely inequitable. Even the preseason of 10 days of prep is awful and unhealthy. The schools and the ncaa will bend to pressure. Someone needs to organize these kids to speak up and demand change. And this isn’t a preference thing nor an opinion. The data is crystal clear about prep time, scheduling time and the eyeballs that will watch womens college soccer if it’s given a platform. It’s time to change.
In softball vs baseball both 8 team brackets double elim with the finals being best 2/3. Baseball went from June the 19-29 or 11 days. Softball went from June 3-10th. or 8 days. If the men's soccer is identical to the women, then they too need to protest. As the Father of 4 daughters, I'm attuned to unfair preferences. In the college bball tournament, the men got better training facilities and other amenities over the women. You don't need to treat the women better, just treat them equally as fair. Look at NWSL games or WC games and you don't get Friday Sunday games unless I've totally missed something.
Could you find those studies? Would love to read them. I have 3 daughters myself, and not where I was trying to go. My point was that it's the same for almost every NCAA sport, regardless of men or women. Men's and women's soccer, yep. Men's and women's basketball, yep. Men's and women's volleyball. Beach volleyball. Ice and field hockey. Lacrosse. Wrestling champions will often need to win 5 matches in 3 days. The list goes on... Wasn't even going to bring up the inanity of which sports are more physically taxing. Just that the NCAA isn't discriminating against soccer or women because of this 2 days rest mention.
There’s countless studies man. Google it. The point isn’t that all these other sports do it thus women aren’t being discriminated against. The point is it’s harmful to the athletes. Soccer is unique in the demands placed on the athletes. The mileage and recovery isn’t like other sports. there’s all this momentum for change in the ncaa and putting athletes first. But this is a huge miss.
This isn't terribly surprising to me. Dorrance won many of his titles in the early years of women's collegiate soccer. Nowadays, the game is far, far more competitive across the board--more teams, and certainly many more good programs. It's tougher now. Beyond that, with longtime coaches the law of diminishing returns starts to kick in. I think it's generally true that "great" coaches tend to have more success in the first half of their careers than in the latter half, if they coach for a very long time.
Dorrance is obviously a great coach. But his success early on was pretty easy. He was the US National Team coach, while also a coach at an attractive university. There were also a lot less Division I programs to compete with back then. He had a significant built in advantage to land the top players. He kept that rolling for years after he stepped down from the national team. It would have been stunning if he did not win at a high level in college while also serving as the US National Team coach.