The first preseason poll is out for the 2o12 season. This is the NSCAA coaches poll, which I thought traditionally stayed the same from the final 2011 season poll, but apparently not... http://www.nscaa.com/rankings/1048/...Poll?preview=5ebeb6065f64f2346dbb00ab789cf001 1 Stanford 1 25-0-1 2 Duke 2 22-4-1 3 Wake Forest 4 18-4-4 4 Florida State 3 18-7-1 5 Oklahoma State 5 22-2-2 6 UCLA 7 16-1-4 7 Virginia 6 17-5-2 8 North Carolina 13 13-5-2 9 Penn State 8 21-5-0 10 Pepperdine 10 15-2-4 11 Boston College 15 12-6-3 12 Central Florida 12 13-5-6 13 Maryland 11 12-6-4 14 Memphis 9 22-1-1 14 Texas A&M 21 16-6-2 16 Marquette 16 18-4-0 17 Santa Clara 20 13-2-6 18 Long Beach State 14 18-6-1 19 Illinois 19 17-5-2 20 West Virginia 18 17-5-0 21 Florida RV 17-8-0 22 Virginia Tech 22 14-8-1 23 Boston University 17 19-3-1 24 South Carolina 25 17-8-0 25 Auburn RV 15-7-2 2011 final record and ranking shown. Also receiving votes: Ohio State, San Diego, Notre Dame, Louisville, Baylor, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Miami, LSU, Dayton, William & Mary, Tennessee, Kentucky, Harvard
Top Drawer Soccer has released their preseason Top 64. If I understand how they do this, the actual order doesn't necessarily matter, as they rank according to seeding for the NCAA tournament. So the top 4 would be one seeds, the next 4 two seeds, so on and so on. Not sure why they bother to do it like that since Sports Information desks are not likely to pick up on the nuances of this type of ranking system compared to the standard format of other rankings. Here's the top 8: 1. Stanford 2. Duke 3. Notre Dame 4. Wake Forest 5. Texas A&M 6. Florida State 7. UCLA 8. UNC Full ranking: http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/college-soccer/college-soccer-tournament-ranking/women
I think that by doing what they do, there will be about 20 teams that will get recognition that would normally not get any. As an example, TDS picks team X as the Big Sky champion & is ranked 59th. How many Big Sky teams have ever been ranked in the traditional top 25 poll? Many small conference teams will be overlooked in the traditional poll but will get recognition in the top64 projection. Hopefully their SIDs recognize it. FWIW, here's my stab at how the rankings will be on Selection Monday: 1. Duke 2. Wake Forest 3. UCLA 4. Penn St. 5. Virginia 6. Stanford 7. Santa Clara 8. TAMU 9. BC 10. North Carolina 11. Florida St. 12. West Virginia