SEC Women's Soccer - Questions/ Opinions

I follow the SEC, to a degree. It's hard to generalize as teams of course have different styles--and there is a lot of variability in performance year on year. A team can be quite good one year and not so good the next two. Like everything in the SEC, the league is super-competitive, top to bottom. Some teams play pretty soccer, others, less so.

Arkansas has been the most consistently strong team for several years. They do not play pretty, possession soccer--quite the opposite. The coach recruits athletic players, and the hogs play very direct---get the ball down the field, get it into the box, a lot, and they score..a lot. I think they led the nation in shots and goals last year--and are usually up there in both categories. The coach is not much on possession soccer, at all, but his style has certainly worked. Here's something astounding: Arkansas has been to the final of the SEC soccer tournament in each of the last six--or it might even be seven years--and has lost every one of the championship games. I think it's seven straight SEC title-game losses. Hard to believe.

Another consistently solid team has been South Carolina. They play much differently from Arkansas--a very disciplined, defensive oriented philosophy. Never the most talented or exciting team, but well-coached by wife/husband pair, and they historically have won a lot of 1-0, 2-1 type games.

Mississippi State was good last year but that was a bit of an anomaly, IMO. MSU is seldom near the top of any sport in the SEC. I think they simply had some good midfielders last year and it all clicked in the way that it did for Alabama two or three years ago. MSU wasn't particularly noticeable, that I can remember, until last year. I'd have to go back and check their records. Auburn has usually been solid, sometimes good but seldom special--tough-minded coach, but I think she just retired.

Recruiting is variable--both out of the clubs and the portal--and that's why the teams can be up and down. Tennessee was very good Pensky's last year--but FSU snagged him and the Vols have fallen off under the new coach, but they might be a team to watch this year. Have recruited well and landed supposedly the No. 1 recruit in the land for '26--from California. I think she's getting some serious NIL money. One of Arkansas's best young forwards from last year transferred to Tennessee--not sure why.

Vandy has a British/Scottish coach and plays a very attractive brand of possession soccer. Nice team to watch. Always solid, sometimes good. Georgia was bad for several years but went out and spent the $$ to hire Southern Cal's coach and they've improved a lot and are now a tough team to beat.

Florida was the SEC's big dog for a long time--played a nice brand of possession soccer, but then maybe 8/9 years ago, it all started to go south for the gators. Maybe the coach, who'd been there since the program was started, burned out--not sure. But they've struggled for several years. However, at some point they will be back. Missouri has been bad, Ole Miss had a solid team for several years--not great, but respectably competitive--but they've fallen off. Kentucky was likewise solid for several years, foolishly sacked their coach, the successor was bad, the team was bad, they fired that coach, and now the new coach may be a good fit--too early to say--but the Cats were much improved last year. Texas A&M was very good for a long time but the coach is been there forever---25 years maybe--and they've struggled in recent years and I'm guessing he will either retire or be sacked soon if there is not improvement. LSU is usually athletic but hard to put a finger on. They've seldom been higher than mid-conference. The thing is, every team is quite athletic and competitive, and like most games in any conference, the margins are small. A lot of unpredictability.

I had wanted to post here every season about the league and its teams--and did so for one or two years--but the league is so big now, so many teams, that is virtually impossible to do anything but hit the high spots. I would say that, on the whole, the SEC has been on the come for a few years. Nobody in the league gets 6-9 top prospects every years like the country's elite programs (and we know who they are), and I don't think there's a coach in the league that's at the level of those same elite programs, but the league is pretty strong.



A lot of teams, as mentioned, are up and down. Alabama is that way. They landed a couple of very good senior/grad transfers that raised the level of that team a

 

Terrific writeup by @L'orange.

@Kroad, if you want a look at each team's history, you might want to go to the RPI Excel Workbook Library and download the Team Histories and Simulated 2025 Balanced RPI Ranks workbook. (Scroll down the page and you will see a link to it -- it's the first workbook listed.) It has a page for every Division I team, so you can see each team's rank history going back to 2007as well as lots of other information. It will be a chore to download the workbook, as it's a big one, but it might be worth the effort. There are instructions on the linked page about how to download the page's workbooks.

 

@Kroad. Here are 2 recruiting thoughts that folks don't mention much but are also worth considering: 1) Kentucky is the only school in the SEC that has a men's team. If your daughter likes watching men's soccer or hanging with men's players (to include hockey and lacrosse as well - although lacrosse is coming to the SEC for men in 2026) then the SEC just doesn't have that option. The SEC is traditional sports. (Purdue is the only Big Ten school without a Men's soccer team for point of reference) My daughter took 3 visits to SEC schools and, although she loved the staff and the facilities, to her credit she discovered that not being around other players just wasn't the best fit for her. Lots of her club teammates did not mind but if you are a soccer family and seeing both the men and women play at her university sounds appealing then it is something to consider. 2) All of the SEC schools have "gobs" of non-athletic money. Virtually every girl on every roster in the SEC (with the exception of Vanderbilt) is on a combination of athletic and academic aid and it often exceeds 100%. That is what led to huge rosters and huge turnover. This could all change of course with the new roster limits and scholarship limits at 28 but don't dismiss that all 28+ want to play and are getting paid. Look at the SEC payers in the transfer portal every year, it is largely because of this...and it is easy to transfer in (academically) to an SEC school. 16 SEC girls have announced already they are in the portal this spring (and I am sure many more have entered unannounced). Best of luck to your daughter as she navigates the complex recruiting world.

 

South Carolina also has a men’s team. Let’s be accurate with information.

The SEC will continue to make gains in recruiting because many of them are not only funding additional scholarships but increasing their NIL/Rev share budgets in Olympic sports as well.

 

whoever told you LSU plays “possession” soccer misinformed you. They may sell that, but it’s far from the truth.

 

This is not accurate:

"(Purdue is the only Big Ten school without a Men's soccer team for point of reference)"

There are 18 schools and women's soccer teams in the Big Ten Conference. There are 11 Men's soccer teams in the Big Ten.

 

Good post but more than just Purdue without Men's Soccer. Illinois, MN, Iowa, Nebraska all without Men's Soccer plus Oregon

 

Are you sure the SEC is starting lacrosse? I just gave it a scan and, while someone posted that the league was starting that sport, it was on April 1 and was---apparently--an April Fool's joke. I've not seen an official announcement by the league or any schools. I do see that four SEC schools sponsor men's club lacrosse. I would think that given the financial liabilities coming the way of major programs with revenue-sharing, schools would be quite averse to starting a new sport, with significant new costs, at least for a few years and everyone sees how all this financial madness and player entitlement shakes out.

The SEC is preparing to host its first-ever women's rowing tournament---though with only 4 schools! For many years only 2 SEC schools had women's rowing--Tennessee and Alabama--who competed in the Big 10 conference. Then came more greedy conference expansion, and with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas the SEC now has 4 women's rowing programs. I'm quite sure other schools will add rowing--it's a great sport--but, again, most are likely to wait until the House settlement and the craziness around it gets ironed out.

As for soccer, rosters have been too big and we've seen some programs with more than a few good players who simply aren't able to play enough--and transfer. I certainly understand why some/many players want to transfer--but IMO there should be only one portal window a year. Having two is crazy and just exacerbates the instability that is rampant now across the board--in all sports. Perhaps more manageable roster limits would help with that.

 

Thanks, I definitely should have definitely looked deeper.

 

Sorry, I forgot USC (South Carolina) and they have been around with success for a very long time (since I played). Apologies.

 

2 points:
I imagine most SEC schools have men's club teams. At OU some club players assist at Women's practices and regularly attend games so the girls know them.

A May portal allows a player (and a coach) to make a decision after the Spring season.

 

USC doesn't have a men's team either.

The B1G has gotten so big that sometimes it's difficult to remember who is in it.

 

The conferences aren't really leagues anymore in a practical or traditional sense. They've all gotten absurdly oversized with 16, 18 members. It's a joke. They're now little more than agglomerations of schools conceived to maximize TV revenues. That's the basic idea of conference expansion--nothing more. Going forward schools will be hanging banners for coming in 5th--not bad in an 18/20-team conference!

It should be noted that the Univ. of Kentucky has announced its desire/intention to make its athletic department an LLC--a limited liability corporation. This seems very significant as it would turn the athletic department of a state PUBLIC university into a PRIVATE business entity. And I assume athletic-department employees would then be employees of the LLC and not the university. If it happens, and other schools follow suit, it would seem a big step toward legally removing COLLEGE athletics from the College(s)--which in various ways has been happening already, sadly, as we see the rampant commercialization and professionalization of college sports. I assume establishing an athletic department as an LLC is also a tactic to limit the legal liability of the athletic department to the lawsuits that these departments are probably expecting from student-athletes as this big, complicated mess is slowly sorted--but that's just my guess and lawyers or experts please offer your thoughts.

 

I watched the entire game….Arkansas is a tough watch for a fan that likes the technical game. Funny though, I had the same thought about Nolan Richardson watching that game. Just polka dot shirts running through people and kicking the ball long, nothing fancy. 2nd goal was a PK but the play to get the PK was special. Fun to watch two contrasting styles.

FWIW too.. WF facilities are considered very good. I think Spry stadium is considered one of the best college stadiums in the country. Not a Wake fan at all but kudos for a nice pitch.

 

Yes I think the WF facility is generally considered one of the best in the country. And some of the best/toughest big game atmospheres as students /fans are allowed to line the hill directly behind one of the goals. You don’t get to see much of it on TV because of where cameras are placed I think. It’s by no means a big bowl stadium like UNC, but it’s a very pretty facility in a pretty setting.

It probably helps facilities funding that most ACC teams have men’s soccer as well, and both are generally considered the best leagues in the sport.

SEC is definitely improving soccer wise. And they’ve got some good coaches in the league now. And who knows what will happen with the influx of NIL money in the SEC. For now though there are few SEC teams that play a professional/possession brand of soccer.

 

Two SEC wins over Big 10 teams last night (SC over Ohio State, bama over Michigan), and an SEC team (Georgia) again beat UNC of the ACC. And the previous night Tennessee beat UCLA, another Big 10 team. A good couple of days for the SEC.

 

Tennessee’s transfer forward is really lighting it up so far this year. Watching the Tennessee vs. UCLA game was rough though.

Georgia I think is definitely the SEC program to watch. I think they’ll dethrone South Carolina as the program that is considered perennial league favorites.

On the other side… Watching the games it seems like UNC should be fine eventually, but definitely maybe not last season’s caliber. But still a jarring start for one of the favorites.

 

Georgia has a great coach. He proved it at USC.

 

Arkansas has been the perennial favorite, not South Carolina. McAlpine at Georgia is a good coach who seems to be relying heavily on transfers. Has a bunch this year. Tennessee has looked very good defensively but lacks attacking talent/chemistry in the midfield. Still missing two starters.

 

Oops, yes. Recently Arkansas has been the team to beat. I just think South Carolina’s reign over the top of the conference has been longer. But definitely last few years Arkansas has been on top. Will be interesting to see if Arkansas can keep up their momentum.