Wait, you're sharing something that you don't think is worth paying for?? Then why should we read it? How about finding someone with a subscription and sharing the cut and paste? or provide us a nice summary. I don't think TDS is worth paying for but then would never share their clickbait either....
Well, I felt like it was full disclosure and I'd let others decide. It's good that you added your opinion. I will check to see if anyone I know has it and share their thoughts and/or summary. Also, I don't pay for any soccer/sports subscriptions. It might be useful if others chimed in on what, if any, subscriptions are worthwhile.
Here ya go. . . Already the gold standard for women’s college soccer, the ACC reached a new level with national power Stanford joining, along with SMU and California. There is no argument that this league will again have a say in who wins the national championship. Here is the ACC women’s soccer preview you need before the season. California, SMU, and Stanford join. 2023 ACC Regular Season Standings: 1. Florida State 9-0-1 (22-0-1) - NCAA National Champions An undefeated national championship already cemented this team as one of the greatest in NCAA history. And while the Seminoles have done well to reload, there will still be a challenge in getting that chemistry to mesh together, particularly with the U20 Women's World Cup taking several of their stars in September. 2. Notre Dame 7-1-2 (12-4-4) - NCAA Second Round The Irish saw their season end abruptly after doing well to finish second in the ACC regular season. With the mastery of a 3-back system that gives rivals plenty of headaches, the addition of the 4th-ranked recruiting class could see this team as a dark horse for the national title. 3. Clemson 7-2-1 (18-4-4) - NCAA Semifinal The culmination of several talented recruiting classes saw the Tigers reach the College Cup for the first time in program history. Of course, that also means several of those stars are now playing professional soccer, suggesting the Tigers could take a step back. 4. North Carolina 5-0-5 (13-2-8) - NCAA Quarterfinal Plenty has been said about the supposed downfall of the Tar Heels, as the team saw six players selected in the NWSL draft and several more lost to the transfer portal. If there is to be a stage where North Carolina takes a step back from perennial contention, this could be it. 5. Pittsburgh 6-3-1 (17-6-1) - NCAA Quarterfinal A new national force is here as Randy Waldrum has done well to guide Pittsburgh to back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances after zero appearances in its 25-year history. The Panthers are losing two stars to the professional ranks, but nine starters return, including All-American Sarah Schupansky. This could be the team to challenge Florida State for both the ACC and national crowns. 6. Wake Forest 4-2-4 (10-3-5) Wake Forest would have felt overlooked not to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament despite several results against nationally ranked teams in conference play. That will have served as a learning opportunity for a team that will look to not leave their faith up to chance. 7. Virginia 3-3-4 (8-3-6) Last season, Virginia missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1993 owing to unexpected preseason injuries to team captain Emma Dawson and First-Team All-American Lia Godfrey. With those two returning, plus the emergence of several talented underclassmen and another top-20-ranked recruiting class, Virginia could make a run at the national championship. 8. Virginia Tech 4-6 (7-8-3) This could be the season where Virginia Tech leaps toward the elite of the conference with several impressive recruiting classes stacked on top of one another. A disappointing end to last season ultimately cost the Hokies a spot in the conference tournament, a valuable learning opportunity for the future. 9. Louisville 3-5-2 (4-9-5) An 0-7-1 record away from home put a hard ceiling on how much success Louisville could realistically have. That will be the first focus of improvement if the Cardinals are to survive the new-look ACC. 10. Duke 2-5-3 (6-7-3) A late-season collapse with just one win from nine tanked the season for a team that entered with high hopes. That is in the past now, and with head coach Robbie Church announcing his retirement after the upcoming season, there will be an intense focus to end on a high. 11. NC State 2-5-3 (3-9-6) The ACC schedule draw was not at all kind to the Wolfpack, with the team facing Stanford, Notre Dame, Virginia, and Clemson. That may be too much to overcome for a squad coming off a down year. 12. Miami (FL) 2-7-1 (3-10-4) It may not feel like it, considering the Hurricanes have not had a winning season in seven years, but there is cause for hope with Ken Masuhr taking over the program. The first-time head coach brings his outstanding recruiting acumen from Vanderbilt to Miami and will surely improve the talent entering Miami. 13. Boston College 0-6-4 (3-9-6) We are on the precipice of a new era for Boston College, with Chris Watkins taking over the Eagles after an excellent seven-season tenure at Gonzaga. With the Zags, Watkins earned a reputation for high-flying offenses and building programs from the ground up, two traits Boston College will count on in the coming years. 14. Syracuse 0-9-1 (2-14-2) The Orange may have finished bottom of the ACC, but there is reason for hope. A strong recruiting class boasts players with Canadian youth national team experience, the NCAA D2 Player of the Year, and several experienced NCAA D1 stars. California (7-6-6) The Bears will face Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Duke, Notre Dame, and Stanford in a brutal conference schedule. This season will likely be nothing more than a learning opportunity for a team thrust into a new league with new travel demands. SMU (11-6-1) The Mustangs did well to win 11 games and reach the American Conference final, but the ACC is a different ball game, and the Mustangs are likely not ready to compete for a top-half finish. There is hope for the future as Nyah Rose looks to be a star after scoring 11 goals as a freshman, and third-year head coach Nicole Nelson is an experienced asset who recruits and develops well. Stanford (20-1-4) - NCAA National Runner-Up The national runner-ups have reloaded as usual, with the third-ranked recruiting class aided by six recruits ranked in the top 50. And with several talented freshmen from last season’s epic run, the Cardinal are primed to compete for the national title. Top Players to Watch: Jordynn Dudley, Florida State Dudley needs no introduction as the attacking phenomenon that broke last season’s NCAA tournament as a freshman. The U20 World Cup will take a significant chunk out of her season, but the Seminole sophomore will return with plenty of time to prep for another ACC and NCAA tournament run. Jasmine Aikey, Stanford One of the most versatile attackers in college soccer returns for her junior season after 11 goals and 12 assists as a sophomore. The Cardinal will be more reliant on the California native, something she showed she could handle in the NCAA tournament. Sarah Schupansky, Pittsburgh Landy Mertz and Amanda West may be playing professional soccer now, but Schupansky returns as the leader of that dynamic trio. The Pittsburgh tactical system creates plenty of chances, and the in-state star has shown she is a lethal finisher. Danielle Davis, Clemson A star freshman midfielder for the College Cup participants, Davis started all 23 games, scoring once and assisting eight to help the Clemson cause. The New York native is another who will likely miss some collegiate time to compete at the U20 World Cup. Lia Godfrey, Virginia The All-American is back after missing 2023 due to injury. And considered one of the best pro prospects in the country, Godfrey is a midfield technical marvel who can create chances with stunning ease. Top Freshmen to Watch: Eleanor Klinger, Stanford (No. 8 Ranked TDS Class of 2024) Stanford got a big boost when Klinger reclassified from 2025 to join for the 2024 season. The Ohio native was the No. 1 player in the 2025 class as a USYNT standout who excels in creating chances in the final third. Grace Restovich, Notre Dame (No. 10 Ranked TDS Class of 2024) The 2022 ECNL Player of the Year and two-time national champion brings an elite winning pedigree to Notre Dame. Restovich is an intelligent operator with the technique to play multiple attacking roles, pointing to an immediate impact maker. Trinity Armstrong, North Carolina (No. 18 Ranked TDS Class of 2024) Much has been said about how much talent the Tar Heels lost, but Armstrong is undoubtedly one of the best recruits in the country. The Texas native could have a similar impact to Savannah King as a freshman defender with the athleticism and soccer IQ needed to earn significant minutes. Taylor Suarez, Florida State (No. 21 Ranked TDS Class of 2024) A two-time Gatorade North Carolina Player of the Year and a long-term member of the American youth national teams, Suarez is the gem of the No. 1 ranked Florida State recruiting class. Suarez plays with a feel for the game that few can replicate, making her an immediate candidate to earn minutes in the Seminole attack. Miri O'Donnell, Wake Forest (No. 22 Ranked TDS Class of 2024) O’Donnell will be an immediate hit for Wake Forest as a two-footed attacker who can play anywhere across the front line. The more comfortable the California native gets through the season, the more the country will see her game-changing 1-v-1 and technical qualities.
I was Virginia's exhibition vs Georgetown this past weekend. It was just an exhibition, but if the season plays out like it did on Saturday night, it's going to be a long season and that Top Drawer prediction of an 8th place finish seems about right. The big question heading into the season was who was going to replace Talia Staude (five years) and Lacey McCormack (two years) in the center of defense. I had presumed since the end of last season that Steve Swanson would move Laney Rouse and Samar Guidry, both of whom had some experience in as centerbacks, into the middle. Nope, for this game he kept them wide and gave the start to Tatum Galvin and Kiki Maki. Grad transfer Moira Kelly, formerly of Kansas, got the start at left mid and played like the defender she's listed as: She spent a lot of time slotting back into defense giving the Wahoos a five-back defense. Which left only two midfielders. And a lot of space for the Hoyas to exploit in the center of the park. And it's not defense that looks particularly stout. Georgetown's goal was scored by Emily Royson who stripped Maki, beat Galvin 1v1, and then didn't allow Guidry to close before slotting it home. Injuries at this date, still look to be a problem. Lia Godfrey played but she seemed to be on a strict minutes limitation as she played maybe 12 minutes per half. Emma Dawson, also lost for all of last season, didn't dress out. Neither did Jill Flammia nor Aniyah Collier. Yuna McCormack was the team's best midfielder (I've long learned to accept that Alexis Theoret just starts slowly) and she scored Virginia's first goal, but alas, she's been chosed for the U20 team, and she'll be lost for a month. She was supposed to be depth for Flammia and a returning Godfrey, but who knows now. There were a couple positives. After Georgetown equlized, it only took Virginia a minute to grab the lead again. This is par for the course as the women have a strong history of quick scoring responses. The individual resumes of this year's incoming class are, umm, thinner than in past years, even if Top Drawer ranked the Cavs as the 16th best recruiting class. Only two were notable. Grad transfer Linda Mittermaier, who has played in Austria's top division since she was 15, looked useful and seemed pretty comfortable both in midfield and along the forward line. The best news is that Swanson finally has a winger. Freshman Sophia Bradley looked the part and was way more dangerous than Allie Ross has ever been. Swanson plays with two, very wide wingers, and since I've been watching, only Alexa Spaanstra has impressed as a winger. I feel that Rebecca Jarrett and Maggie Cagle have been played out of position out wide and both would have been more successful as central strikers. No matter. Bradley could make the forward line more threatening than it has been since Jarrett last suited up. Regular season kicks off Thursday!
Here are my predictions for the ACC standings. I grouped teams as cpthomas did earlier in the thread. Within each group, I also list teams in the order of finish. The line after Cal indicates the teams above as having a shot at the top 6 for playoffs. I'll note that last year there was more than a "step", statistically (see goal differential and Massey Rating in my prior post), between FSU and the rest of the ACC. As a Stanford fan, I'm hoping that's not the case again this year. I considered putting Stanford alone in 2nd, but the stats don't back that up. I use my groupings and do a simple-minded strength of schedule for the ACC games. If you play FSU, your strength of schedule increments by 7. If you play any of the teams in the second group, 6, and so forth down to 0. I standardize the results by finding the median of the 17 teams and subtracting that value from every team's overall score. If you have a negative score, your schedule is "easier" than most, if positive, harder than most. This is the number in parentheses. UNC has a tough ACC schedule. They play 6 of the 7 teams they could meet in the top 3 groups (not ND), as well as 2 of the 3 in the next group down. Virginia Tech plays all 6 teams in the bottom 3 groups. They have a reasonable opportunity to finish higher than expected. The most difficult placements were UNC - so much turnover but still talented - and WF. I considered WF going up a group, but their ACC schedule is tough this year and their Massey rating indicates they finished a bit better than they played last year. Whatever the case, it wouldn't surprise me for them to be competing for a playoff spot again. FSU (-4) Stanford (-1) ND (-3) Pitt (2) Clemson (0) Duke (2) VA (3) UNC (5) WF (3) VT (-4) Cal (1) --------- NC St (-1) SMU (-2) Louisville (5) Miami (2) BC (-2) Syracuse (0)
Sounds about right but dont' be surprised if Stanford pulls it off(especially if they overcome any travel concern). FSU is strong and will be interesting to see how they end up like UNC with all the changes and midseason missing players. regarding Pitt - might have them a bit high - some very good returning pieces and great coaches but a lot of experience lost which will impact this season - hard to expect the same run this year. Val1 - on the UVA post above- Didn't UVA win both exhibition games? The big concern may be players coming back from injuries. You're right that it is just an exhibition - but it sounds like Swanson, as with other coaches, is just trying to see what he has and determine how he can play players during a season(players missing - u20 etc. or specific games/matchups during the season). UVA will probably be fine but it will be interesting to see how they and UNC turn out
I’m going FSU, ND, then Stanford. Stanford has some hyped names but overall they are all sloooooooow. I don’t think they can keep up with FSU. But a lot of talent in the ACC
My preview for the Cavaliers: https://www.si.com/college/virginia...e-state-of-the-virginia-womens-soccer-program
Virginia 2 - 0 over Towson on Thursday night. https://www.si.com/college/virginia/virginia-womens-soccer-knocks-off-towson-2-0-in-season-opener
Virginia grad Alexa Spaanstra has been traded in the NWSL from Kansas City to the Portland Thorns. I have the feeling this will be good for the Thorns and for Spaanstra, too, if the geographic move is ok with her. The Thorns need a forward who can pair well with Sophia Smith, so I am guessing Spaanstra will get playing time.
Virginia, in a game with the ref's fingerprints all over the game, knocked off #3 Penn State 2 - 1. https://www.si.com/college/virginia/virginia-womens-soccer-rallies-to-2-1-victory-at-no-3-penn-state I'm going to have to re do this article because I completely forgot to mention how good new keeper Victoria Safradin is. She's got better reflexes than in anyone we've had for a while.
NC State getting a #25 ranking in this week’s coaches poll is not a good look for that committee or organization. People last year were defending the committee saying it is a thankless job and time consuming and that they actually put a lot of effort into it. But come on, no excuse for this. NC State just flew into the rankings after going 1-2-1 (they were previously not even receiving votes)... Tie against App State Loss to Campbell Loss to ECU Win against VCU Did someone have a stroke while voting?
Maybe it’s because they don’t seem to be able to get the records straight. For example, they have Carolina with only three wins and Colorado undefeated.
Might have. I mean, there's only 8 voters doing this thing, right? One person for each of the eight regions. I was looking at Utah Valley since they played Virginia. They had entered the "receiving votes" category last week, on the basis of a reported exhibition victory at BYU and a season opening win at Michigan. They received 11 points. This week they tied UCF and got spanked by Virginia. They actually moved up with 14 points in the second poll. Part of this churn is the small sample size of the results -- most teams had only played three games for poll #2 -- which is why I like the NCAA's NET tool for men's and women's hoops. There's 10 games of data before the first NET ratings are released. And then there's also small selector size bias. One selector per region? That completely invalidates these rankings. I know rankings such as this are imprecise and mostly useful for providing conversational fodder, but all other sports have what, 50+ voters? The other thing that is out and out hilarious is that Stanford, I guess because they play in the titularly named Atlantic Coast Conference, is now considered to be in the Atlantic sub-region.
Not defending any particular rankings but to be clear - Each region has a sub-committee that votes before the national committee votes so there is more than just one person voting in each region. Also- in order to better distribute teams or organize regions for polls and All-Region/AA selections, each region contains an entire conference. So the geographical names of the regions really mean very little - especially with the nationwide nature of the p4 conferences. So, you could argue the "regional" rankings are pretty accurate as there are going to be lots of intra-regional games - games between teams in that region, or conference. BUT the national committee vote is sometimes then skewed toward the weaker regions/groups. As you can imagine, everyone going around to each member for nominees and then votes. Even if one region has the best 5 teams in it, that's not likely going to be reflected in the poll. Some other regions #1s are going to get wedged in there. Coaches polls are just for shi*s and giggles really....so this week there are some giggles.
Of course this is an obvious mistake for another program. No way this was intentional by the group of coaches voting unless their data is wrong. And for a previous poster, this has nothing to do with the NCAA selection committee. Besides, does it matter who #25 is in a meaningless coaches poll at end of August?
But the regions are not actually regions. They are groupings of conferences (see comment about Stanford being in Atlantic region). So I’m just confused. Reps for the ACC region think NC State is better than Clemson and VA Tech? The lack of transparency is bizarre. And yes while all of this “doesn’t really matter” in the long run for NCAA selection etc. it does matter for recruiting and marketing. And I bet it matters to the teams in receiving votes that deserve the recognition. It’s good to see Buffalo and Utah State get some. Of course we can tit for tat all day about who is 25 vs 26 etc., but an error like this is pretty egregious.
The theory on Twitter appears to be that someone mixed up UNC and NC State as well as South Carolina and South Carolina St., as South Carolina St also started receiving votes this week despite being 0-4 and scoring no goals. Maybe someone on the committee had someone else submit their form for them that didn’t know any better? Time will tell if this ages well… Checking in at No. 25 ✅ pic.twitter.com/mWaqvyJ6tI— NC State Women's Soccer ⚽️ (@PackWSoccer) August 27, 2024
Obviously mistakes were made. - The committee has to have a secondary review before dropping a ranking like that . Pitt rightfully dropped - knew if would be tough to replace the experience that was lost - hoping for a bit of a bounce back after Buffalo. Love the ACC representation though including 4 in top 5 or 7 (depending on poll TDS or United Soccer.) but, NC state being on this list and South Carolina State isn't right. Val1 may want to reassess some of the sharp-tongued UVA comments - as UVA ranks up. UVA looks legit early and rounding into form as a potential contender. There is a tough stretch of ACC games coming up as a test - but don't count them out if a result or two isn't what you expect - Swanson is great at figuring things out early in a season to be prepared for the late season conference push.
I agree that Swanson is one of the best out there. The defense has looked better even these past two games since he's dropped Kiki Maki out of the starting back line. Kansas transfer Moira Kelly is an ACC caliber defender and Tatum Galvin looks like she's made the leap. But this team is missing four of its five best midfielders. Jill Flammia is lost for the season. Emma Dawson isn't back yet. Lia Godfrey didn't play at all in the spring and four games in, she's clearly not match fit, and she's a shell of her former self at this point. Yuna McCormack is away with the U20s for the next month. That leaves Alexis Theoret. As Swanson has juggled his lineups, he's played already a 4-1-4-1, a 4-2-3-1 and a 5-2-3. Theoret played the 8 in the first and as a double pivot in the latter two formations. She's marginalized in all three. She's an ideal 6 in a 4-3-3, possibly the best midfielder in the ACC. But she wasn't getting touches. Virginia battles. All. The. Time. The win over Penn State was nice but it was only craptastic finishing by the Lions that kept Penn State from going up 3-0. I am very much looking forward to the beginning of ACC play.
I know that we have our issues with the Coaches Poll but still... top 4 teams is nothing to sneeze at.
Virginia was, frankly, fortunate to get the win at VCU yesterday. https://www.si.com/college/virginia/virginia-women-s-soccer-escapes-vcu-1-0
1. Florida State (15), 255 2. Stanford (2), 235 3. Notre Dame, 211 4. North Carolina, 187 5. Clemson, 186 6. Virginia, 177 7. Duke, 175 8. Pitt, 168 9. Wake Forest, 160 10. Virginia Tech, 116 11. California, 111 12. NC State, 85 13. Louisville, 80 14t. Boston College, 50 14t. SMU, 50 16. Miami, 44 17. Syracuse, 22 How accurate will the ACC preseason poll be after taking the non-conference games into consideration - will there be a few surprises? ACC slate will be entertaining.