FSU and then the rest of the pack again? We’ll see when they get all their players back. Virginia and Duke have started strongly and could definitely move up. Those two first place votes for Stanford … . They are struggling offensively. It’s one thing to beat an ACC team 1-0, but it’s been U of SF, CS Fullerton, and St. Mary’s. They are over ranked based on performance.
Only a few ACC teams still have non conference games on the calendar (NC State, Duke, Cal, Stanford, Boston College). None particularly noteworthy except Stanford vs Santa Clara. Here's where teams stand in the various polls (KPI hasn't published rankings yet): USC Poll / TDS Ranking / Unadjusted RPI (old forumula) / Massey 1. Florida State 3 / 3 / 3 / 1 2. Stanford 1 / 1 / 21 / 4 3. Notre Dame 13 / 11 / 11 / 8 4. North Carolina 10 / 8 / 6 / 6 / 5. Clemson NR / 18 / 39 / 23 6. Virginia 2 / 2 / 13 / 3 7. Duke 8 / 21 / 14 / 9 8. Pitt NR / 16 / 17 / 13 9. Wake Forest 27 / 22 / 22 / 35 10. Virginia Tech NR / NR / 50 / 58 11. California NR / NR / 95 / 34 12. NC State NR / NR / 248 / 124 13. Louisville NR / NR / 82 / 95 14t. Boston College NR / NR / 112 / 61 14t. SMU NR / NR / 110 / 96 16. Miami NR / NR / 148 / 119 17. Syracuse NR / NR / 61 / 92
I added the Massey Power rating "PWR". It is theoretically better associated with who would win on a neutral field where the "RAT" is merit-based. USC Poll / TDS Ranking / Unadjusted RPI (old forumula) / Massey "RAT" / Massey Power 1. Florida State 3 / 3 / 3 / 1 / 1 2. Stanford 1 / 1 / 21 / 4 / 10 3. Notre Dame 13 / 11 / 11 / 8 / 3 4. North Carolina 10 / 8 / 6 / 6 / 5 5. Clemson NR / 18 / 39 / 23 / 14 6. Virginia 2 / 2 / 13 / 3 / 7 7. Duke 8 / 21 / 14 / 9 / 8 8. Pitt NR / 16 / 17 / 13 / 4 9. Wake Forest 27 / 22 / 22 / 35 / 35 10. Virginia Tech NR / NR / 50 / 58 / 49 11. California NR / NR / 95 / 34 / 45 12. NC State NR / NR / 248 / 124 / 72 13. Louisville NR / NR / 82 / 95 / 74 14t. Boston College NR / NR / 112 / 61 / 77 14t. SMU NR / NR / 110 / 96 / 78 16. Miami NR / NR / 148 / 119 / 92 17. Syracuse NR / NR / 61 / 92 / 107
I thought it would be interesting to see how my pre-season predicted in-conference ranks of the ACC teams match up with the current ranks in whatagoodball's list. My pre-season ranks, in bold face below, are based on teams' average Balanced RPI ranks over the last 7 years combined with the actual in-conference schedule this year. Because I use a 7-year average and disregard roster changes and other factors, I consider my ranks to be crude. In the table, with one exception -- Pittsburgh -- the ranks are remarkably close to whatagoodball's ranks. Pittsburgh is an example of the problem to watch out for with my ranks, which is that Pitt has been on a pretty steady rise -- due to Randy Waldrum's work -- that a 7-year average cannot properly deal with. Nevertheless, except for Pitt, the pre-season rank process appears pretty good so far.
The last 5 minutes of BC vs. ND is worth a watch. Of course, you won't get to watch the last 2:45 as the feed cuts off. There's an interesting replay that was chaotic and ended with a Red Card on the ND bench - then the tying goal a couple minutes later. BC plays hard. They tackle with authority - often with slide tackles - and Segalla is a handful on the wing. ND is a fun team to watch. It was an entertaining game. Not so much not for the technical skill - there was a some - but for the competitive nature of the game.
Official RPI is out for games played through yesterday. Here is where the ACC stands as we enter the full conference slate… 2. Florida State 4. UNC 7. Stanford 9. Pittsburgh 10. Wake Forest 11. Notre Dame 16. Virginia 18. Duke 28. Virginia Tech 41. Clemson 46. SMU 75. Syracuse 81. Boston College 92. Louisville 100. California 144. Miami 206. NC State
man if you would of told me 3 years ago that NC State would be dead last in the ACC I would of laughed at you. No way they could drop below Miami and Syracuse. . . and here we are
That coach turned them around after over two decades of being a doormat. A few bad seasons won't end them. It's not Duke and UNC. And it's only September 17 for this season.
Wake impressed me in the UVA game. They looked good. Scoring three against any of the upper-tier teams in the conference is uncommon.
Welcome to the conference, Stanford. Their record against ACC competition the last five years or so is… not great.
That was wild. Wake should have had two more if not for the post and an incredible save from the Stanford keeper. Has anyone ever beat #2 and #1 in the same week? FSU should be #1 next week, just in time for their starters to arrive back from the World Cup. That’s terrifying. UNC with another fortunate but massive three points against Pitt, scoring off their lone shot on goal. The ACC season is long, the ACC season is cruel.
Based on the actual RPI ratings going into the Wake-Stanford game, as adjusted for Wake's home field advantage, the most likely outcome was a Wake win, although at only about a 40% likelihood. Of course, that does not mean much, since the actual RPI ratings at this point are pretty suspect.
I suspect Massey was similar. I didn’t check Wake’s rating before the game, but Massey’s Power rating had Stanford at 10 last I checked.
Excellent wins--and Wake is good, to be sure, but preseason polls should be eliminated in all sports--they're nonsense--and early-season polls are small sample size and not that meaningful either.
It would eliminate the “stickiness” of where teams finished last year by at least requiring some results before committing to a relative ranking. Is that more fun of pointing out how wrong the early polls are? Maybe not.
All true, but missing the point I think. The non RPI rankings are more for the fans than anything and are an important part of marketing for teams to get butts in seats and generate excitement around the game (or let a fan base know, hey this team is actually pretty good/bad). More engaged fans know early season rankings don’t tell the full story. I think the problem with these rankings (Coach’s Poll and TDS) is that they are created from a very small sample of voters and not as diligently assembled as the polls in Basketball and Football. But, there isn’t the infrastructure/fan base to create something at that level for WoSo right now I guess. Even if these polls aren’t accurate from Day 1 (and no poll is), the alternative would be to not have any rankings until halfway through the season? How dreadfully boring. I think there probably needs to be a greater willingness to allow teams to leapfrog or drop early in the season if they aren’t performing to expectations in both polls (even though they might still be winning). In Stanford’s case, they were on everyone’s list to be a title contender at the beginning of the season, but showed a lack of offense early on against weaker competition. That should have allowed a team like Florida State or Michigan State to leapfrog them in the polls, since these two rankings are meant to be the “eyeball test”. The polls in Football and Basketball show a greater willingness to do this than in WoSo, but again they have a larger sample size and more people actually watching the games.
Interestingly on the "stickiness" of using past years' performance: The data underlying Massey's ratings and resulting ranks include teams' last three years' performance, with the weight of those data decreasing over the course of the season. They include those data because when included, they provide a better correlation of ratings and game results. My early season ratings and resulting ranks are based on teams' last 7 years' average Balanced RPI ranks. For game results over the first five weeks of the current season, their correlation with game results was only slightly poorer than the historic end-of-season RPI ratings' correlation with game results. So, for good rating systems, there appears to something to "stickiness." Those, of course, are different than polls.
Well, by "stickiness" you just mean quality of program. Good programs don't usually go bad all at once -- FSU football excepted -- but how is it different from recency bias in polls?
Sheesh. Sunday Scaries in the ACC today. Florida State and Wake Forest drop points to ACC newcomers SMU and Cal respectively. FSU has to save a PK and come from behind to tie it up 1-1 at SMU while Wake Forest looked prime to cruise to victory before giving up 2 goals in the last 12 minutes to net a 2-2 tie with Cal. It seems like that tie might cost FSU the #1 spot in the rankings this week, with Michigan State topping Penn State today and UNC still cruising. We'll see what voters think. But they'll be glad they aren't Virginia Tech, which gave up 3 goals in the final 20 minutes to Boston College, ultimately losing 3-1. Elsewhere, two second half strikes from Stanford got them past NC State 2-0 and UNC had to use a second half PK (thanks VAR!) to get by Syracuse 1-0. I'm sure Val will have thoughts on UVA's 1-0 loss to Notre Dame. On another note, the ACC schedule seems super wacky this year. Some teams have played 4 games already while Duke and Louisville have only played one. Hopefully this is something they fix for future seasons.
Despite our 5-1 win vs the Cuse, they are a much improved team. That game could have been much closer.
I watched a good bit of SMU at Miami that ended 3-3. The two #9’s on each team were fun to watch - Miami’s freshman Canali and SMU’s junior, Salama. Salama is fast and dangerous. Best moment was the SMU goal Rose scored with 40:35 remaining in the 2nd half. It was special. I didn’t find best replay of it except on the ACCNx feed where they had a closer view with their 2nd replay. It’s worth a look.
https://www.si.com/college/virginia/virginia-women-soccer-falters-at-home-to-notre-dame I've never seen a coach as averse to team speed as Steve Swanson. On Annabelle Chukwu's goal she got a two step burst on Moira Kelley, turned her as she gave it her all to catch up, and slotted pretty easily. We can't defend speed, and yet we're lacking the speed to turn the tables. Our forward line is also a donut. Meredith McDermott is an appealing player and she gives her all, but she's got 1 goal in 8 games. She's quick, but if she gotten the ball that Chukwu got, she'd not have the speed to turn toward goal and she would have taken her shot well wide of the 6 yard box. Maggie Cagle, who was sick for a week, has played 8 games healthy. She has three non-penalty goals in open play. We can't score. So, with two losses in three games, and only 6 of the 17 teams making the tournament, Virginia goes on the road to UNC and then Duke. I'm pretty sure that Virginia has to get two wins to stay in the race. As for the schedule, it seems that the ACC has much more time built into the schedule this year. Usually there is only one week where a team plays one game in that week. 4 different times this schedule, Virginia has six days between games. We were scheduled to play Notre Dame on Saturday (got postponed to Sunday,) UNC on the following Friday and then Duke the following Thursday. This is much better for player health.