Photo: Jay Slack
College Soccer News’ Men’s Soccer Poll is back!
There have been a few changes made to it this year, which should help improve its validity.
First, we asked 10 coaches to participate in our weekly poll. They are each from a different conference and are a combination of head coaches and assistant coaches. They are also from various regions across the US (East, Midwest, and West).
Second, we created a formula to help counteract some potential issues with polling. One concern was the bias of conferences and teams. Coaches’ votes will be counted less when they vote for their team or other teams from their conference into the top 25. This ensures that teams need to earn votes from other coaches outside of their conference to rise higher in the rankings, creating a more transparent and valid process.
We are also using weighted averages to help balance out week-to-week changes. This is to help prevent teams from dropping or rising 15 or more spots after one week unless they thoroughly earn a big change.
The last change we made was changing the poll to a top 25 instead of a top 30. The other teams receiving votes are listed below the top 25.
CSN Top 25 Preseason Poll: Men’s Soccer
- Marshall (214 points)
- Vermont (190.5)
- Denver (187.5)
- Wake Forest (180.25)
- Pittsburgh (169.75)
- SMU (169.5)
- Clemson (156)
- Georgetown (152)
- Ohio State (141)
- Stanford (128.25)
- West Virginia (112)
- Indiana (107)
- Duke (94)
- Dayton (86)
- San Diego (83.75) – wins tiebreaker because more coaches had them in their top 25
- NC State (83.75)
- Missouri State (74)
- Hofstra (66)
- Massachusetts (60.75)
- Western Michigan (52.5)
- Penn (45)
- Kansas City (34.75)
- Cornell (34)
- UCLA (32.25)
- Washington (25.5)
Others Receiving Votes
Virginia (25), Maryland (22), UCSB (20), Charlotte (17), Akron (13), UNC (11), South Carolina (10), Providence (9.25), Kentucky (8), Notre Dame (7.25), Oregon State (4), Portland (3), New Hampshire (1), UCF (1)
