2021 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[College Soccer Observer]

I'll give this one more go. If anyone is interested in doing a fan poll for D3 soccer let me know. Only got one taker last time.

I'm in.

[D3_Slack]

I'll give this one more go. If anyone is interested in doing a fan poll for D3 soccer let me know. Only got one taker last time.

I'm Game.

In.

[Ejay]

I'll give this one more go. If anyone is interested in doing a fan poll for D3 soccer let me know. Only got one taker last time.

I'm Game.

In.

I'm around enough.  I'll play

[Gregory Sager]

I'll give this one more go. If anyone is interested in doing a fan poll for D3 soccer let me know. Only got one taker last time.

I'm Game.

In.

I'm around enough.  I'll play

OK, sure. Why not? This might be fun ... and at this point I'm already watching enough online D3 soccer to prove that I have no life, anyway.

[Ron Boerger]

I think you have a pretty good quorum here, jtk.   Go for it!

[jknezek]

Awesome. Ok. We now have enough posters to make it worth while. Thanks for volunteering! Once a week, let's say Wednesday before midnight, send me your top 20 D3 teams. Just put it in a private message or, if you want to make my life easy, email me an excel file (you can find my email address on my profile). Put a subject on the email or private message of Soccer Poll or something so I know what it is. I'll collate it all and get it posted the next day. I do the Region 3 football fan poll, so I have a nice Excel Macro that takes care of everything. I'll make a new thread for the first poll and just add the weekly poll to it every week after. Just like the football polls, I'll recognize the posters at the bottom, and show vote totals and individual votes for each team, but your names will not be attached to the individual votes.

If anyone prefers a different day from Wed, let me know. I really don't care so long as it is a weekday.

[Hopkins92]

While I'd love to throw my hat in the ring, I just have to be honest that I'm just too parochial with my following of the game at the moment. I think I could be dragged into a Mid-Atlantic fan poll, but I just don't have the bandwidth to be a fair arbiter of teams outside of the east coast.

[jknezek]

While I'd love to throw my hat in the ring, I just have to be honest that I'm just too parochial with my following of the game at the moment. I think I could be dragged into a Mid-Atlantic fan poll, but I just don't have the bandwidth to be a fair arbiter of teams outside of the east coast.

I have the same problem. That's why i offered to organize, not vote!

[PaulNewman]

While I'd love to throw my hat in the ring, I just have to be honest that I'm just too parochial with my following of the game at the moment. I think I could be dragged into a Mid-Atlantic fan poll, but I just don't have the bandwidth to be a fair arbiter of teams outside of the east coast.

I have the same problem. That's why i offered to organize, not vote!

I strongly object.  Both of you would be fantastic voters.  We all will have to do a little research, but you both are thoughtful, well-reasoned, and would want to be as fair as possible, etc.  You're here anyway!

No pressure...but I bet some others will agree.

Also want to go on record saying that I think this poll will very closely track with the D3soccer.com poll.

Finally, I understand the anonymity aspect but I personally wouldn't oppose seeing how everyone votes each week.  Might be fun, and fun to see whether folks tend to overrank or underrank their own faves.

I'm sad as I realize I'm typing this on a Friday night....but I'm only sad because I realize I really don't care.

[Ejay]

I'm sad as I realize I'm typing this on a Friday night....but I'm only sad because I realize I really don't care.

And I'm reading it :-)But agreed, the more voters the merrier.  I certainly don't follow the midwest/west closely, but I'll certainly be paying close attention to them now.

[PaulNewman]

Enormous win for John Carroll away at Chicago, scoring with 15 seconds left.  And apparently without Turritin who indeed must have been struggling with an injury in recent games.  At any rate, JCU really needed a result like this which gives them the major added bonus of a near-guaranteed additional ranked win.

[PaulNewman]

In the category of the unexpected....

Oglethorpe must be the best 1-6 team in the country (in a decade?).  Started 0-6 and just got first win versus one of the most recent Final 4 participants, Centre, winning 3-0.  Oglethorpe first seven games....W&L, Emory, C-M-S and Redlands (West Coast), Lynchburg, Calvin, Centre.

Dickinson is 0-5 after just losing to Ursinus 3-0.  Last Ursinus win versus Dickinson was 2013.

[jknezek]

In the category of the unexpected....

Oglethorpe must be the best 0-6 team in the country (in a decade?).  Started 0-6 and just got first win versus one of the most recent Final 4 participants, Centre, winning 3-0.  Oglethorpe first seven games....W&L, Emory, C-M-S and Redlands (West Coast), Lynchburg, Calvin, Centre.

Dickinson is 0-5 after just losing to Ursinus 3-0.  Last Ursinus win versus Dickinson was 2013.

I don't know about Ogelthorpe's quality, they weren't competitive in a couple of those games and Centre is NOT the team they were in that last run, but I do think Ogelthorpe played a murderer's row and might have had the hardest first 6 games I've ever seen.

[PaulNewman]

In the category of the unexpected....

Oglethorpe must be the best 0-6 team in the country (in a decade?).  Started 0-6 and just got first win versus one of the most recent Final 4 participants, Centre, winning 3-0.  Oglethorpe first seven games....W&L, Emory, C-M-S and Redlands (West Coast), Lynchburg, Calvin, Centre.

Dickinson is 0-5 after just losing to Ursinus 3-0.  Last Ursinus win versus Dickinson was 2013.

I don't know about Ogelthorpe's quality, they weren't competitive in a couple of those games and Centre is NOT the team they were in that last run, but I do think Ogelthorpe played a murderer's row and might have had the hardest first 6 games I've ever seen.

Agreed.  I know Centre isn't 2019 Centre (maybe one of the weaker Final 4 teams in recent memory).  And Oglethorpe indeed may be down, but at least stats-wise they did OK or more than OK with most opponents.  I also realize Lynchburg must be down in your neck of the woods but I'm sure still decent and capable on the day.

I touted JCU's schedule early on, and then I think someone chimed in with Chicago.  For comparison's sake I offer the following below (consecutive and without omitting any weak opponents)......

JCU....Kenyon, Rochester, CMU, Wooster, CWRU, OWU, Denison (canceled weather), Chicago

CNU....Covenant, Gettysburg, Lynchburg, Methodist, Chicago, North Park, W&L, Emory

Emory...Covenant, W&L, Oglethorpe, Calvin, Lynchburg, Roanoke, CNU, Chicago

Chicago...KZoo, Wabash, Macalester, St Olaf, CNU, Luther, Wheaton (Ill), JCU, Calvin, Emory, Carthage, Rochester (bolstered at end there with UAA kicking in)

Oglethorpe (again)...W&L, Emory, CMS, Redlands, Lynchburg, Calvin, Centre

[D3_Slack]

Looks like a lot of D3 teams play local non-league schedules...and the opponents are weak.  Would value this boards opinion on whether it makes sense for D3 teams to schedule tough non-conference opponents.  Does it help them get to the tournament?  There are enough good teams near each other to schedule each other.  Just not sure it's worth it.