D3Boards.Com Soccer Top 20 Fan Poll

[jknezek]

We picked up a new voter this week. Welcome to ConnAlum who has joined our little experiment.

[SimpleCoach]

We picked up a new voter this week. Welcome to ConnAlum who has joined our little experiment.

Woot!

[jknezek]

D3Boards.com Soccer Fan Poll Games as of 10/17/2021

National Top 20

Rank		School			Points		Weekly Change		Voter Breakdown
1		Washington and Lee (5)			190		0		1, 2, 4, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 3
2		Messiah (3)			188		0		3, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, 2
3		Tufts (2)			186		0		4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 3, 3, 1
4		Trinity (TX)			174		0		2, 3, 3, 5, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 5
5		Montclair State			142		5		7, 6, 10, 6, 5, 5, 11, 5, 5, 8
6		Amherst			128		2		14, 17, 6, 7, 6, 10, 5, 6, 7, 4
7		Ohio Wesleyan			120		-2		6, 13, 5, 8, 14, 9, 7, 15, 6, 7
8		Kenyon			113		9		5, 5, 16, 13, 8, 7, 13, 11, 13, 6
9		Otterbein			104		2		10, 20, 9, 10, 11, 14, 6, 7, 8, 11
10		Emory			95		2		12, 9, 15, 4, 19, 12, 8, 17, 9, 10
11		Calvin			91		3		9, 7, 8, 14, 18, 11, 12, 10, 9
12		St. Olaf			89		8		8, 8, 9, 12, 6, 12, 10, 14
13		Washington University			62		-4		15, 14, 14, 20, 10, 19, 15, 9, 17, 15
14		MIT			46		---		19, 11, 9, 16, 17, 8
15		North Park			45		---		16, 12, 17, 8, 19, 14, 16
16		New York University			42		-9		11, 18, 16, 15, 20, 18, 15, 13
T17		Chicago			40		0		13, 17, 12, 20, 12, 12
T17		Claremont-Mudd-Scripps			40		---		18, 16, 13, 16, 16, 11, 17
19		Cortland State			36		-2		17, 7, 18, 13, 14
20		Johns Hopkins			34		-14		7, 11, 13, 19

Also Receiving Votes:
North Central (IL) (31) , Connecticut College (18) , Middlebury (18) , Franklin and Marshall (12) , Mary Hardin-Baylor (12) , Randolph (12) , Wilmington (10) , Hope (8) , Oneonta State (3) , RPI (3) , Swarthmore (3) , Wesleyan (3) , Gettysburg (1) , Vassar (1)

Newly Ranked: MIT, North Park, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Dropped Out: North Central (IL) (Prev:13), Middlebury (Prev:15), Connecticut College (Prev:16)

1 = 1st Place Vote, 20 = 20th Place Vote in Voter Breakdown
Special Thanks to the Voters: Gregory Sager, Ejay, SimpleCoach, College Soccer Observer, D4_Pace, PaulNewman, D3_Slack, FBALLISLIFE, Mid-Atlantic Fan, ConnAlum

[jknezek]

Ok. Took a few tries but the formatting is now better.

Thanks to our voters!

[PaulNewman]

Obviously biased but aside from some variance in placement of a few teams this poll looks pretty good to me.

My two disagreements (which is consistent with at least one of the real polls) are Chicago and  Hopkins (although I wouldn't argue much with Hopkins at #20).  Now, do I think Chicago and probably Hopkins are two of the best 20 teams?  Yes, I do.  [Last week had Hopkins at #8 but they just had back to back losses as I see a voter has them still at #7.] But I also think that about Midd, Conn, CNU, Oneonta, JCU, RPI, F&M, etc.

PN's Top 10

1) Washington & Lee
2) Tufts
3) Messiah
4) Trinity (TX)
5) Montclair St
6) St Olaf
7) Kenyon
8) North Park
9) OWU
10) Amherst

My top 20 vote had 18 of the 20 in the published group poll, omitting the aforementioned Chicago and JHU.  From my most recent prior poll, I dropped Hopkins, Conn Coll, New Paltz, Redlands, and Chicago (who I had clinging at #20).  My new entrants were Kenyon, North Park as noted above, and then MIT at #16, Cortland returning at #18, and Vassar at #20.  For the last couple of spots, also strongly considered Rowan, F&M, Wilmington, and Conn.

I inverted Messiah and Tufts from my prior poll based on the two basically being tied in my mind and the Tufts win over Amherst just feels a little bigger than the Messiah escape with Eastern.

If we get nothing else the rest of the season I really hope we get a Tufts-Messiah match-up in Sweet 16 or Elite 8 (but, please, not the final four).

Final thought consistent with remarks about best 20 vs currently deserve top 20....If Tufts, Messiah, and W&L played a round robin, I'd give Tufts and Messiah equal chances to beat the other two or be at least 1-0-1, and W&L the least likely of the three to beat the other two back to back.  Presumably W&L would only have to beat one of them to reach the final four, but who knows, maybe they'll avoid both.

[ConnAlum]

We picked up a new voter this week. Welcome to ConnAlum who has joined our little experiment.

Happy to be a part of it. Think this Top 20 is pretty solid for the most part and better than both the USC and D3soccer.com polls imo (USC poll is a disaster every week).

My takes for the week: Think MIT, Hopkins and Cortland are overrated — all good but not necessarily Top 20. I'd personally replace them with North Central, Wilmington, and Conn or Wesleyan. Conn and Wesleyan both more talented than all three imo - MIT tied Clark and Wes beat them 3-0 (and Conn's above Wes in NESCAC standings), Hopkins couldn't even score against Ursinus, and Cortland has taken L's to unranked Rochester (who were the better team btw) and more notably Brockport who are 2-5 in conference play. North Central looked legit against #15 North Park (definitely worse than NP but still good) and have a 14-1-1 record for a reason. And Wilmington's gotta be the most underrated team in the country (4-0 W against KZoo and other solid results v. Ohio Northern, Mt. Union and Denison). I ranked them at #18 and pretty shocked to see they only got 10 RV — No way they're below teams like Randolph and Mary-Hardin Baylor. They play Otterbein tonight which should be an awesome battle of the two remaining unbeaten teams in the OAC (both are 10-0-3).

Not sure I agree w/ NYU > Chicago and OWU > Kenyon. Chicago just beat NYU convincingly 3-0 (a game w/ 8 Yellow cards and a Red card btw) and Kenyon beat OWU last week and had the better stats. I had Kenyon at #6, OWU #7, Chicago #12 and NYU #13.

Respectfully speaking W&L's only significant results are a W v. Christopher Newport and a tie against a talented Emory squad (W's v. Lynchburg if you want to count those too I guess), so I placed Tufts and Messiah above them. Will be interested to see the results from their next 3 games v. Roanoke, Randolph-Macon and VA Wesleyan (all top-half teams in the ODAC) — I'll predict they don't come out of that slate 3-0. On a side note I know Centre's Final 4 appearance in 2019 was kind of a fluke but still crazy to see W&L (Sweet 16 team in '19 iirc) beating them 7-0 this year. This season Centre is barely Top 3 in the weak SAA conference and have plummeted from where they were 2 years ago.

Finally I know Trinity TX is undefeated but I'd still take a team like Amherst over them any day. Maybe it's my NESCAC bias but I ranked Amherst at #4 and definitely believe they are a Final 4 caliber team again this year. And if teams like Gettysburg and Vassar are managing to receive some votes, 9-1-1 Rowan (with W's v. New Paltz and Washington MD, who are currently tied w/ Gettysburg in the CC) surely deserves some, too.

[jknezek]

Only 9 voters submitted ballots this week. Thought we would get our first consensus #1 but Trinity (TX) squeaked out a first place vote. Connecticut College re-entering the poll at 13 is the big winner, North Park falling out of the top 20 is the biggest drop-off. This is the biggest spread we've had between first and second place so far.

D3Boards.com Soccer Fan Poll Games as of 10/24/2021

National Top 20

Rank		School			Points		Weekly Change		Voter Breakdown
1		Messiah (8)			179		1		1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1
2		Washington and Lee			163		-1		2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 8
3		Tufts			148		0		7, 9, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4, 2
4		Trinity (TX) (1)			145		0		3, 6, 2, 5, 7, 5, 1, 3, 12
5		Montclair State			135		0		6, 3, 9, 7, 4, 3, 13, 5, 4
6		Kenyon			125		2		4, 4, 11, 11, 5, 7, 6, 11, 5
7		Amherst			124		-1		14, 7, 6, 8, 6, 9, 5, 7, 3
8		Ohio Wesleyan			123		-1		5, 8, 5, 3, 8, 10, 15, 6, 6
9		Calvin			102		2		9, 11, 7, 13, 10, 8, 9, 10, 10
10		Otterbein			98		-1		10, 5, 8, 15, 13, 12, 7, 8, 13
11		Emory			89		-1		13, 10, 13, 14, 12, 11, 11, 9, 7
12		St. Olaf			77		0		8, 12, 16, 9, 18, 6, 14, 14, 15
13		Connecticut College			74		---		17, 17, 10, 10, 9, 14, 10, 17, 11
14		Chicago			70		3		11, 15, 14, 6, 14, 17, 12, 9
15		Washington University			49		-2		16, 13, 15, 12, 11, 20, 16, 16
16		Claremont-Mudd-Scripps			36		1		18, 17, 17, 13, 16, 13, 17
17		Cortland State			32		2		15, 16, 20, 15, 16, 12
18		MIT			29		-4		20, 14, 19, 15, 8
19		New York University			26		-3		12, 20, 18, 18, 19, 20, 14
20		Johns Hopkins			19		0		19, 12, 20, 20, 18, 18

Also Receiving Votes:
North Park (17) , Franklin and Marshall (10) , Wesleyan (7) , Middlebury (5) , North Central (IL) (3) , Gettysburg (2) , Rochester (2) , Wilmington (1)

Newly Ranked: Connecticut College
Dropped Out: North Park (Prev:15)

1 = 1st Place Vote, 20 = 20th Place Vote in Voter Breakdown
Special Thanks to the Voters: Gregory Sager, Ejay, SimpleCoach, College Soccer Observer, D4_Pace, PaulNewman, D3_Slack, Mid-Atlantic Fan, ConnAlum

[PaulNewman]

This poll imo without a doubt is the most accurate.  Only minor disagreement for me is North Park dropping out but at least they are first in line in RV.

PN's Top 20


1) Messiah
2) Washington & Lee
3) Montclair St
4) Tufts
5) Trinity (TX)
6) St Olaf
7) Kenyon
8) Calvin
9) Amherst
10) OWU
11) Emory
12) Otterbein
13) C-M-S
14) Connecticut Coll
15) MIT
16) Cortland St
17) Chicago
18) North Park
19) NYU
20) Wash U

[Centennial1]

Thanks for compiling, JK. A quick comparative glance at the USC poll shows some consistency with this one, with the exception of Washington, which USC rates significantly higher than this poll, and Kenyon, which USC rates significantly lower. This late in the season the cream is rising to the top. Bring on the playoffs.

[jknezek]

Thanks for compiling, JK. A quick comparative glance at the USC poll shows some consistency with this one, with the exception of Washington, which USC rates significantly higher than this poll, and Kenyon, which USC rates significantly lower. This late in the season the cream is rising to the top. Bring on the playoffs.

You are welcome. With the tools I built I probably spend more time writing a quick private message or two each week to remind our voters when ballots are due than I spend compiling and posting the poll!

I hope the voters and posters are enjoying it, though I suspect our voters have found it to be a little more work than they suspected. I have been happy with the number of views it is getting every week. I think the voters are doing a great job, given my limited knowledge of D3 soccer, and I hope most, if not all, will come back next season.

I have offered to do a fan poll for basketball as well, something I know even less about than soccer, but have had no takers. So I am very thankful for the voters who have stepped up to contribute to the soccer community!

[Ejay]

It's brutally difficult.  Another one of those things that seem easy until you actually have to do it yourself.  I'm finding 5-6 teams that you expect to win every game, another 10-15 that should win most every game, and then another 10 teams that if things fall into place can beat anyone.  Ranking only 20 in order is tough. 

[jknezek]

It's brutally difficult.  Another one of those things that seem easy until you actually have to do it yourself.  I'm finding 5-6 teams that you expect to win every game, another 10-15 that should win most every game, and then another 10 teams that if things fall into place can beat anyone.  Ranking only 20 in order is tough.

Frankly, if we were to go to 25 or even 50, you would still have 10 more teams you'd be agonizing over. I dropped it to 20 because it is less work, simply fewer teams to keep track of. I'm open to going to 25 next year if the voters want to put in the time, but I'd also be willing to drop to 15 if that is what it takes to have a significant group of participants.

I'd rather have 7-10+ voters and fewer teams voted on than 3-6 voters and a lot of teams included.

[College Soccer Observer]

For me, the number of teams we rank is not something that would cause me to say I no longer have time.

[PaulNewman]

I think 20 is good.  I WANT 25 but 20 is a good challenge.  It's also fun to compare to the other polls so anything less than 20 might make that difficult.  But yes, when I get down to especially the last 2-3 I have a list of 12-15 candidates and feels a bit like throwing darts.  Felt bad leaving out North Central, Dubuque, and Wesleyan, and last couple of weeks on fence about what to do with F&M, Hopkins, RPI, and I guess Rochester (but already so many UAAs in there).  Curious about Mary Hardin-Baylor and could be time to give Redlands another shot.  Just too many.  Vassar and Gettysburg deserve some love.

[PaulNewman]

For me, the number of teams we rank is not something that would cause me to say I no longer have time.

Same.