There is a lot of talk about the new NSCAA Rankings that were released yesterday.  Most of this has to do with the criteria that are used to rank the teams on a relative basis, which some feel doesn’t always make sense.  An example of what can happen in this poll is that one program may truly represent the best within a particular region, but that fact doesn’t necessarily equate to a national ranking.  Yet that program will appear as a national ranked team (one respected soccer site refuses to publish the NSCAA poll for this reason).  But I’ve found that as the season progresses, these apparent disparities can (and usually do) sort themselves out.  And no system is perfect – the NSCAA ranking has been around for many years and is a dependable (if somewhat generalized) way of making sense of the national field.

If you really love to debate rankings, the date to watch for is October 22nd.  That’s when the NCAA men’s soccer committee releases the first NCAA regional poll.  This is the poll that ultimately decides the makeup of the post-season slate.  The poll uses in-region strength of schedule (which is a real plus), but does ignore out of region matches, which can limit its use as a national system.  The 2nd release date is October 29th and the final poll is released on November 5th.

NSCAA · rankings