The School Soccer Playoff Committee launched its first rankings of the season, and as an entire, they did a fairly stable job, particularly in the direction of the highest of the ballot. The committee did a constant job yr over yr by guaranteeing that head-to-head matchups mattered when evaluating two groups.
The one group that bought the quick finish of the stick in that regard is Miami. They’ve the identical variety of losses as Notre Dame, but they’re ranked eight spots beneath them. I do know Miami hasn’t regarded good lately, however losses to Louisville and SMU aren’t that unhealthy. The committee is counting on the attention take a look at for this rating, but when that had been actually the case, why wasn’t Notre Dame punished for struggling to get previous 1-8 Boston School? The ACC is totally disrespected in these rankings to this point.
Alternatively, the Huge 12 must be ecstatic with the outcomes of those rankings. Three groups inside the prime 13, and so they may simply wind up with two and even all three of those groups within the playoffs. Utah is the most important winner from these rankings, one way or the other managing to slip in at thirteenth. They’ve stable wins towards Cincinnati and an Arizona State group with out Sam Leavitt, however they’ve a blowout loss at dwelling to Texas Tech and a loss to BYU that was not almost as shut because the rating implied. They really feel like a group far more on the extent of Washington than a fringe playoff contender.
The most important story of the evening got here on the prime of the rankings. Ohio State turns into the primary No. 1 seed within the rankings, which was considerably controversial to the ESPN analysts presenting the rankings. Who did they suppose deserved the primary spot? Trace, it’s the undefeated group that’s within the convention they’ve the rights to. That’s proper, they thought that Texas A&M had essentially the most deserving resume of the three main undefeated groups.
I merely don’t get how that’s the case. If you wish to use the attention take a look at, Ohio State has been essentially the most dominant. Nonetheless, even with out the attention take a look at, they’ve extra wins over groups the committee has ranked. Then, in case you examine their finest wins — Ohio State over Texas and Texas A&M over Notre Dame — it’s fairly comparable. Then, Ohio State has the stable highway win over Washington, which is much better than the rest on the Aggies’ resume.
If anybody may have an actual gripe with the rankings, it might be Indiana. They may truthfully have the 2 finest wins out of any of the undefeated groups.
The very best factor about these rankings is that they often discover a means of working themselves out. However what can be the enjoyable in faculty soccer if we may complain in regards to the rankings?
