The Faculty Soccer Playoff Committee launched its first rankings of the season, and as an entire, they did a fairly stable job, particularly in direction of the highest of the ballot. The committee did a constant job yr over yr by making certain that head-to-head matchups mattered when evaluating two groups.
The one workforce that received 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 seemed good not too long ago, however losses to Louisville and SMU aren’t that unhealthy. The committee is counting on the attention check for this rating, but when that have been actually the case, why wasn’t Notre Dame punished for struggling to get previous 1-8 Boston Faculty? The ACC is totally disrespected in these rankings so far.
Then again, the Massive 12 needs to be ecstatic with the outcomes of those rankings. Three groups inside the prime 13, and so they might simply wind up with two and even all three of those groups within the playoffs. Utah is the largest winner from these rankings, someway managing to slip in at thirteenth. They’ve stable wins in opposition to Cincinnati and an Arizona State workforce with out Sam Leavitt, however they’ve a blowout loss at residence to Texas Tech and a loss to BYU that was not almost as shut because the rating implied. They really feel like a workforce far more on the extent of Washington than a fringe playoff contender.
The largest 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 workforce that’s within the convention they’ve the rights to. That’s proper, they thought that Texas A&M had probably 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 check, Ohio State has been probably the most dominant. Nonetheless, even with out the attention check, they’ve extra wins over groups the committee has ranked. Then, in the event you evaluate their finest wins — Ohio State over Texas and Texas A&M over Notre Dame — it’s fairly comparable. Then, Ohio State has the stable street win over Washington, which is much better than anything on the Aggies’ resume.
If anybody might have an actual gripe with the rankings, it may very well be Indiana. They could actually 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 manner of working themselves out. However what can be the enjoyable in faculty soccer if we might complain concerning the rankings?
