Soccer Times rounds out preseason polls

Below you will find the soccer Times poll. --The first four are the same as the other polls, not many surprises in the top 10, except possibly #10 Penn State. I think they are going to have to prove they can do it with a new coach.

Soccer Times, to their credit, is the only poll that actually names the voting panel. I think that is to their credit.

Much to their discredit, the panel hasn't had a WCC coach on the panel in the last 5 years or so, despite my harrassing editor Gary Davidson each time the panel for the year is announced.

This year's panel has multiple Pac10, ACC, Big12, and Big10 panelists, apparently making this a BCC club only.

You might want to join me in writing Gary this year. Two years ago,I wrote Gary about this issue, he wrote back and said he had tried, but couldn't find a coach who would do it. He mentioned particularly Jerry Smith, stating National Team commitments (Jerry hasn't coached a National team since he did it with Clive)

I offered to help him in recruiting a WCC coach, suggesting that he might not have tried as hard as he could. He didn't take me up on that offer.

Address your email to:
Gary Davidson
editor@soccertimes.com


He probably will, again to his credit, answer you.


2007 Preseason

(First-place votes in parentheses)
Rank School 2006 Record Pts 2006 Rank
1 North Carolina (16) 27-1-0 400 1
2 UCLA 21-4-0 379 3
3 Notre Dame 25-1-1 372 2
4 Portland 17-4-3 365 5t
5 Texas A&M 17-6-1 327 5t
6 Florida State 18-4-4 319 4
7 Texas 18-4-3 281 8
8 Florida 14-6-5 269 10
9 Santa Clara 15-5-1 264 9
10 Penn State 18-5-3 258 7
11 Stanford 15-6-2 249 11
12 Virginia 12-8-2 203 16
13 Illinois 16-8-0 168 12
14 Boston College 12-7-3 154 20
15 (tie) Colorado 14-6-4 141 13
15 (tie) Connecticut 11-7-4 141 nr
17 West Virginia 14-4-3 128 22
18 Rutgers 16-3-4 123 18
19 Wake Forest 16-6-1 104 17
20 California 12-5-5 100 23
21 Southern California 11-5-5 87 25
22 Tennessee 12-7-4 76 19
23 Oklahoma State 17-3-3 71 14
24 Clemson 11-8-5 55 15
25 Duke 9-8-4 45 nr

Key: Pts - Total points. LW - Last week's ranking. t - tie. nr - no ranking

Others receiving votes: Brigham Young 39, Utah 26, Georgia 13, Oregon 13, Purdue 13, Villanova 11, Kansas 9, William & Mary 6, Pepperdine 5, Ohio State 2, James Madison 1, Marquette 1.

Voting panel: Patrick Baker, Georgia; Kevin Boyd, Arizona State; Anson Dorrance, North Carolina; Jillian Ellis, UCLA; Carin Gabarra, Navy; G Guerrieri, Texas A&M; Angela Kelly, Tennessee; Ray Leone, Harvard; Chris Petrucelli, Texas; Jennifer Rockwood, Brigham Young; Dan Tobias, Arizona, Len Tsantiris, Connecticut; Mike Tucker, Dayton; Randy Waldrum, Notre Dame.

Voting method: On each ballot, 25 points awarded for first place, 24 for second place, 23 for third, etc., to 1 point for 25th place.

I just noticed that Pepperdine's Tim Ward was added to the Soccer Times voting panel.

That's the first WCC representative on the panel in many years. Looks like Gary Davidson finally saw the light.