United Soccer Coaches Rankings Program
General Information
1. United Soccer Coaches conducts national and regional rankings of both men’ s and women’ s college soccer programs as a service to its College Services members and the general public. These rankings are distributed to the media and placed on the United Soccer Coaches Web site( https:// unitedsoccercoaches. org /) and are accessible each Tuesday afternoon during the season.
2. The intent of the college ranking program is clearly outlined by the United Soccer Coaches Awards Committee and supported by the Board of Directors:
a. To further stimulate interest in men’ s and women’ s intercollegiate soccer on a national level, b. To recognize schools with soccer programs.
3. United Soccer Coaches recognizes that the national rankings are the best attempt to balance and compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of college soccer programs across the United States. The United Soccer Coaches rankings are an indicator of the week-to-week status of qualified programs, and in no way should be used as a guide or indicator of eligibility for NCAA Championship selection.
4. United Soccer Coaches works with the committee and the program sponsor in maximizing publicity for the rankings. Each national chair is responsible for supplying a list( name, email address, phone number) serving on the conference call no later than June 1 each year.
Ranking Procedures
1. The national and regional selection process will be headed by national chairs for each NCAA( Divisions I, II and III) and Junior College( Divisions I, II and III) for both men and women. It is the responsibility of each national chair to select a chairperson for each of the regions as defined by United Soccer Coaches within his or her division. United Soccer Coaches also conducts rankings for the junior college level for both men and women( Divisions I, II and III). completed by Tuesday at 10 a. m.( Eastern time) each week of a scheduled ranking.
7. Regional and national voters should keep and consult season-to-date results for teams under consideration.
Ranking Rules
1. To be included in the rankings after the fourth week of the season, institutions must be paid members of the United Soccer Coaches College Services program. Committees will be given information apprising them of unpaid members.
2. Only institutions that are in“ good standing” with their respective governing body and United Soccer Coaches will be eligible to be ranked.
3. After the fourth week of ranking, teams that do not have a winning percentage of. 500 or above will not be considered for regional and national ranking.
4. In addition to the above listed criteria, national and regional voters should consider the following factors in compiling rankings:
a. |
Overall won-loss percentage; |
b. |
Strength of schedule; |
c. |
Traditional strength of league or region; |
d. |
Away results versus other ranked teams; |
e. |
Comparative scores between regions; |
f. |
Head-to-head scores. |
United Soccer Coaches conducts a preseason and post-tournament ranking to complement the weekly regular season polls.
2. Each regional chair will select a regional committee that will be responsible for gathering and sharing information for all institutions within their region and division. Guidelines for committee selection are as follows:
a. The committee should include three regional voters( more, if necessary, depending upon the geographical size of the region) including the chair. b. The members of the committee should represent their entire geographical region without conference or school bias. c. The members of the committee should show a balance of representation from all conferences and independents within the region. d. There should be some attempt made to have representation on the committee from institutions that are not continuously included as top-ranked schools in the region.
3. The regional chair, working through the national office, will set up, during the season, a weekly conference call with the regional committee on Sunday evenings or Monday mornings to establish the regional top 10. The conference call will consist ONLY of the committee members sharing the information concerning the prior week’ s activity of the institutions that have been assigned by the chair.
4. Each regional chair will then, using the information obtained from the conference call, rank the teams in the region in a top 10 format. That ranking will be then input electronically on the United Soccer Coaches website.
5. From those regional top 10 lists, national voters will vote in order to compile a national top 25.
6. The national rankings( including school’ s record, votes received and number of first place votes) will then be compiled electronically and must be
2026 College Soccer Almanac | 7