Faculty Soccer Energy Rankings: Oregon climbs, Texas slides getting into Week 3

“Previous is prologue.”  It has been greater than 400 years since Shakespeare wrote that line in “The Tempest,” but it surely nonetheless rings true.

In terms of the AP Prime 25 or Coaches Ballot, all of us get annoyed when voters lean too closely on final season and brush apart what we have truly seen on the sector. As an alternative of throwing preseason expectations out the window, they deal with them as gospel whereas dismissing early outcomes as flukes.

Energy rankings must be completely different. If opinion polls are reactive, energy polls are predictive. They don’t seem to be about what has occurred, however what’s most certainly to occur subsequent. And in the case of forecasting the longer term, historical past is usually one of the best information. Groups — and people — are predictable. They repeat patterns, simply in barely alternative ways.

That is why a powerful energy ranking should all the time bake in some historical past, however with the suitable stability of previous and current. The deeper we go into the season, the extra weight 2025 performances will carry. Final week introduced little motion, however this week delivers loads of change — and a transparent high tier is beginning to kind. The highest 5 are tightly packed, with a noticeable drop off behind them.

Our No. 1 stays put, however there is a new No. 2. And in a mirrored image of the game’s present stability of energy, 10 of our high 12 groups hail from the SEC or Huge Ten. The ACC has one. Then there’s Notre Dame.

Odds by way of FanDuel Sportsbook

Fell outdoors high 12: Clemson, Michigan, Texas A&M