SLU Vassar game was a bit weird.  All Vassar the first 15 minutes, then all SLU for the rest of the half and the first part of the 2nd half until the equalizer.  Then put themselves on the back foot a bit, just couldn't connect on the swing passes which Vassar kept swatting away.  SLU is banged up and it's showing, several players are playing with knocks along with the ones who are out all together, but a draw is fine for them and Vassar needed to win.  Odd moment after the whistle.  SLU student section was bantering the Vassar right back for a lot of the game which bothered him, kept gesturing to them all game then once it ended he ran over to the sideline to jeer them back.  Like dude, your team needed to win that one, a draw doesn't do you anything.  Save that for winning.

Quote from: CollegeSoccerFan on October 09, 2026, 09:35:20 AM

Quote from: stlawus on October 08, 2026, 06:35:08 PMIt's hard for me to not think these proposed changes aren't mainly ways for d1 coaches to inflate their egos and continue thinking they are Premier League coaches. What's more likely, a better professional pathway for players or coaches leveraging a season for clout, attention and other jobs as a result of showing how they perform over a professional schedule?

Really hope this proposal crashes and burns as a result of all the non power conference schools and schools that don't have the resources to keep up vetoing it. The overtime rule change already took away one of the main things that made college soccer so great and unique. And it's all because coaches want college soccer to be the premier league.

Fact of the matter is that college soccer has never been more irrelevant to the player pathway in this country than it is now. So the options were, stand by and do nothing or try something to improve that problem.

Just because something "has always been done that way" doesn't mean it has to stay the same. We should want change and growth. Whether this is the thing that does it or not will be determined but credit to the panel for trying to do something for the sport.

College soccer not being a pathway is the point.  It is an avenue for players to play 4 more years while getting an education.  There is no problem to improve.  If players end up in the pros, great, but that's not the goal of college soccer and should not be changed for that reason.

Quote from: Kuiper on October 08, 2026, 04:00:26 PM

Quote from: jsr on October 08, 2026, 02:49:45 PMI think the QWB column refers to the quality win bonus a team gets for beating that team. It's not a measure of the quality win bonus points that the team has received so far this season.

For example, SLU's listed QWB is 3.948, which is equal to their NPI (59.265) minus 54 (the quality win base) x .75 (the QWB multiplier). 59.265-54=5.265, 5.265x.75=3.948.

It does look like you need to go all the way down to Messiah, at #24 to find the highest ranked team without any QWB points. The only team they have played so far with an NPI >54 is Scranton (a loss in their first game of the season).

Thanks.  That would make sense, but it also seems odd that they wouldn't display the information as to how many Quality Win Bonus points a team has received.  I feel like that they did have a column for that in previous years, but I could be mistaken.  It also makes the column for QWB rank completely redundant, which is odd.

Click on a team's NPI rank number, it takes you to their resume and shows you all the NPI numbers. Shows you what the NPI value of a win and loss is for every result along with the quality win bonus received for a win against a team, if any.

It's hard for me to not think these proposed changes aren't mainly ways for d1 coaches to inflate their egos and continue thinking they are Premier League coaches. What's more likely, a better professional pathway for players or coaches leveraging a season for clout, attention and other jobs as a result of showing how they perform over a professional schedule?

Really hope this proposal crashes and burns as a result of all the non power conference schools and schools that don't have the resources to keep up vetoing it. The overtime rule change already took away one of the main things that made college soccer so great and unique. And it's all because coaches want college soccer to be the premier league.

Ugly scene at the end of the RIT-UR game.  With how litigious today's society is I won't yet publicly say what I think I saw happen, so I would recommend watching what happened after the whistle for yourself.

Quote from: el_jefe_90 on October 07, 2026, 12:00:59 PMJust doing some thinking before preseason. One thing stood out at Amherst. What in the world happened to Charlie Randall?

Two years with the Mammoths in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Then mysteriously not on the 2024-25 roster. In January of 2025, he announced he was in the transfer portal. Did not seem to go anywhere. In fall of 2025, he was seen in an Amherst practice video. He was never on the roster however. Wondering if he just decided to stop playing basketball.

He played through a pretty significant injury when he last played, might not have been able to recover from it enough.

The one player for St. Olaf is insane on throw ins.  I don't know if I've seen a player be able to throw it that long.  Directly responsible for both goals.

Quote from: Kuiper on October 06, 2026, 05:42:51 PM

Quote from: SocMom on October 06, 2026, 05:20:31 PMNot sure if this is the best forum section for this (and maybe it's old news and I'm just late to the party), but Marcello Hernandez (of SNL fame) made a few different comments on Amy Poehler's podcastabout his time at John Carroll where he played for a year before pursuing comedy full time. Played in 7 games.  Sounds like he was also recruited / offered by Occidental.  Random fun fact. 

That's pretty cool!  I mean, I'm old enough to have never heard of him.  My SNL/soccer connection is Will Ferrell, who referred my kids' soccer games in AYSO back in the day, but I just looked up Hernandez on the John Carroll men's soccer website and he certainly looked the part. 

Chevy Chase scored quite a good amount of goals for Bard.

Quote from: Ejay on October 05, 2026, 07:55:27 PM

Quote from: stlawus on October 05, 2026, 06:47:43 PMI like the changes to ties. There is no reason whatsoever a team with 10 ties should ever be in the NCAA tournament and this would likely put an end to that ever happening again.

SC and I have discussed this several times and I don't know there is a "right" answer. If I'm the coach of a team that is say 10-0-10, my argument is you need to prove you can beat me. And come tournament time, a tie is as good as a win if you have the talent to advance in PKs.

I agree there's no right answer, but the tournament is just a completely different topic in my opinion.  It's about advancing, not necessarily winning.  But in order to be in that position you shouldn't be able to coast off a horde of ties. Having all those ties won't really do much for your NPI now. 

Quote from: Kuiper on October 05, 2026, 06:27:05 PMThe Championships Committee recently approved a decision by the Men's Soccer Committee to change its dials for the NPI calculation effective for Fall 2027

Men's soccer will make the following changes, some of which seems to pull back a little on the initial laser focus on opponent quality above everything.  Is it a sign of pushback on the advantages for NESCAC and other strong conferences getting too many tournament slots?  Maybe.

1.  Win%/SoS%

This dial controls how much emphasis goes to winning versus the strength-of-schedule.  Men's soccer initially was worried that teams would sacrifice strong opponents for easy wins by going away from the regional rankings approach and set this dial at 15%/85%.  Women's soccer, however, went with 20%/80%.  Men's soccer has now adopted the women's standard and moved to 20%/80%. It's still more emphasis on hard schedules than other sports like lacrosse, which is 25/75, but it is more in line with other team sports

2.  QWB

The Quality Win Bonus is another dial that rewards scheduling harder opponents.  It was originally set at 54 with a .750 multiplier, but it has been reduced to 51.5 with a .600 multiplier.  Not sure the exact rational for the individual numbers, but a .750 multiplier was significantly more than many other sports.

3.  Ties

It looks like they want to encourage teams to go for wins rather than to play from the start for the ties by bunkering.  It has been a .500 for ties, so each team got half a win, but now it will be .450 for a tie, which effectively means that a tie is worth a little less than half a win.  For a weaker team, that's still better than losing, but for two strong teams, this "tie discount" or "tie penalty," may have an effect on tactics.

 

I was quite literally just wondering the other day about this since it's been 3 years which is the time frame you're allowed to make changes after.  I would prefer 25/75 but I'm good with any change from the current dial.  I like the changes to ties. There is no reason whatsoever a team with 10 ties should ever be in the NCAA tournament and this would likely put an end to that ever happening again.

SLU at #1 and Hobart at #9 in the first NPI rankings.  Lots of soccer to be played, but quite a remarkable turnaround compared to last season for the Saints.  Wins from here on out for both teams allow them to drop weak wins from their NPI resume.  As I said, lots of soccer to be played and individual results can cause big swings in the numbers, but both teams have put themselves in a position to get a top 8 protected seed.  The road gets exceedingly more difficult as the target on the back continue to gets larger and larger.  Vassar will be an extremely difficult game for SLU given that Vassar needs the result.

Clarkson 4 Hobart 0          Hobart has to play Cortland tomorrow as well.

RPI with a very huge win at Union. RIT also with a major win against Vassar.  Some parity this season it seems.

SLU playing with a target on their back and some injuries to get the 2-1 win against Bard.  Bard goalie made several spectacular saves to keep it a game.  That road trip is always a hard one.  Bard is a vastly improved team, slowly but surely they are turning things around even if they aren't getting wins.  They are no longer pushovers.

If SLU can get one more win then they are are above the minimum 10 win threshold for NPI purposes (tie counts as half a win).  Every win from here on out allows SLU to drop a win that doesn't help them which will boost their NPI.

Bard used to be in the Skyline. I don't know why they ever left. That conference is perfectly suited for them competitively and travel wise. They were very clearly recruited to the LL as a travel partner for Vassar as the travel pairing used to be Vassar-RPI. But that kind of got negated with the addition of Ithaca since one of the three capital area teams had to be paired with one of the western NY teams or Ithaca which is quite a haul.

Quote from: tony/troy on October 01, 2026, 10:19:39 PM

Quote from: IC798891 on October 01, 2026, 08:56:44 PM

Quote from: ICGrad on October 01, 2026, 03:35:34 PMMy only real issue with the whole thing is Hilbert. They simply aren't an LL-caliber team.

Hilbert really should not be playing varsity right now.

As for the LL thing, I'm old enough to remember when they didn't think *Ithaca* was a fit and turning them down for membership at least once. Heck, "institutional fit" was Union's excuse to duck, ahem, decline to play Ithaca in the regular season all the way back to the 1980s. And it's not like Buffalo State bears any resemblance to anyone in the conference anyway.

I'd personally rather see Ithaca play someone in Pennsylvania -- like, W&J -- annually.

And I am even older.

The earlier Ithaca attempt (the unsuccessful one) had a lot more than Union dead set against it. Picking on them alone is not entirely fair.

The later attempt (the successful one) also had a number of detractors mostly among "more non football playing progressive liberal arts institutions". There was even consideration of at least some of them in eastern New York leaving the Liberty League (believe it was for NEWMAC) should Ithaca be admitted. Eventually and supposedly most were convinced that the Liberty League needed a new full member with a football program or they risked losing their auto bid in football and Ithaca, like it or not, was that new member. So, shut up and vote yes!!! Also probably did not hurt that the detractors eventually realized on their own that having all their programs traveling to and from the entire eastern seaboard amounted to fiscal insanity!!!

As for Union and the "institutional fit" bit. Union joined the NESCAC in 1971 and "withdrew" from it in 1977. At the time it was generally accepted dogma that Union was allowed to gracefully exit before they were booted out for taking athletics way too seriously by NESCAC standards and it was the very same Union who was then considered the "unsuitable fit". Talk about what goes around comes around or is it the other way around.

When all the above was said and done and regardless of who liked or disliked who the bottom line is this. Admitting Ithaca to the Liberty League as a full member for ALL SPORTS enhanced the athletic credibility of the conference and, conversely, losing Ithaca as a full member for ALL SPORTS diminished the athletic credibility of the Empire 8.   

Ithaca's admission to the LL was a very good decision.  They played everyone in the LL in every sport anyways and made the league better.  It's really Bard that is an athletic ball and chain on everyone.  Just completely non-competitive in essentially every sport. They've had a decent year every now and then in some sports, but otherwise just kills everyone's SOS.  They make a good travel partner with Vassar which is why they stay, but if it were up to me I'd give them the boot and try to get a NEWMAC or E8 school like Fisher to replace them.

Quote from: Ice Bear on October 01, 2026, 01:13:54 PM

Quote from: stlawus on September 28, 2026, 11:47:19 PMI just want to complete a 1st down

I certainly hope the Saints can improve for your sake, the sake of the conference, and the sake of the hard working student athletes that are there. I always want to see SLU succeed. Not just on the football field but on the ice (where they have been ****ing embarrassingly abysmal), the lacrosse field, and everywhere else.

I'm hoping for a competitive injury free game against my beloved Garnet tomorrow. I'd love to see some highs for the SLU players and staff tomorrow, even at the expense of my Union. Of course, I really want Union to get the W when it's all said and done.

Any idea what some of the reasons are that are causing the SLU Gridiron Saints and Ice Hockey Saints to struggle so much?

As for hockey, the program took a major reputational hit with the mess that happened with the previous coach, Mark Morris.  Very well publicized issue over player treatment that resulted in an independent investigation. Set the program back several years.  New coach came in with a bare cupboard, and to his credit won an ECAC championship in the covid shortened season and got to the ECAC championship game a few years ago, but that was off the back of a pre-NIL recruiting class.  NIL has taken a very heavy toll on recruiting. SLU has had some very highly touted recruits committed to play the past 4 years but lost them over the summer.  This July they had a draft pick from the Penguins poached by SLU's former coach at UMASS. SLU has spent a ton on upgrading facilities to mitigate some of these issues, so we'll see how the next season goes.

As for football, it's simply a recruiting issue. SLU is not able to hold onto coordinators for more than 3 or 4 years which isn't atypical for d3, but the ever changing systems has not helped the recruiting trail. For example, the previous offensive coordinator who had done pretty good things ended up taking a local HS head coaching job this season for a team that just set the New York state record for consecutive losses. The program has a lot of funding, but they just don't recruit the kind of players like Raymond used to.  They used to be able to get a lot of defensive talent from Rochester, but now that pipeline has resulted in 1 or 2 players a year. Coach has prioritized players from New England that can pay full tuition (SLU's backup QB is the son of the Giants orthopedic surgeon) over d3 blue chip talent in the trenches. It's not like SLU is a historically strong program, some good seasons in the early 80s and success under Raymond, but other than that just never much there. Puckhaber is a fine representative of SLU and someone that has a lot of trust from the administration, so I hope something changes on the field where results start to come.