2026 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[Another Mom]

I watched the W&L v Lynchburg game last night. W&L looked good -- for a decent amount of time they looked like the better team. However still struggled to convert their chances into a goal. End score was 0-1, Lynchburg.

[Ron Boerger]

Realizing that early-season NPIs are pretty meaningless, the D3Datacast crew is now calculating NPIs daily for many sports including soccer.  They use the NCAA formula and their results have historically matched the official ones when officially released.  Find men's soccer NPIs here:  https://d3datacast.com/npi/msoc/

Edit: oh hell, @Ziggy beat me to this.  That's OK seeing as he's one of the crew. 

[jknezek]

I watched the W&L v Lynchburg game last night. W&L looked good -- for a decent amount of time they looked like the better team. However still struggled to convert their chances into a goal. End score was 0-1, Lynchburg.

My takeaway as well. Defense is elite, offense is anemic. Hate playing Lynchburg game 1 non-conference. Just irritating.

[Kuiper]

What's the point of a game like this, especially on opening day of the season for D3?

UNC Asheville (D1) 15 - Warren Wilson 0

I get these D3 games v. D1 games are a little bit of a chance for DI teams to get their players some stats and empty the bench, while giving the D3 team a chance to play in the big house and test themselves against a higher-level team.  Warren Wilson, however, only won 2 games all last season (against Mississippi University for Women and Regent University, which is transitioning to D3) and is just barely out of preseason.  UNC Asheville, while not a P5 school by any stretch, is a decent program.  They just tied #3 Furman. This was always going to be a bloodbath.  To make things worse, Warren Wilson plays D1 Virginia Military Institute in a week. They are a much worse DI program than UNC Asheville, but should still overwhelm Warren Wilson.

[kevdog]

What's the point of a game like this, especially on opening day of the season for D3?

UNC Asheville (D1) 15 - Warren Wilson 0

I get these D3 games v. D1 games are a little bit of a chance for DI teams to get their players some stats and empty the bench, while giving the D3 team a chance to play in the big house and test themselves against a higher-level team.  Warren Wilson, however, only won 2 games all last season (against Mississippi University for Women and Regent University, which is transitioning to D3) and is just barely out of preseason.  UNC Asheville, while not a P5 school by any stretch, is a decent program.  They just tied #3 Furman. This was always going to be a bloodbath.  To make things worse, Warren Wilson plays D1 Virginia Military Institute in a week. They are a much worse DI program than UNC Asheville, but should still overwhelm Warren Wilson.

Sometimes the games are already schedule or have a history of playing against each other. SLU use to play against UVM (D1) but there last game was 1990 after UVM went to the Final 4.