2026 Women’s Soccer Top 25

[CentPA]

#2 Washington & Lee (#4 NPI ) suffer their first set-back of the season last night.  They are now 9-0-1.

The Generals played to a 1-1 tie at home against unranked Mary Washington (#52 NPI).  Mary Washington scored first with about 12 minutes left in the first half, but Washington & Lee would tie it back up within 2 minutes for the 1-1 draw.

[jknezek]

#2 Washington & Lee (#4 NPI ) suffer their first set-back of the season last night.  They are now 9-0-1.

The Generals played to a 1-1 tie at home against unranked Mary Washington (#52 NPI).  Mary Washington scored first with about 12 minutes left in the first half, but Washington & Lee would tie it back up within 2 minutes for the 1-1 draw.

Yeah. Bummer. Tough mid-week game right before Fall break, which has a long road trip to Sewanee. Lots of elements made that mentally harder than it should have been.

Oh well. Soccer is a hard one to win them all. Sometimes the ball just won't go in the net.

[BusyBee]

Here are the three biggest discrepancies between the USC top 25 and the NPI that I could identify:

#1 Pomona-Pitzer: they are ranked #8 in the USC poll but #51 in the NPI.  Difference of 43 places.

#2 North Central: they are ranked (effectively) #35 in the USC but #1 in the country in the NPI.
      Difference of 34 places.

#3 Messiah: they are ranked #6 in the USC but #33 in the NPI.  Difference of 27 places.

As a PP fan I can tell you that both of those numbers are a bit silly. Number 8 in the country with a 1-0 loss to UChicago and a 1-1 draw with Cal Lutheran. Also, number 51 in the country with 7 wins and those two results. Must be that the NPI number is being dragged down by Cal Lu and CMS's relatively mediocre performances early season out of the SCIAC conference play. Otherwise it makes no sense.

I personally think the current Massey ranking of 18 is probably closer to reality, but the NPI number is a bit scary. It is difficult to know how good they are, even after watching every match this season as they play 22 plus individuals. Last match they played 30. Thus the top 11/starters as unit get about 30-40 min with each other tops. Not sure if that will continue into the 2nd half of the season, but we will see. With the SCIAC teams only playing Santa Cruz as an out of conference opponent it will be difficult to make up the NPI number unless the UAA and NESCAC teams start to knock each other down??

[CentPA]

The NCAA just updated the NPI this morning: through games 10/07/2026

[CentPA]

BusyBee the NPI for Pomona-Pitzer got even worse! 

When I mentioned their discrepancy in rankings they were showing at #51 NPI.  However, I think the NPI got readjusted because of what ziggy mentioned  regarding Azusa Pacific a few days ago. 

So the win against Azusa has been taken out of their NPI calculation and that dropped PP even further down to #62 and then on today's new NPI rankings they are now showing at #71!  That does seem really low to me.

[BusyBee]

So crazy! I guess there is nothing they can do - even if they keep winning 5-0 every SCIAC match (which they won't) - I don't know how much that can move.

Here's where I don't quite understand the formula. Let's pick Carleton (a team that I know and has also played CMS) They are at NPI 16.

Loss 0-1 to North Central #3 (vs PP loss to UChicago #10) - would change if they played each other?!
Win 1-0 vs CMS (same)
Wins vs all MIAC teams (4 additional SCIAC wins)
Draw last night vs Wisc Eau Claire #75 (draw vs Cal Lu #78)

I can understand that this is marginally better, but how is this 55 places different? How did the MIAC end up with so much more weight?

[CentPA]

So I have been looking through the top 25 of the USC rankings and where they stand in the NPI and Massey rankings.

By far the two most unusual teams are Pomona-Pitzer and Messiah.  Here are their rankings:

School      USC ranking      NPI ranking      Massey ranking
 
Messiah             6                               32                              21

PP                         8                               71                              19

It's like nobody knows what to do with these two schools!