Today’s college athletic climate is much different than it was 20 years ago and college coaches are under tremendous pressure to achieve two important goals: win and raise money. The one directly affects the other and alumni will enthusiastically support a winning team…and yes, the opposite is true. The cost of effectively managing a successful college athletics department has increased over the years, while support from university subvention has, in most cases, increased slightly, if not at all.

In his latest contribution, Tom Kovic shares the importance of persistence in the college recruiting search... The dictionary definition of persistence is: continuing in spite of opposition; enduring, lasting or recurrent. In a nutshell, I feel strongly that a persistent effort in every aspect of the college search for athletes will, in the end, give prospects and their families the greatest chance at success.

For the past several seasons, we have made an assessment of each incoming recruiting class and have provided a ranking. This year, the task proved to be especially tough. Today, there is much greater access to information on the athletes, their skill level, level of polish, and of course, their accomplishments, so we cannot rank an athlete merely on her resume alone.   The athletes’ college choices also reflect increased parity, making the job of ranking the Top 10 Recruiting Classes quite difficult.

Georgia tops the Women's Preseason Coaches Poll, pulling down 13 first place votes.  Utah was 2nd, with six first place votes.  Bama was third, but 8 voters rated them #1.  Florida, in 4th, and UCLA, in 5th, each pulled down two first place votes.  LSU, Stanford, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Oregon State made up places 6 through 10.  For the rest of the Top 25, keep on reading...