Looks like there are ten texas schools in the top 25. Some surprises from small conferences.

1 LSU
2 Texas A&M
3 Iowa State
4 Oklahoma State
5 Missouri
6 Kansas
7 TCU
8 Texas Tech
9 Tennessee
10 Baylor
11 Creighton
12 Arkansas
13 Rice
14 St Louis
15 Nebraska
16 Mississippi
17 Colorado College
18 Memphis
19 Mississippi State
20 UTEP
21 Texas-San Antonio
22 Colorado
23 Middle Tenn State
24 Stephen F Austin
25 Oklahoma
26 North Texas
27 Houston
28 Texas
29 Tulsa
30 SMU

FYI, those are Central region rankings.

National rankings:
1 North Carolina
2 UCLA
3 Duke
4 Santa Clara
5 Penn State
6 Stanford
7 LSU
8 Georgia
9 Illinois
10 Notre Dame
11 Virginia
12 Portland
13 Minnesota
14 Wake Forest
15 Clemson
16 Rutgers
17 Auburn
18 Pepperdine
19 Arizona
20 Florida State
21 Boston College
22 Texas A&M
23 Florida
24 Central Florida
25 VCU

In the Big 12:
1. Texas A&M
2. Iowa State
3. Oklahoma State
4. Missouri
5. Kansas
6. Texas Tech
7. Baylor
8. Nebraska
9. Colorado
10. Oklahoma
11. Texas

A&M AT'EM AGAIN
Texas A&M slips every year or two to second or third in Big 12 recruiting but is always strong enough to be among the nation's Top 25 classes. In 2006, recruiting is back atop the league with four heralded signees. Texans Amber Gnatzig and Whitney Hooper are both Top 50 recruits who have been in the US Youth National team pools for years. Each earned Youth All-America honors more than once and will be joined by their Challenge club teammate, Nicole Ketchum, who is a Region 3 Team member. The Aggies needed help in net with the graduation of All-America Kati Jo Spisak and got that with capable netminder Kristin Arnold of Colorado. An all-state prepster, Arnold led Real Colorado to a club state title and also played on the Colorado ODP State Team.
Who's Hot, Who's Not: The Aggies remain the hottest, most consistent recruiting school in the Big 12. Yet, Oklahoma State continues to make headlines with international signees and has a class among the nation's best for the fifth time in six years. If the Cowgirls could just keep some of those players around more than a couple of years. Oklahoma again has a group that would seem to disappoint by Big 12 standards but the Sooners had a huge turnaround in 2005 despite a low recruiting outlook. Could Colorado be slipping? The big names aren't headed to Boulder like they were just four years ago. And Texas? No official release from the Longhorns but unless some internationals are added, this class will be nothing compared to recent groups that made national headlines.

http://www.soccerbuzz.com/recruits06/confbreakdown.htm

Mixed emotions here. Glad to see that we are the top ranked class in the Big 12, but would like to see us ranked higher nationally. Didn't we sign a relatively small class this year? Can this class compete with the the North Carolinas, Penn States and Portlands of the world? Would be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who follows the soccer program closely.

Gig'em

The real question is - how attractive are the recruits?

i'm sure they're hot. they always are.

I'd be willing to bet that this is similar to football, in which you get somewhat punished in the rankings when you have a smaller class.

A&M had a class like 2 years ago that had about 8 ppl in it. Obviously we can't pick up that many each year.

Another important thing is that we don't need to recruit 100 great players at every position. We're at the level now where we only recruit the gaps that need to be filled. This past year, Kati Jo & Laura Probst are our two biggest gaps. A 4-person recruiting class is fine with me as long as we can get to the next step. Our offense has been our downfall deep in the NCAAs the last few years but I think we've got a little more fire power now than before.

ashlee and melissa + cydne's hype hopefully are going to be more firepower than anyone can handle for 90 minutes...

but as far as competing with north carolina, etc... their classes usually include 4 players in the top 10 or 15 nationally.

Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart, especially this year. For those that complain that football recruiting is an inexact science, I really believe that to be the case with soccer. Having been around many girls in this year's class (because it's my daughter's class) and having watched the recruiting process first hand, it's obvious to me that many very talented players slip through the cracks and I do mean players that could easily play D-1. I'm not saying the rankings mean nothing at all, but I truly believe the right coach can take some unheralded players and not only compete, but win at all levels.

The big name schools (A&M being one of them nowadays) pick almost exlusively from the ODP programs. The flaw I see in this is that, for the most part, the players in ODP have been in the program from a very early age and once they are in they rarely leave because of their ability. Meanwhile, many players who were not in ODP at an early age (many by choice) blossom as they become teenagers and can be overlooked unless THEY get THEMSELVES recruited.

Naturally, I'm VERY biased and will admit to it here, but I think OU got a steal at keeper this year. No one here or anywhere else will know it until she sees the field and gets the jitters out. If any of you know KJ or Julie, ask them and they you may find they agree with me since she had the pleasure of learning from them at A&M camp. I do hope that OU got some field players who were in a similar situation so they can be competitive this year.

Rollo

Hope that your daughter and OU do very well except when they are playing the Ags.

My wife went to OU, and one thing that I learned early on in our relationship was that no matter what else was going on with us, we were in total agreement on two days - the days of the A&M/tu and OU/tu games. All success to your daughter, with fond hopes that she shuts tu out at every opportunity.

Happy Days - Thanks for the well-wishes. I don't know how much my daughter will play this year or even in the future as there will always be competition for every spot. I do know that she thrives on competing and works very hard; two of her attributes that have caught the eyes of the coaches. I obviously do agree that if she plays against TU that she needs to shut them out (with the help of the defense). However, I have to confess that I must pull for her and her team even when facing the Aggies. I tried the "I hope you have awesome games against A&M, but the Ags still win" route, but she shut me down. LOL

[This message has been edited by RolloTomasi (edited 7/9/2006 10:16p).]

Daughters are like that. Full attention and support from Dad is mandatory. At least that's the way it is with our daughter.

Congratulations on the scholarship and good luck.