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D1Ball News

Recaps, previews, rankings, and daily briefs across every Division I sport — the coverage the paywalls ignore, free for every fan.

Football · Rankings

Fourteen Coaches Picked Indiana First. They Also Ranked It Sixth.

The AP has Georgia third with zero first-place votes and the coaches have Indiana sixth with fourteen. The two preseason polls are not reading the same sport.

Sat, Aug 29, 2026

Women's Volleyball · Recap

The Volleyball Poll Is Nineteen Days Old. Friday Made It Fiction.

Stanford beat Wisconsin, Creighton took Purdue in five, and four of the five ranked Big Ten teams that played lost, while the poll's top two waited for Las Vegas.

Sat, Aug 29, 2026

Men's Soccer · Recap

One Goal in Palo Alto, Four in Seattle: Men's Soccer's Loudest Thursday

Stanford edged San Diego 1-0 in the No. 1 versus No. 2 match, the deposed No. 1 buried Portland, and two ranked ACC teams lost to opponents who had been routed in August.

Fri, Aug 28, 2026

Women's Soccer · Recap

Eight Ranked Teams Went on the Road Thursday. Three Won.

Stanford blanked UCLA to stay perfect and unscored-upon, Michigan State and Colorado were held without a goal, and the poll's three-way tie at seventeenth lost all three matches.

Fri, Aug 28, 2026

Women's Soccer · Rankings

Eleven Unbeaten, Four Newcomers, and a Thursday Spent on the Road

The Week 3 women's soccer poll produced three ties and seven teams that moved five spots or more, then handed ten ranked programs a midweek slate with half of them away from home.

Thu, Aug 27, 2026

Women's Volleyball · Preview

Twelve Ranked Matchups, and Eleven of Them in Three Buildings

Volleyball's third weekend puts the entire AVCA preseason top 25 on the floor and stacks its best matches into Sioux Falls, Pittsburgh and Las Vegas — arenas built for other sports.

Thu, Aug 27, 2026

Men's Soccer · Rankings

No. 1 Meets No. 2 on Thursday, and Neither Was There a Week Ago

Stanford jumped from ninth to first, San Diego from eighteenth to second, and the team that was No. 1 is now eleventh. The Week 2 men's poll rearranged everything.

Wed, Aug 26, 2026

Football · Preview

Ninety-One Games, Five Days, One Ranked Matchup

Labor Day weekend puts all 25 AP poll teams on the field, sends Notre Dame to Lambeau Field on a Sunday, and stages exactly one game between ranked teams.

Wed, Aug 26, 2026

Women's Volleyball · Recap

Beat the Champs Friday, Swept on Saturday: Volleyball's Depth Era Is Here

Texas A&M left opening weekend with one set to its name, Louisville's giant-killing lasted a day, and the real headline is a sport now deep enough to test anybody.

Tue, Aug 25, 2026

Women's Soccer · Recap

Three Goals on the Dynasty: Michigan State Headlines a Loud Soccer Weekend

Michigan State outscored North Carolina, Florida flipped the script on Florida State, and week two of the women's soccer fall already sounds like November.

Tue, Aug 25, 2026

Men's Soccer · Recap

Four Top-12 Teams, One Win: Men's Soccer Had a Very Loud Monday

Twenty-seven matches, 93 goals, and a top 25 that spent the night getting shoved around — SMU won 4-0 in St. Louis and High Point won 3-2 in Charlottesville.

Tue, Aug 25, 2026

Women's Volleyball · Recap

Pitt Leaves Milwaukee Unbeaten, Texas Leaves With a Scare

The Jeep AVCA First Serve closed at Fiserv Forum with the Panthers 2-0 and six sets won, and the No. 2 Longhorns needing five sets to survive the host.

Tue, Aug 25, 2026

Football · Preview

Eight Games, Two Continents: Football's Week 1 Boots Up Slowly

Saturday runs from Dublin to the Fargodome to Allegiant Stadium, and then the sport waits another week before turning everything on at once.

Tue, Aug 25, 2026

Women's Volleyball · Preview

Nebraska Meets Texas in Vegas, and That's Only Sunday

Twelve ranked-on-ranked matches in three days, headlined by the AVCA poll's top two meeting on a neutral floor on broadcast television in August.

Tue, Aug 25, 2026

Women's Volleyball · Recap

No Soft Openings: Louisville Takes Down Defending Champ Texas A&M

Eight months after sweeping to a first national title, Texas A&M opened 2026 with a four-set loss at Louisville — and the sport reminded everyone it has no preseason.

Sat, Aug 22, 2026

Feature

Inside the D1Ball Newsroom: How We Cover College Sports, and Why It's Free

No paywall, no sportsbook, no rumor mill — a plain-language tour of how this desk works, what we will never publish, and why every Division I sport gets a seat.

Sat, Aug 22, 2026

Football · Preview

Week Zero 2026: Your Hour-by-Hour Guide to Football's First Saturday

From a noon kickoff in Dublin to a 10 p.m. window in Las Vegas, the season opens August 29 with eight games and ten straight hours of football.

Fri, Aug 21, 2026

Baseball · Outlook

Fall Ball Is Coming: How to Read October Like a Coach

No games count and everything matters — a guide to intrasquads, position battles, and the quiet October decisions that write February's answer key.

Fri, Aug 21, 2026

Guide

Your 2026-27 College Sports Year, Planned From Week Zero to Omaha

Six champions defend banners across ten months of brackets, dogpiles, and Saturday cathedrals — the full calendar, season by season.

Fri, Aug 21, 2026

Guide

How to Follow All of College Sports Without Drowning

Around 350 schools, thousands of games, one sane system: lanes, box scores, polls, and the wire — a field guide to fandom at full scale.

Fri, Aug 21, 2026

Men's Ice Hockey · Explainer

College Hockey, Explained: PairWise, Regionals, and the Frozen Four

Six conferences, a ranking you can compute at your kitchen table, and a Denver dynasty still growing — your on-ramp to the best ticket in college sports.

Fri, Aug 21, 2026

Women's Soccer · Outlook

Clean Sheets and a Clear Message: The ACC Opens the College Cup Chase

Florida State, Duke, and Wake Forest opened the fall with shutouts — a watcher's guide to the four-month road that ends at the College Cup in December.

Fri, Aug 21, 2026

Football · Rankings

The Champs Start Sixth: Walking the 2026 Preseason AP Top 25

Ohio State is No. 1, the SEC wins the census, and defending champion Indiana opens its title defense looking up at five teams. Tier by tier, the whole poll.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Football · Outlook

Nine Ranked Teams, One Standard: The SEC's 2026 Storylines

The league placed nine teams in the preseason AP Top 25 — and the most revealing number on the page is Alabama's 13.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Baseball · Feature

Four Straight Junes: The SEC Has Turned Omaha Into Home Turf

LSU, Tennessee, LSU, Oklahoma — four consecutive national champions from one league, and the 2026 finals showed exactly how the machine works.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Softball · Explainer

One City, One Circle: Why WCWS Week Is Appointment Television

Eight teams, one Oklahoma City address, aces working 43 feet from history — a football fan's guide to softball's crown jewel.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Recruiting

What Star Ratings Actually Measure — and When to Ignore Them

Five-stars, composites, and the blue-chip ratio: how recruiting math predicts champions at scale and misses gloriously one player at a time.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Feature

The New Map of College Sports: Where Everyone Finally Landed

SEC 16, Big Ten 18, an ocean-to-ocean ACC, and a rebuilt Pac-12 — the atlas of the settled realignment era, rivalries lost and found included.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Women's Basketball · Feature

The Women's Game Isn't Having a Moment — It's Building an Era

Four seasons, four different champions, records falling everywhere — from Caitlin Clark's 2024 to UCLA's first NCAA crown, the boom is now the baseline.

Thu, Aug 20, 2026

Football · Outlook

Nos. 1, 2, and the Trophy: The Big Ten Owns August

Ohio State opens on top, Oregon sits right behind, and the national championship banner hangs in Bloomington. The Big Ten's 2026 storylines, top to bottom.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Football · Explainer

Week Zero, Explained: Why College Football Starts a Week Early

A Hawai'i travel rule, a stadium in Dublin, and the fight for August's last Saturday — how college football built itself an extra opening day.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Baseball · Feature

Thirty-Two Years Later, Oklahoma Hangs Its Third Banner

Two months after the dogpile in Omaha, the Sooners' 2026 championship keeps growing — a 32-year wait ended, an SEC statement made, a program stepping out of autumn's shadow.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Baseball · Explainer

From 11.7 to 34: College Baseball's Money Math, Explained

For decades the sport ran on quarter-scholarships and walk-on aces. The House settlement rewrote the rules — here is what actually changed, and what it costs.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Explainer

NIL, Decoded: From Collectives to Revenue Share

Five years after July 1, 2021, name-image-likeness has grown from a forbidden right into a reviewed, regulated market — the whole arc, myths included.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Explainer

Redshirts, the Five-Year Clock, and How Eligibility Actually Works

Four seasons, five years, one four-game safety valve — the family-friendly decoder ring for college sports' most confusing math.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Men's Basketball · History

A Second Banner in Ann Arbor Redraws the Blue-Blood Map

Michigan's 69-63 win over UConn ended a 37-year wait and reopened college basketball's oldest argument — who actually counts as royalty.

Wed, Aug 19, 2026

Football · Explainer

Polls, Committees, and Chaos: How College Football Rankings Work

The AP has been arguing since 1936, the coaches vote their own ballot, and a committee picks the playoff. Here's who actually decides what.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026

Football · Feature

The Walk-On Isn't Dead — It's Different

From Rudy's sack to the 105-man roster, college football's favorite story meets its newest math and finds a way through the door.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026

Baseball · Feature

One Win Away: North Carolina's Omaha Run Reads Like a Beginning

The Tar Heels forced a winner-take-all Game 3 in the College World Series finals, and a program still chasing its first national title got close enough to touch it.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026

Baseball · Explainer

The Road to Omaha, Explained the Way a Coach Reads It

Sixty-four teams, sixteen regionals, eight supers, two brackets, one dogpile — the full College World Series gauntlet, round by round, rule by rule.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026

Explainer

The Transfer Portal Isn't a Place. Here's What It Actually Is

Inside the compliance database that rewired college rosters — how entering works, what it risks, and how to read portal news like you work the wire.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026

Explainer

House v. NCAA, Explained: The Deal That Rewrote College Sports

Back pay, revenue sharing, and the end of scholarship counting — the settlement's three pillars, decoded for every family with a kid in the pipeline.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026

Men's Basketball · Explainer

The 68-Team Machine: How March Madness Actually Works

Selection Sunday, the First Four, NET quadrants, and why a 12 beats a 5 almost every March — a field guide to the best-designed event in sports.

Tue, Aug 18, 2026