The 2015 NCAA Women's Volleyball season is about to kick-off and the top teams in the first pre-season poll of the year have been released. Also new for this season will be the experimental instant replay rule in the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences.

The most decorated team in women’s volleyball, the Penn State Nittany Lions, took the top pre-season spot again in the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) poll.


Penn State is the defending national champion and has the unique opportunity for a three-peat after locking up the title in 2013 and 2014.

The defending national champion Lions received 1,538 votes from the media panel in the rankings released this month. In 2014 Penn State claimed its record seventh NCAA national championship and sixth in the last eight years, with the Nittany Lions ending the 2014 season winning twenty straight matches, seventeen of which, including the championship match against Brigham Young University (BYU), were by shutout.

Stanford maintains its No. 2 ranking from last year, which also marks their 34th consecutive year of being ranked in the top 10, followed by Texas, Florida and Nebraska and Wisconsin (who are tied for 5th).

The ACVA Preseason rankings date back to 1982. The organization produces a weekly national poll for collegiate volleyball similar to how the Associated Press makes a poll for NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision.

The rest of this year's preseason top 10 include: North Carolina, Illinois, Florida State and Washington.

 

Most notably dropping out of the top 10 is BYU, which was last year’s runner up in the National Championship game with Penn State.

The Pac 12 is the most represented league with 36% of the teams in the top 25 teams coming from the conference, followed by the Big 10 with 24%, the ACC with 12%, and Big 12 and Southeastern Conference each have 8% respectively, while the WCC, MWC and Big West all have one mention.

Also new for the 2015 season will be the experimental instant replay challenge rule. Per the NCAA, the Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences have been selected to use the experimental rule in conference matches only, provided each school has the necessary equipment and personnel to effectively utilize the guidelines of the rule’s criteria.

Coaches will be permitted three challenges per match (and only one per rally), and those challenges will have no effect on the number of allowed timeouts a team has remaining. The challenge must be lodged immediately following the rally and before the first referee’s arm is extended to start the service for the next point.

Coaches will be allowed to request instant replay challenges only to review these instances:

• Determining if the ball landed in or out.
• Determining if the ball made contact with a player.
• Determining if a net violation occurred.
• Determining if there was a foot fault on a serve.

Given the increased availability of technology, the NCAA Women’s Volleyball Rules Committee believes this experimental rule will allow officials another avenue to make the correct call.  Women’s volleyball has become such a fast paced game with quick instantaneous calls using the benefit of technological advances will only enhance the quality of the game.

The full rundown of 2015 pre-season top 25 can be found below: 

1	Penn State
2	Stanford
3	Texas
4	Florida
T-5	Nebraska
T-5	Wisconsin
7	North Carolina
8	Illinois
9	Florida State
10	Washington
11	BYU
12	Colorado State
13	Oregon
14	Ohio State
15	Kentucky
16	Arizona State
17	Arizona
18	Hawai'i
19	Michigan State
20	UCLA
21	Iowa State
22	Southern California
23	Utah
24	Colorado
25	Duke