NCAA Champions Texas and Virginia Top CSCAA Pre-Season Polls

The College Swimming & Diving Association of America (CSCAA) has released the pre-season NCAA polls and the reigning NCAA Champions, the Texas men and Virginia women hold the top spots.

The Virginia women are starting the season on top after leading every poll for the entire 2024-25 season. They lost the Walsh sisters after winning their 5th straight NCAA title to conclude last season, but they brought in a huge transfer and recruiting class that will be looking to push them to their 6th title.

The top four teams on the women’s side remain exactly the same as the final poll from last season with Texas coming in 2nd, Stanford sitting 3rd and Tennessee in 4th.

On the men’s side, the Longhorns will also retain their top spot, which they took over in November of last year from Cal. They lost some of their top swimmers, but many of their top point scorers will be back and they had our 3rd ranked recruiting class for 2025.

Indiana will also stay in 2nd place, which is where they finished the poll last season, and ASU was voted 3rd overall, a jump from their 5th place ranking from March of last season and their 6th place finish at NCAAs.

Cal, who finished 2nd at last year’s NCAA Championships and was 3rd in the final poll of last season currently sits tied with Florida in 4th after losing a majority of their top swimmers.

As a reminder, the CSCAA polls are dual meet rankings rather than a prediction of NCAA finish. A committee of Division I coaches rank the top 25 dual meet teams while considering head-to-head dual meet results, recent performances, season-long outcomes, dual meet records, roster changes, and data from the Swim Cloud Simulator.

Women’s Rankings

@UVASwimDive starts the year at the top spot on our Women’s Division I Dual Meet Poll! @TexasWSD comes in at the second spot with @stanfordwswim rounding out the top 3.@theACC @SEC pic.twitter.com/TBro083DMw

— CSCAA (@CSCAA) October 2, 2025

Also Receiving Votes: Pitt (18), Florida State (11), Virginia Tech (10), Miami (9), Notre Dame (6), Purdue (6), Northwestern (4), Missouri (3), Arizona (2), Miami (OH) (1)

The Cal women are ranked 5th after finishing 8th at the NCAA Championships and 8th in the final dual meet polls of last year, and the Indiana women sit in 9th after finishing 4th at NCAAs and 7th in the final poll.

The committee seems pretty divided on the bottom portion of the poll with 10 additional teams receiving votes including Pitt, Florida State, and Virginia Tech all earning at least 10 votes.

This is a jump from last year’s pre-season polls which saw just five women’s teams earn votes without ending up on the poll.

Men’s Rankings

The @TexasMSD open the year on top of the Division I Men’s Dual Meet Poll! @IndianaSwimDive debuts in the second spot with @ASUSwimDive rounding out the top 3.@SEC @bigten @Big12Conference

Link in bio for full results pic.twitter.com/fbvQVhrmNc

— CSCAA (@CSCAA) October 2, 2025

Also Receiving Votes: Arizona (13), Yale (11), Harvard (4), Army (3), SMU (3), Princeton (2), Penn State (2)

The top 10 on the polls closely mirror the top 10 from NCAAs with the only shift coming from Virginia Tech, who finished 10th at the Championships and sits in 17th on the polls. This isn’t a huge drop from where they finished in the polls last season, though, only two spots from their 15th place ranking in March.

Surprising nobody, the biggest jump came from the Virginia men’s team who are ranked 13th after they finished 22nd in the final poll of last season and finished 33rd at the NCAA Championships. Their recruiting class for this season is huge and fast, and if they live up to the hype, 13th place could be low for them.

LSU also saw a huge jump, currently sitting 14th in the poll after they were 20th to finish last season and 19th at the NCAA Championships.

Notre Dame also makes an appearance on the list in spot number 25 after they were suspended for the entire 2024-2025 swim season.

Division I Women’s Poll Committee

Canaan Campbell (Tulane), Sarah Collins (Tennessee), Catie DeLoof (Alabama), Ashley Dell (Illinois-Chicago), Brooks Fail (Southern Cal), Daniel Graber (Duke), Naya Higashijima (New Mexico), Zach Hinsley (Miami (FL)), Margaret Howe (Northwestern), Nathan Lavery (Drexel), Brody Lewis (Utah), Tylor Mathieu (South Carolina), Zach Mertens (Minnesota), Athena Miller (Florida State), Milana Socha (Dartmouth), Lauren Sullivan (Arizona), Graydon Tedder (Texas Christian).

Division I Men’s Poll Committee

Cauli Bedran (Kentucky), Jim Bolster (Columbia), Ethan Curl (Penn State), Reed Fujan (Louisville), Christian Hanselmann (BYU), Michael Hampel (Minnesota), Michael Joyce (Georgia), Kirk Kumbier (North Carolina), Brody Lewis (Utah), Jack Little (Arizona State), Jessica Miller Livsey (Old Dominion), Noelle Peplowski (Indiana), Erik Posegay (Texas), Jonathan Reeder (Wyoming), Bill Roberts (U.S. Naval Academy), Neal Studd (Florida State).