The IMG Academy Top 150 Rankings update for boys in the 2014 graduating class is out today. Michael Seaton climbs from #43 to #19 on news of his January homegrown signing with DC United. Seaton, a forward, will play on loan with USL Pro league member and DC United affiliate Richmond Kickers for the 2013 season.

Michael Seaton

Columbus Crew forward Nathan Kohl and CASL defender Evan Krause also continue to climb the ranks with this update, landing at #22 and #85 respectively. Kohl, a Michigan commit, made the travel roster for the U.S. U17 Men’s National Team’s trip to Panama last month, and Krause, who is committed to North Carolina, continues to perform for CASL’s U18 squad which has allowed the fewest goals in the Southeast Division.

Some players new to the IMG 150 Rankings this spring are Dallas Texans midfielder and SMU commit Jared Rice, Charlotte Soccer Academy midfielder and Stanford commit Tomas Hilliard-Arce, and DC United defender Stephen Gandy. Click here to see where they are ranked.

In addition to the IMG Academy Top 150 update, we have made key changes to the regional rankings which will be unveiled throughout the week. Some of the additions include DC United defender Joshua Bender, Minnesota Thunder defender and Wisconsin commit Rahim Omar, Oakwood forward Logan Gdula, and Georgia United midfielder Jad Arslan. Keep checking back to see who else made the lists.

As far as how we arrive at the rankings, it’s no simple task.

We keep a national database of players as the starting point for our rankings (if you’re not in it, enter a profile here).

We track an extensive list of selections to national team camps and other honors including USSF Development Academy (Boys), ECNL (Girls), and U.S. Youth Soccer National League event and season awards, plus U.S. Soccer Training Centers, ODP, id2 and other player identification programs.

From there we look at additional signs of top player performance in a club environment, with the help of an extensive network of observers around the country. The priority here is for club, college, national team and other select team coaches on the ground, but especially when we can gain corroborating opinions. The more layers of opinions we can gain accumulate the better, as our role is primarily to aggregate those viewpoints, rather than making our own determination as to a player’s quality.

As a matter of policy, we never share which coaches said what about whom so that coaches will be freer to share their assessments. Another policy is that parents’ opinions about their own children are not considered, but you are welcome to provide feedback about honors and other details that may be of help to us in keeping their profiles up to date as well as our challenge of sifting through thousands of players nationwide. That kind of data can be helpful, but the: “How can you not have rated my kid? He is awesome” communique, while compelling, will be consigned to the virtual trash.

In the end, there’s always some level of subjectivity about players, because after all, how good someone is relative to someone else is largely a matter of opinion, but we do our best to make our rankings as educated an opinion as can be.

The rankings will be updated every quarter. Keeping current rankings for 8 classes of 150 players each is no small task, and it is counterintuitive to think the rankings would change daily or weekly. We will announce each update.

So that’s it. You can see the newest version of the rankings here.

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