Bay Area rivals Santa Clara (from No. 6 to No. 3) and Stanford (from No. 14 to No. 8) make the biggest leaps in this week’s Top 20 after impressive sweeps this past weekend. Santa Clara edged Wake Forest and dominated Florida State at Wake Forest’s tournament, and Stanford toppled Texas and Texas Tech in the Lone Star State. Notre Dame drops to ninth after a difficult victory over Indiana and a tie with Wisconsin, both at home, and Virginia falls from the Top 10 after losing to Auburn in the Cavaliers’ tournament. Texas and Wake Forest, still without victories in 2001, remained ranked — they’ve played higher-ranked squads close and have been unfortunate not to win. Wake actually jumps from 20th to 16th after the tight losses to Santa Clara and Portland. Last week’s Top 20 lost 13 games collectively over the past seven days, with nearly all of the defeats coming to other teams ranked in or near the Top 20. Only one newcomer to the list: Miami (Fla.), which knocked off an Abby Wambach-less Florida to move to 5-0. Out is Arizona State, which lost at Utah.
| 9/10 | TEAM | RECORD | 9/3 |
| 1 | North Carolina | (3-0-0) | 1 |
| 2 | UCLA | (4-0-0) | 2 |
| 3 | Santa Clara | (4-0-0) | 6 |
| 4 | Portland | (3-1-0) | 3 |
| 5 | Nebraska | (3-0-0) | 4 |
| 6 | Washington | (4-0-0) | 8 |
| 7 | Clemson | (3-0-0) | 9 |
| 8 | Stanford | (3-0-0) | 14 |
| 9 | Notre Dame | (3-0-1) | 7 |
| 10 | Penn State | (2-2-0) | 10 |
| 11 | Virginia | (2-1-0) | 5 |
| 12 | Texas A&M | (1-1-0) | 13 |
| 13 | California | (3-1-0) | 11 |
| 14 | William & Mary | (4-0-0) | 18 |
| 15 | Miami, Fla. | (5-0-0) | NR |
| 16 | Wake Forest | (0-2-1) | 20 |
| 17 | Florida State | (2-2-0) | 12 |
| 18 | Florida | (2-2-0) | 16 |
| 19 | Texas | (0-3-0) | 17 |
| 20 | Connecticut | (3-2-0) | 15 |