5-1 or 6-2 in College (Part 1)

I get asked the following question a lot:

"Do they run a 5-1 or a 6-2?"

Usually my answer is that "I don't know" but I will almost always lean towards (unless I have heard directly from the staff) the school running a 5-1. I think that on a large scale, there tend to be more schools that run a 5-1 then there are schools running a 6-2.

If you're setter that wants to play college volleyball, you have arguably one of the hardest roads ahead of you. Not only do you have to contend with whether or not a school is even recruiting a setter in your class, but you also have to figure out if that school likes to run a 5-1 or a 6-2. Even after you figure that out, you might not be 100% on which category you fit in for that school! My hope in relaying some of this information is that it will help athletes and families in their college search and finding the right academic and athletic fit.

Lets really go look at which schools are running a 5-1 vs which schools are running a 6-2. I think this information will be interesting to see.

Conference USA

9 Teams Running a 5-1

5 Teams Running a 6-2

Sun Belt

7 Teams Running a 5-1

5 Teams Running a 6-2

WCC

7 Teams Running a 5-1

3 Teams Running a 6-2

Mountain West

5 Teams Running a 5-1

5 Teams Running a 6-2

WAC

8 Teams Running a 5-1

5 Teams Running a 6-2

Big Sky

6 Teams Running a 5-1

4 Teams Running a 6-2

Southland

5 Teams Running a 5-1

3 Teams Running a 6-2

By doing some higher-level math:

47 out of the 77 teams are running a 5-1 and this accounts for 61% of the schools

30 out of the 77 teams are running a 6-2 and this accounts for 39% of the schools

Now, can we assume that this trend (60/40) will apply once we include the other 75% of schools that make up D1 volleyball? Potentially not. But it's a start at least. We would still want to look at P5 schools and FBS schools vs FCS schools to see if there are any drastic differences there.

But what about D2 volleyball?

They are "worse" right? So more teams would be running a 6-2?

While I don't agree with the premise (plenty of D2 programs could beat D1 schools), just looking at two D2 conferences we do see that the split begins to trend closer to 50/50. Now, this is an even smaller sample size, but hopefully you get the idea.

RMAC (D2)

8 Teams Running a 5-1

6 Teams Running a 6-2

Lonestar (D2)

8 Teams Running a 5-1

10 Teams Running a 6-2

My goal in all of this is to create a data base of information for parents and athletes that will include every D1 and D2 school in the country so that athletes can make some different decisions based on as much information as possible.

I will plan on sharing what I find in Part 2!