Utah Valley University will start playing men's soccer in 2014 . It was a condition for them officially joining the WAC.
Will they be fully-funded or just go through the motions so they can be in the WAC? It's one thing to sponsor a D-I sport. It's another to give your program the resources to be successful. That said, nice for UNM, UNLV and the Colorado schools to have another opponent a little closer.
I watched the press conference. There were quite a few cheers when a student asked about starting up football. Likewise, there were a few cheers when the announcement for men's soccer arrived. Unsure about the allocation of resources. But the UVU faculty did say they want to build the university up academically and athletically. So I would take that to mean they'll pour some effort into it. The WAC needing men's soccer to survive is highly ironic. Guess they will just take over from the MPSF. Sac State will probably join the Pac-12 when their contract with the Big West ends. This period of college football realignment did affect college soccer after all.
http://www.wolverinegreen.com/genrel/100912aad.html the news about men's soccer is at the bottom of the page
This may also depend on your definition of success. A school like Utah Valley is at the low end of D-1, but if it gives future Justin Brauns somewhere to play that's above community college, then that by itself is a significant change. Utah and surrounding states have a lot of youth soccer players who'd jump at the opportunity. The pipe dream for UVU would be for them to hire someone connected to RSL, such as a former player, and to help the MLS club's potential homegrowns along.
A quick look at The Google Maps shows the school is about half hour south of Sandy, where RSL trains and plays. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't some synergy between the program and RSL, and I'd be surprised if you didn't see some RSL academy players at Utah Valley.
Wonder if Utah Valley starting up men's soccer might convince BYU to join the NCAA ranks with its men's team?
The WAC is not out of the woods yet. Adding CSUB and UVU gets them to six total members; that will fall to five if Idaho goes to the Big Sky as rumored (four if NMSU finds a home). They need seven and there are no more Western schools to pick up. The closest are UTPA and Chicago State (neither has men's soccer). Only four of their members have men's soccer. They basically have to take over the MPSF men's soccer conference to pick up associate members.
As an NMSU alumni there is a possibility that they will start a men's soccer program in the drop their football one. That is a big if. The football team will be independent starting next season. They are smack in the middle of a season that everything seems to be going wrong. The common consensus is that NMSU will wait a year or two then make a decision to either drop their football to FCS, drop football altogether, or have joined another conference. So it is wait and see. On the other side, BYU can not add another men's sport without first adding women's sports. I think that the UVU - BYU matches would be really fun to watch, but I am not sure if they will ever happen. Denver CS-Bakersfield Seattle UVU Not too bad.
The WAC auto-bid for the basketball tournament is what they sold to UVU and CSUB. Can't say I blame them; where else were they going to join? The NCAA two-year waiver starts now; they'll be okay with six all-sports members next year but need to get to seven by '14-'15. If Idaho or New Mexico State leave then the WAC will collapse. The latest adds buys the conference time, but that might be all. In the meantime, WAC men's soccer needs are taken care of. They only require four full members who play the sport and they have that. Now they can, as you alluded to "take over from the MPSF" for their associate members. You highlighted UTPA as a target; they already have baseball which would be a big thing for the conference (Denver and Idaho do not). I bet UTPA would add men's and women's soccer (don't have a women's team either) in a heartbeat in order to join the WAC. Chicago State is to be avoided at all costs. CSU would literally drag the conference into the basement. Division 2 call-ups would be better than them.
I have said this on their message boards. "NMSU - go to the Missouri Valley Conference." Basketball and baseball would step up that much more in competition.
forget about being too far east. What Chicago State or NJIT mean to the WAC = what NMSU (football) means to the Mountain West or Cal State Bakersfield to the Big West. The perception is they would weaken prestige and competition in the respective conferences.
BYU is in the WCC now, where I'd assume they'd pretty much have to play. If being in a almost-fully played soccer conference (7 of other 9 schools) can't convince them, I doubt adding a rival non-conference school is.
In terms of geography, Chicago State is easier to get to than UTPA. UTPA is 250 miles from the nearest decent airport (San Antonio). Chicago State is 11 miles from O'Hare.
http://www.wolverinegreen.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/050813aaa.html UVU hires John Ellinger's son as an assistant.
Well, nothing inspires confidence in Utah soccer circles like the name Ellinger. In all fairness to Jr., he deserves to be judged on his own merit and he obviously grew up around the game and we've seen plenty of second generation-coaches - Yeagley, Clark, Arena, Gorman, Schmid and now Sarachan (just hired as an assistant at Wisconsin) - and the lifetime they spent around the game seems to help and Ellinger deserves the benefit of the same doubt.
Plus, they had to spend their entire childhood dealing with their fathers. They deserve some kind of reward for that!
That's why he jumps in right of the bat as an ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH instead of the normal procedure of being an assistant coach or volunteer assistant coach first. A club coach at a university does not entitle one to be an ASSOCIATE HC right off the bat in my opinion. An ASS. Coach knows the ins and outs of the college recruiting process backwards and forwards in particular for the University they are already at. That's his reward.
I now see he was an assistant at Central Arkansas for two years. I'll have to dial it back some, just a little.