It's that time of year again! Thought it prudent to initialize a thread to allow us all to post the signing classes here as they are announced!
I don't know if any schools have done traditional press releases, but there are - literally - thousands - of tweets floating around today with announcements. Feel free to post said tweets here.
Pitt announces 3 signings today http://www.pittsburghpanthers.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/020117aac.html and announced 6 mid-year additions 2 weeks ago http://www.pittsburghpanthers.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/011317aab.html
The Lobos announce 4: http://www.golobos.com/news/2017/1/30/Lobo-Soccer-signs-four-for-fall-2017.aspx
Andrew Paoli (Earthquakes Academy) another Bruin commit: Excited to announce Andrew Paoli has officially signed with the Bruins! Welcome to Westwood!#ImaBruin #UCLASigningDay pic.twitter.com/l8gUTJRg8n— UCLA Men's Soccer (@UCLAMSoccer) February 2, 2017
Akron Unveils Talented 2017 Men's Soccer Signing Class (They always say something like that.). http://www.gozips.com/sports/msoc/2016-17/releases/20170202lv2y3a
CSU Bakersfield announces 5 NLI signees. Three from CA, one from the Bronx and one from Finland with an asiatic name. An harmonious mix, isn't it? http://www.gorunners.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=58054&SPID=6318&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=211452789&DB_OEM_ID=13300 There might be a couple more later on, like last year?
Pretty shocking to see UCLA with a recruiting class announcement of 3 players. Quite a far cry from the perennial #1 class in the country. Especially when they are losing a double digit number of mostly key contributors. I'm assuming more are on the way but even so this is a precipitous drop.
The Bruins lost 8 starters including 6 underclassman/players with remaining eligibility. Although not a consistent starter last year, I heard that Romero also left. I'm inclined to believe that there was a snowball effect that took hold when players like Cannon left. As more players realized the team was going to be gutted of its core they too jumped to the pros early (Adekoya). In the Coaching staff's defence, I would think it very difficult to anticipate this amount of attrition when formulating a recruiting strategy. Also consider there was a fair amount of turnover in Salecedo's staff as well which had to have had some impact on recruiting. Not hiring applicant Yossi Raz last season when Carlin-Voight and Griffin left last season was shortsighted IMHO. Especially with his familiarity with the SoCal soccer landscape. But I digress. I'm thinking the Bruins will be looking overseas or in the JUCO ranks to backfill. But I'm with you, no way do they replace this amount of departed talent in what clearly is a very small window.
I was going to mention Carlin-Voight top 20 recruiting class at Portland (where Romero landed) but didn't want to seem like I was piling on since I've long felt UCLA has underachieved with the talent they have. Raz, who you mentioned, is now recruiting against them at Irvine. Fusco is an interesting hire. No idea if he's a good coach or is able to recruit, but getting a journeyman player with experience in South America, Mexico and Europe that pursued a formal education in sport seems like a big step up from the background of the vast majority of college coaches. Nice to see guys with a strong background like him and Korytoski at SDSU getting involved with better college college players. Unfortunately at the college level, recruiting trumps all as coaching only gets you so far.
Ah, Raz might have been a good fit with UCLA. He's already making good inroads at the D1 level. Anyways, I digress. Cal Poly checks in: http://gopoly.com/sports/msoc/2016-17/releases/20170307q7z4h1 Two kids from Phil Union academy. Interesting note, one of the CP recruits' dad was in the NBA for 7 yrs.
Who leaves Harvard with a year to go? Also, I remember Pete Chilcutt at UNC - had no idea he lasted so long in the NBA. (He made over 5 million in the NBA!) That his kid is now grown makes me feel - once again - very old.
What is more interesting is that a kid would leave Harvard for Cal-Poly. I know Harvard soccer is dealing with some issues but even if soccer at Harvard is not an option for him anymore that is just a terrible move.
I thought the same thing, Sandon, about the kid leaving Harvard. Maybe I'll learn more about it this year. (Bet you thought I was gone for good from this forum, lol!)
I would rethink it being a "terrible" move (academics-wise). Cal Poly ranks very high nationwide for placing grads: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/business/article39497529.html