After Five Years, former USMNT coach Steve Sampson has failed yet again to make Cal Poly SLO relevant. Gotta believe his tenure in SLO is coming to an end. IMHO, his choices in assistant coaches in Shaun Harris and Billy McNichol were always suspect. crazy how far this program has fallen since the P Holocher years. I said at the beginning that hiring SS was more of a cosmetic or sexy hire rather than a sound one and was blasted when I insinuated so. Well, don’t tell ya I didn’t say so! Btw...Where’s the Cal Poly homer when I need her lol! My UCLA Bruins sucked this year as well. But losing Knox and Terwege were huge losses on the back line and their GA statistic is proof. But I digress!
Speaking of former MLS coaches, Greg Andrulis has stepped down (or was nudged out) at George Mason. https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...er-coach-greg-andrulis-resigns-after-seasons/ Given all the talent in the DC area, this should be a better program and I expect someone with some name recognition will get the gig. No reason Mason can't consistently be at a level like New Hampshire/Seattle/St. Mary's have been in recent years.
Mason is a large commuter school in a commuting area. Andrulis is a “pretty big name” in soccer. Will be interesting to see a bigger name hire and what they can do.
19 changes in Division I last year. Short term analysis of +/- RPI and conference regular season finish to see how it worked out for each school from 2018-2019. RPI +/- on selection weekend +94 Rutgers +51Cleveland State 0 VMI (206 of 206 both years) -2 American -4 JMU, Wofford -5 UNCG -14 Creighton -17 SIUE -19 Liberty -20 Louisville -22 Belmont -24 High Point -25 UCLA -37 UAB -56 Pacific -69 USF -89 Fordham -104 Davidson 16 negative RPI impact 1 even 2 positive RPI impact Conference regular season +/- of minimum 3 spots +4 UNCG (won league after 5th in 2018) -3 Creighton, Louisville -4 Pacific -5 USF -8 Davidson In RPI & conference finish, only 3 schools appear to have benefited short term from change - Rutgers (RPI), Cleveland State (RPI), & UNCG (league champions). I recognize this quick analysis for college programs is by nature flawed (student satisfaction, academic performance, etc. not included).
Interesting statistics Sam. It will be interesting to follow those exact teams for the next year or two to see if they come up in RPI. I assume the reason the majority of those positions came open is due to poor results. It often takes a couple of years to get control of the ship.
Stay tuned from some big news out of Boston. Three programs will be looking for new leaders. Boston College - Fired (The word is he put his hands on a player) Harvard - Fired (No explanation needed here) Boston University (Retired)
Boston College Ed Kelly fired and the team makes the NCAA tourney field. Should be a wild news day if all that is true. No mention on their website.
That's quite the eventful day. ACC jobs are pretty damn desirable. I'd imagine even with the high cost of living in Boston that they'll get some pretty damn good applicants.
Here are the official releases on the changes at Harvard and BU. https://www.gocrimson.com/sports/msoc/2019-20/releases/20191118nv27xs https://goterriers.com/news/2019/11...35-year-career-as-head-mens-soccer-coach.aspx Not surprisingly, nothing yet from BC.
Is there any more on this anywhere? Looked on BC's website, their twitter feed, the Boston Globe, the BC student paper and a couple of NE soccer writers' twitter feeds and saw nothing, nor did a google search produce anything.
I would think that UIC's Sean Phillips would be getting a serious look once some of the more prominent D-1 HC positions start to open up. Solid past 4 years with Horizon League Championships and 3 straight trips to the NCAA College Cup (should've been the 4th this year). Great recruiter in the Chicagoland area and currently a scout for MLS. He'd be a great hire - established winner.
A couple more jobs have opened: UNC Asheville https://uncabulldogs.com/news/2019/...-as-unc-asheville-head-mens-soccer-coach.aspx Incarnate Word https://uiwcardinals.com/news/2019/...tional-search-for-mens-soccer-head-coach.aspx
A few names that I've heard from people close to the Harvard job are: Josh Shapiro (current Tufts Head Coach) Charles Rodriguez (current Yale Assistant, former Stanford Assistant) Brian Plotkin (current Notre Dame Assistant, former Dartmouth Assistant)
Josh Shapiro - 3 NCs with Tufts in last 4 years with a ton of Division I experience ? Pretty impressive to me.
Why not try to get more seasoned, more successful D1 coaches: Brian Wiese, Georgetown Mike Noonan, Clemson Bobby Muus, Wake Forest Chris Grassie, Marshall
You're having a laugh if you think Wiese (who turned Louisville down) would leave Georgetown. If you think Noonan who left Brown to go to the ACC would then go BACK to an Ivy League program. If you think Muus would leave Wake after getting it going there once again. And if Grassie would leave the great place he's turned Marshall into in a short amount of time.