I'm not as familiar with college soccer as many here, at least the history. The thread about the best programs and a discussion with the Maryland thread got me to thinking. Which programs would be the blue bloods of college soccer. By blue blood I mean what are the programs that would make you excited to see them on your team's schedule even if they went 20 and 110 in the previous 5 years. For example, no matter how bad Michigan or Alabama football is I would love to see them come out and play my school. I would guess the blue bloods of college soccer would be Indiana? UCLA?, Maryland? Who would you consider a college soccer blue blood program? (if such a thing exists)
FIRST TIER Indiana (82, 83, 88, 98, 99, 03, 04, 12 national champions) UCLA (85, 90, 97, 02 national champions) Virginia (89, 91-94, 09, 14 national champions) Maryland (68, 05, 08 national champions) SECOND TIER Akron (10 national champion) Connecticut (81, 00 national champions) North Carolina (01, 11 national champions) Wake Forest (07 national champions) Clemson (84, 87 national champions) NEW MONEY Stanford (13 national champions) Notre Dame (15, 16 national champions) HEY, ARMY AND YALE USED TO BE GOOD AT FOOTBALL Saint Louis (10 national titles between 59 and 73) San Francisco (5 national titles between 66 and 80) Howard (71, 74 national titles)
Army football was best from the late 1920s through the early 1950s ... in that same period of time Penn State was awarded 11 soccer national championships or co-championships. (I say "awarded" as in those days there was no college soccer championship tournament or playoffs -- for soccer, or for football either, then. For a few years in the early 1950s there were a few single game "Soccer Bowl" championships played between the two teams that had the highest rankings at the end of the regular season as voted by sports writers and soccer associations.) A table of college soccer champions before the NCAA soccer tournament began: ISFL / ISFA Team Championship Records Team Championships Winning Years Penn State 11 1926, 1929, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1949, 1954, 1955 Penn 10 1914, 1916, 1919, 1920, 1923, 1924, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933 Princeton 9 1921, 1922, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1936, 1937, 1939, 1940 Haverford 7 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911, 1915, 1917 Yale 5 1908, 1912, 1928, 1930, 1935 Harvard 4 1913, 1914, 1926, 1930 Springfield 4 1937, 1946, 1947, 1957 Columbia 2 1909, 1910 Temple 2 1951, 1953 West Chester 2 1936, 1950 Navy 1 1932 Cornell 1 1934 Syracuse 1 1936 Connecticut 1 1948 San Francisco 1 1949 Franklin & Marshall 1 1952 Brockport 1 1955 Trinity 1 1956 City College of New York 1 1957 Drexel 1 1958 table above from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercollegiate_Soccer_Football_Association Another website with info about college soccer from 1946 through 1959: http://homepages.sover.net/~spectrum/collegepostwar.html And I enjoyed this book, and recommend it, if you want to know more about the early history of both pro and amateur soccer in the USA, including college soccer of long ago ... https://www.amazon.com/Distant-Corners-American-Opportunities-Sporting/dp/1439906319