Maybe college soccer would be more meaningful to USNT if they actually played FIFA rules and longer season, where they are not playing two games a week for three months, then have offseason. The D1 proposal to extend the season for the full school year is good from soccer perspective but its not good from students perspective. I realize training in offseason is still a commitment but travel to road games quite disruptive from missing classes all together perspective. Also a common rules for D1~3 and NAIA would help in terms of development of players both in and off seasons. Style of play is a whole another subject but if USNT team started taking players from certain style of play, then over time, the natural forces will migrate the system into what is desired.
The LA Galaxy did not pick anyone up in the college draft last year, and this could be a direct opinion about college soccer. College sports (as a vehicle to the pro leagues) have worked well with many of the "money" sports, but the relevance and impact of college soccer is still a hot debate, particularly with the US "general notion" that college implies a successful and prosperous career.
The influence of college soccer on MLS rosters is shrinking but that is offset somewhat by MLS expansion continually creating new jobs. It would be interesting to look at the MLS transactions wire in the post-season and see how many of the players being dropped - cut or not getting new contracts or not having their options picked up - were college players, particularly four-year players.
I mean, for the most part, the rules are pretty common for DI, DII, DIII, and NAIA. They all go by same rulebook, essentially. The biggest difference is DIII's spring. DI, DII, and NAIA all have pretty "active" spring seasons. All branches have similar competitive seasons with training restrictions. In my opinion, the college-to-pro success in the "money" sports is a direct relation to the length of the seasons. Football, basketball, and baseball all have a relatively similar playing season length from college to pro. Yes, college is a little shorter, but relative to the professional game it's much more similar than soccer is. I think it's 100% fair to say the college (amateur) season should be shorter. But, college soccer is nowhere close to a similar playing season length to its professional relative. As much as interscholastic and intercollegiate bodies emphasize their athletic competitions are not for development of professional athletes, everyone knows that is not true. They just need to accept that fact and utilize it better. Us in the soccer realm are the ones that understand it and fight for it, unfortunately, the authorities don't see it and there's not enough financial incentive to make any changes.
Interesting ... but I think LA did pick one guy in the 2016 draft, i.e., Josh Turnley from Georgetown who is now with the LA Galaxy II. See below from the MLS draft report from 2016. Of course, just picking one guy when LA could have picked at least a couple more certainly would appear to reflect at least somewhat of an overall perspective on the general utility, or lack thereof, of even the top college players from Arena's standpoint in terms of their soccer playing contribution immediately or even relatively soon following college, and to the LA specifically. Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 142 overall Josh Turnley Defender - Georgetown LA Galaxy acquired the pick from Chicago via a trade on 03/03/14 1253 overall Passed Round 4 1273 overall Excluded due to Round 3 pass
LA Galaxy picks in MLS SuperDraft from 1996-2013: http://www.lagalaxy.com/club/history/superdraft I don't really feel like going back through to look at all their individual stats, but there are some really recognizable and important Galaxy players on the list.
I hear your arguments, and I agree whole-heartedly. I do often hear from folks that college kids do not get enough time on the ball because of the short season. I do not know if this is entirely/universally true. If an MLS team does not make the playoffs, their season ends the first part of November. Only players with next year contracts can practice in the off-season (from the CBA). Thus, they have about three months to work on their own (unless they have that guaranteed contract, and that is rare for younger players). Depending upon the season and different competitions, this could be about 30 games per season (average of MLS or USL activities for a young player). A college player can get 20-25 games per fall season, and about six(?) decent scrimmages in the spring. Many of the better players will go to the PDL and get about 10 games. The official down time is a bit longer, but not by much. Captain practices are quite common. My summation/argument is that college playing time is not that different from a young person in the USL (or loaned down from the MLS club). College also has the benefit to weed out players susceptible to distractions or poor work habits, as well as permits a "diamond in the rough" that develops a bit later. I believe that Arena (or even JK in the past) could benefit the US soccer pool by at least embracing this methodology to a greater extent. Even JK had his son in college soccer, but never seemed like a big fan for the future of the sport.
I wonder why Arena and LA didn't use all their picks last year ... seems like they used to use them all. Even if these picks are just for PR purposes, and/or to at least give a kid a look and perhaps even a shot, however long, it seemed like a decent thing to do in drafting these college guys who have worked hard at soccer for essentially all their lives. But it a MLS coach thinks the whole thing is a waste of time and just basically a side-show, then taking a pass on drafting anyone would seemingly be a way to make that clear. Or perhaps it might have been because that last year the players available were not as good relative to the past in regards to what they would be facing in the MLS? That doesn't seem to make sense, as seemingly the players last year were just as good in this regard as recently, I would think.
I think this is not necessarily accurate. College season is barely August to beginning of November. That's hardly 3 months worth. They pack 20 games into 3 months. USL ran from March 25 to September 25, which is 6 full months. That's twice the length of a college season. They played 30 games in 6 months (5 games per month). MLS ran from March 6 to October 26 (7+ months); in that span played 34 regular season games. It is essentially the same structure as USL, only a month longer. What is more valuable than looking at length of competitive season, to me, is looking at training to competition. Playing 20 games in really 2.5 months for college limits MEANINGFUL training-to-competition ratio. This is what makes spring so obsolete for college soccer -- partial training, meaningless competition, and partial squads. It's the same reason why I don't incorporate non-championship seasons when talking about comparing all sports. All sports have somewhat meaningless non-championship seasons. They are meaningful for: academic success, health, and "time away." Sure, there's opportunity for growth, but everyone who's been an athlete knows how important training is that also comes with meaningful competition. It's hard to count PDL/NPSL opportunities too. There's roughly 120-140 teams (depends on the year) in those two leagues to support college players actually getting good opportunities. That said, these opportunities do exist with other sports too (baseball summer leagues, football is basically forced on campus all summer, etc.). It balances calendars from every sport. What is completely unbalanced is the meaningful training-to-competition season lengths.