The current state of Women's D1 soccer

Discussion in 'Women's College' started by Tom81, Dec 4, 2018.

  1. Tom81

    Tom81 Member+

    Jan 25, 2008
    From my vantage point it is a case of the Haves and the Have Nots.

    You have about 6 programs that can legitmately be expected to compete for a
    Natty year in and year out.

    UNC, UCLA, USC, Stanford, FSU and maybe we throw Penn State in there.
    A few programs are trying to get there.
    Georgetown recently, UVA and Duke periodically, USCe.

    Am I missing anyone?

    Women's basketball is very similar with UConn, ND, USCe, Miss St, Baylor in
    the club.
    Louisville is trying to join the club.

    Stanford has a clear advantage with domestic recruits. USC and UCLA use their
    proximity to the talent, CC wins and solid academic resumes to compete. UNC uses its
    royal soccer history to stay there. Penn State, Not sure how to explain them. Were
    they a one hit wonder, or do they belong? Their upcoming recruiting class suggests
    they may belong.
    FSU counters domestic dominance of its national rivals with a heavy dose of
    international recruiting.

    As an FSU fan, I'm glad we've finally crashed that elite party. Hoping our 2nd natty allows
    us to win a couple more domestic recruiting battles. Jaelin Howell was one we won and boy
    do I love her. Future USWNTer IMO. She would fit well on the UNC team because she's
    a pit bull. (compliment to UNC, not a cut) I want to win a few more domestic recruits like her.
     
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  2. blissett

    blissett Member+

    Aug 20, 2011
    Italy
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I have noticed that, and that's one of the reason why I kind of follow FSU. I do wonder if Japanese players could somehow find a way into some elite College team in USA.

    Mami Yamaguchi had managed to do that, but later her career was ruined by injuries.

    Japan has a lot of domestic talents (as recently seen at U-17 WWC 2014 and U-20 WWC 2018, both won by Nadeshiko youth teams) and they would greatly benefit from international experience in an elite environment (that's what actually made Japan a WWC contender, when years ago Sawa and Miyama went playing overseas in USA). On the other hand, I guess there would be a lot of college teams that could benefit from the very technical players Japan can produce day in day out. :coffee:
     
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  3. Holmes12

    Holmes12 Member

    May 15, 2016
    Club:
    Manchester City FC
    #3 Holmes12, Dec 4, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2018
    Women's sports will always be haves and have nots due to DNA supply problems. Do we want to help fix the disparity? Limit the practices and time, offer the girl's a college life. My kid was recruited by names, opted out after id camp experiences, noting the current players @ the camps always looked unhappy. They even threw subtle warnings about getting mixed up into it. I have a lot of respect for a couple of coaches who were forthright about it, enabling "educated" decisions. She said 18-22 only comes once, went Greek and loves it. I was secretly hoping the regimens weren't out of control but they were, thus I couldn't dispute. Another interesting note is that her sorority played the field hockey girls in intramural dodge ball or kill ball or whatever the pc term is for it. She said the field hockey girls dismissively called them "skinny sorority girls"...under the surface, for a woman, that's wanton to be a "skinny sorority girl". Why do this to them? There's no TV, no NFL. Of course most will opt out...and thus, most coaches are canned after a single contract.
     
  4. MiLLeNNiuM

    MiLLeNNiuM Member+

    Aug 28, 2016
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wasn't Howell committed to UVA? I vaguely recall seeing her commitment 2-3 years ago on TDS.
     
  5. Tom81

    Tom81 Member+

    Jan 25, 2008
    Not sure. I just know that I hope FSU is able to get a few more domestic studs with Our recent success!
    Penn State has the number one class coming in according to top drawer. You must be happy :)
     
  6. chch

    chch Member

    Aug 31, 2014
    ask yourself why soccer is the only sport that explodes the roster from high school club (18) to college (~28)? If the NCAA capped roster size at 20 it would help US Soccer a lot (I know it's not their job to help US soccer). So many girls commit in 9th grade and end up as busts in college. If rosters were smaller coaches would wait longer to commit players, players would not commit in 9th grade and go somewhere and barely play, and later developing players would be able to have a chance. (someone might try to argue that they need bigger rosters for Friday/Sunday games, but even UNC really doesn't use more than 20 players in a weekend.) This system of expecting at least one-third of the kids to not have an impact/start for a season in college is weird.
     
  7. Tom81

    Tom81 Member+

    Jan 25, 2008
    FSU had six players out with injury by the end of the season. If we had a roster of 20, that means we would’ve been playing with three substitutes maximum at the end of the year.

    I do get your point. Maybe the number should be 24 for instance.
     
  8. chch

    chch Member

    Aug 31, 2014
    FSU only played 4 subs and UNC only 6 in an insanely physical game second of the weekend. Rosters in the 20-22 range should be fine. If a team is having 5 or 6 girls each year with season ending injuries they need to do something different. (like more hamstring work to prevent ACL tears).

    Anyway, the reason why US national team on the girls side has been atrocious below the Women's adult level is that 8th graders basically already are slotted to colleges and where they stand within the club. Little mixing of kids. Colleges than assume 0ne-third to one-half of these 9th graders will be busts, but eventually the stars are obvious to spot in later college, even for US national team scouts with myopia. This is my theory on US GNT suck-age but OK at adult level. If colleges were forced to not fill almost all their slots with 9th graders AND give later bloomers a chance would definitely improve the player pool. Easy way is if NCAA caps rosters at 20-22 OR not allow soccer scholarship to be split 4 ways or more.
     
  9. L'orange

    L'orange Member+

    Ajax
    Netherlands
    Jul 20, 2017
    RE roster sizes, UNC will be returning 20 players next year and is bringing in 11 freshmen--for a total of 31. That's a lot. I'm sure a few, or even more than a few are getting little to no money, but that's still a big roster and an example of the over-recruiting that we see with some if not a lot of programs.
     
  10. chch

    chch Member

    Aug 31, 2014
    I would assume that half the players from NCFC/CASL know they are unlikely to ever play meaningful minutes but may not have gotten into UNC on their own plus get to pay in state tuition so that's not so bad.
     
  11. karlmarx123

    karlmarx123 New Member

    Russia
    Oct 6, 2018

    At many schools coaches are actually asked to keep a larger roster for TitleIX purposes. Smaller does not make administrators happy. How about this trick. Have an open tryout and add players only to cut them once season begins. Or bring players into preseason and cut once season begins. Yep they now count for TitleIX numbers. Many school administrators actually ask coaches to do this
     
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  12. ntxsage

    ntxsage Member

    Apr 25, 2012
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    On the one hand we applaud these coaches for being "great recruiters", but OTOH we lament about over recruiting and bloated rosters. Can't have it both ways.

    The precedents some of these coaches are setting with recruiting early, recruiting already committed kids, and being increasingly willing to pull or modify verbals before NLI signing....troublesome.
     
  13. Eddie K

    Eddie K Member+

    May 5, 2007
    OK, you're getting called out -

    Please name a few of the "many schools" that encourage their women's coaches to recruit and then cut players purposefully to meet some gender equity expectation? Please do that.

    Anyone whose been around the college game very long knows there's "over recruiting" at every level (and with both genders). Some coaches are just crap recruiters and are hedging their bets. Some are at super popular schools and just trying to share the experience. Many large rosters you'll see are at the smaller privates who need kids paying tuition to keep the lights on. Many are told to keep a "quota" of players or to generate X number of paid apps each year. However, purposefully recruiting and then cutting kids is CLEARLY unethical and not even a logical or practical action to resolve any problem.
    And anyone who has studied Title IX knows that proportionality is only 1 of the 3 ways to comply with the law. Otherwise every pointy football school in the country would be breaking it.

    This forum is called BS and full of BS for sure but come on man....
     
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  14. chch

    chch Member

    Aug 31, 2014
    this is non sense. the men's soccer rosters are as big as the women's; the bloated soccer rosters are not title IX . Men have fewer scholarships than women yet roster sizes aren't statistically different. My point is basketball and volleyball have nearly identical club roster sizes as college team sizes; in soccer they blow them up cause 1) generally rich kids who can pay tuition so why not and 2) on the girls side committing to 9th graders leads to lots of busts. You totally missed my larger point though
     
  15. chch

    chch Member

    Aug 31, 2014
    Coaches will take as many players as they think might contribute even if it is only in practice. Soccer is a rich kid sport so they don't need scholarships. Think about why basketball for the US is so much more dominant than soccer on the worldwide level (and yes a lot of countries do play basketball (not as many as soccer). Anyway player development in the US would benefit if colleges had NCAA roster caps of 20-22 at D1. Actually amusing to read the NY Times article about committing to college than starting high school about girls soccer and coaches saying they know it's not good but everyone else does it.

    A good school could easily have 20 kids and scrimmage against the boys club team on the girls side. No need for 28 players.
     
  16. karlmarx123

    karlmarx123 New Member

    Russia
    Oct 6, 2018
    I have worked at six schools, three are D1. Of those three asked to increase roster size at all three for TitleIX. At two were told didn't care if those players stayed on roster after they counted for TitleIX. Fine if just cut them. Head Coach chose not to cut players added even though told it would be fine. Should have said some, not many, but it happens and I have heard it myself.
     
  17. Crazyhorse

    Crazyhorse Member

    Dec 29, 2007
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think Penn State definitely belongs in the upper tier of teams. I keep thinking that TAMU will break through and get to a college cup, but they always seem to stumble. I think Tennessee could be poised to take over the reigns from UF as the class of the SEC. As far as the current state of recruiting, USC, UCLA and Stanford have raked in an unbelievable amount of talent the last few seasons which has clearly affected east coast traditional powers, and I think one of those teams will win a title next season or the season after. WVU has had a good program for awhile now, they seemed to be the place for top Canadian talent, not sure of their current prospects, but they have a good head coach.
     
  18. Ingoldsby

    Ingoldsby Member

    Nov 12, 2014
    In my mind Stanford, FSU and UNC are in a different category with 2 championships each and 7, 6 and 4 final four appearances respectively in the past 10 years. You could argue for UCLA to be in that group but I don't think USC and Penn St come close in terms of year-over-year consistency. USC has only been to 1 final four and Penn St. 2 in 10 years (Duke has been to 3). Maybe they prove me wrong in the next couple of years but if USC and Penn St have had consistently great talent it hasn't resulted in consistently great results.
     
  19. MRAD12

    MRAD12 Member+

    Jun 10, 2004
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Ah, I remember when Notre Dame used to be in that ELITE talk for almost 20 years year after year.
    What has happened to that proud program is so sad.
     
  20. L'orange

    L'orange Member+

    Ajax
    Netherlands
    Jul 20, 2017
    It's tougher for ambitious comers in soccer, as in football, say, because the sport has a lot of players--11 starters. So a team realistically needs 15 players somewhere between solid and excellent to be a title contender, and that's hard. There are good teams that might 5-7 impressive players, but that's not enough to beat the big dogs who have twice that number; the challengers still have got weaker players who struggle when playing the elite. It certainly helps the California schools that California has more good young women's talent than any other state. Some top California prospects do come east to play, but the vast majority stay closer to home--and why not?

    In college football it's the usual suspects at the top most years. And the best players gravitate to the traditional top programs year after year, which is why even in basketball, which has only 5 starters and in which a couple of excellent players can transform a pretender into a contender, you still see the same names at or near the top most years. A number of challengers can and do climb the ladder--but getting to that top rung is damn difficult. Interestingly, I was shocked to see some genuine and seemingly unlikely upstarts in the men's soccer tournament. James Madison made it to the quarterfinals--and both (mighty) Lipscomb and Air Force (!) made it to the third round. Who knew?
     
  21. Crazyhorse

    Crazyhorse Member

    Dec 29, 2007
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It is puzzling, they seem to still get their far share of talent. ND was quite the thorn in FSU's side in Marks early tenure. Hanks wrecked us.
     
  22. ytrs

    ytrs Member+

    Jan 24, 2018
    Then you worked for very unethical administrators who are subverting Title IX laws.
     
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  23. Glove Stinks

    Glove Stinks Member+

    Jan 20, 2014
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    USC has 2 National titles and the current coaching staff is only on their 4th recruiting class (all of which are Top5 ranked)
     
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  24. Carolina92

    Carolina92 Member

    Sep 26, 2008
    Santa Clara, Portland, Nebraska, Florida and UConn used to be up there too. Santa Clara is coming back. Notre Dame can still come back.
     
  25. Carolina92

    Carolina92 Member

    Sep 26, 2008
    Talking about how only a handful of schools dominate at the very top year and year out, how many active coaches have ever taken their programs (current or prior) to a College Cup? Less than 20?
     

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