I mean no disrespect but really?? You think it's easy to get suburban club soccer kids to go to a rural State school most people can't even spell correctly in Boone NC? When the best season you'll ever have is getting whacked by UNC or Duke in the first round? (okay, that's true for half of D1) Highpoint mortgaged their entire campus to fix it up and make it seem almost like a resort so kids will stay on campus. I kinda disagree with that strategy but at least it is a strategy...that includes a steak house and hot tubs! Many schools like App St, many in rural areas, have gone the international route in soccer. More lately on the women's side but the men have been doing it for years. Many of those kids love American colleges in any town. As this list of openings expands, App St keeps falling down it - imho. There is no Target within 50 miles of Boone so my wife ain't moving there... Reality bites.
Yeah, App State is a tough gig. Very hard to recruit quality American soccer players there. Us Oldies might look at the mountains and scenery and go 'wow!', but high school kids coming from elite club backgrounds in developed metropolitan areas? Their favorite stores aren't there, the wifi sucks, and culturally it's a backwater. That's not even taking into account the hand-painted front yard signs threatening civil war and the confederate flags you're going to see within a mile of campus. ETSU, in largely the same boat culturally, gets around all this with a combination of internationals and local kids, and while they haven't set the world on fire, they're usually near .500 and reasonably competitive. You're not going to get a lot of PDA, SoCal Blues, or Michigan Hawks players at places like this, so you have to get creative.
My daughter visited HPU, and I must have said "this is ridiculous" a dozen times on the tour and gave out a hearty WTF when they showed us the steak house. The whole experience seemed fake and manufactured. Amazing facilities, and I am sure the student athletes get a great education there, but it just wasn't for us.
It's crazy, because that place in the 90s looked like a community college that had been closed for three years. It was a dump. It's almost like they over-corrected.
I mean I think you answered your own question. Of course any of the really good local talent is gonna go to UNC, Duke, Wake Forest or NC State. App State will never be competing with Power 5 programs for talent. But I don’t see why they can’t be competitive in conference for titles (which is the ceiling of aspirations for most D1 programs). If the expectations are realistic for the App St. program, I don’t think it’s crazy to consider it a good gig. Maybe especially appealing to an aging veteran looking to get out of a high stress Power 5 job. Plus Boone has changed a lot lately (for the better).
ok let us know when that happens lol. The assistants are new almost every season. Why? Because the salary isn't liveable for long, and Boone is too far from the mega NC youth clubs that will pay a second salary to college coaches. This is an entry-level HC kind of job.
Mid-tier Big South team who gets most of their wins every season against the dross that is 80% of the Big South and never competes at the top with High Point, Campbell, and Radford. They got a surprising home win over Campbell this season but otherwise the same old story: beat D2-level Big South teams, lose to the others and also a bunch of non conference games. He's also told people he is close to getting his pension and is pretty much set at Longwood.
Might to recheck your data on that one…Longwood has finished in the top three in five of their seven years since joining the Big South.
Top 3 in 5 of 7 years?! Wow. I think that was the whole point. That's not good enough to be considered a candidate to move up to one of these P5 jobs like KY or MD. I just looked at Longwood's social media and website for signing day - nothing. If any Virginia HCs are worthy of moving up it would be the coaches at ODU or VCU or even Highpoint. Teams that actually win regular season titles and/or conference tournaments.
Let's look a bit closer at this data and see what it takes to finish 3rd in the 11-team Big South, which includes Hampton (RPI 341), USC Upstate (361), Presbyterian (331), Winthrop (275), Charleston Southern (248), Gardner Webb (281), and UNC Asheville (276). That's seven teams. That leaves four. Longwood finished 3rd this year and got crushed by High Point twice. That's not 'competing at the top' for me. They've never WON the Big South. I would think that would be a minimum requirement for a Big South coach to get a bigger job. On a more positive note, I agree with Eddie that the staffs at ODU and VCU have done a lot with only average resources. VCU's end of season collapse this year was really perplexing, but overall they've become a really good mid-major. ODU played NC State and Duke very tough and handled their conference. Angie always has her team prepared tactically, and they battle like hell. She'd be a great hire imo.
OPEN UK Maryland Austin Peay Tulsa (interim - Jim Rhein) Troy (interim - Nicole Waters) Villanova USC Upstate Missouri State (retired) Idaho State Oral Roberts Morehead State Bellarmine Loyola Marymount Saint Francis Wisconsin Green Bay Appalachian State Georgia Southern Illinois Baylor Filled Louisiana Tech (Steve Voltz - previous interim) Pacific (Danesha Adams and JJ Wozniak - previous interims)
Would make sense. Both he and his wife have strong Atlanta ties. From their website… “Besides being a rock-star father to his four boys, Paul Jobson’s favorite former role was his position leading operations and development for the Atlanta Beat of the WUSA league. This is where he met his future bride, Marci (Miller) Jobson who was playing for the team. The power duo married in August 2004 and began their coaching and training dynasty together. As an All-State soccer player from Salem High in Georgia, Paul continued to flourish at Presbyterian College (PC) in South Carolina and was a member of the soccer squad which made…” Will be interesting to see if their unique coaching style of mixing Jesus and soccer makes the trip with them (if this is indeed the case).
Pretty surprised by this… not sure he would leave Baylor for UGA, a lot of work to do at UGA and already the program rolling at Baylor. Interested to see where he turns up and who goes to Baylor
What about the Baylor coach to Kentucky? They need a person who can rebuild and he seems to fit that? Like GA, KY has the $$ available to make this move.
The timing doesn't quite make sense for him to go to Georgia or Kentucky. It would be really weird for him to resign from Baylor in advance of being announced at Georgia. It is possible but I wouldn't count on it. More than likely he is done with College coaching. (For the time being anyway)