That's some tough scheduling for Iona. My guess is they needed the $ from guarantees. Costs a lot of $ to hire Rick Pitino, and then when he left basketball got the guy that had the success at FDU. That is the only reason to be scheduling Power 5 teams like that, but if the administration told them they needed to get some $ that's one way to do it (and I have no idea if that's the case). I'd be careful calling BC and Syracuse bottom feeder athletic programs. BC was making deep runs in the NCAA Tournament before Lowe decimated the program. Syracuse just won the national title in men's soccer last year, and is always competitive in lacrosse and other Olympic sports. I bet a good number of the kids committed to those programs for 2024 and 2025 will end up at different spots after those coaches are let go and they get snagged elsewhere. Any idea what's going on at George Washington? Sarah Barnes did so well there, she should have stayed instead of trying to get Miami going which will always be a struggle. Demko did well the first couple of years there with Branes' kids, and since then seems like the bottom has fallen out. Also crazy to see how far Davidson has fallen too in one year with a coaching change. Davidson like a similar situation to Colgate, how a good program sinks when a new underqualified staff comes in.
Davidson always seems like it has underachieved a bit and I don't get it. It is such a high quality school academically and it seems like it should be able to attract some quality players that are looking for a quality education. For a D1 school it is very small, somewhere around 2000 students, so I don't know what funding for the soccer program is like. I do know that as a whole, the school is quite generous with aid.
The players always love the assistant--that should be a given. The asst.never takes the heat for lack of playing time or any other decision that is made (formation, style of play etc etc) ...Asst's always think they know more than the head coach (I probably did when I was an asst at least after a few years but I never once threw my HC under the bus--especially always had their back in front of the team).. always harder once they are actually the head coach.
Davidson is a tough place. The institution has decent aid they only have a few scholarships. Tough travel restrictions--you're not allowed to miss classes so flying at tough times etc... Also they graduated a lot of good players last year and around 12 players overall. She is a young coach but lets give her some time to see how it goes--she's doing as well as the last coach overall. Coach Denton who just left the program was 2-14 in both '17 and '18 and were 4-10 in '21. He had 4 losing seasons there and only a few winning ones (as far as I can tell.....).
Everyone wants to be the head coach until the time comes to 'be the head coach'. *You give more bad news than good *More players dislike you than like you *If your honest, your too blunt and demeaning *If your to soft, your a push over *If you listen to players then you show favorites *If you don't listen, you'll be accused of degrading players Not everyone is cut out to be a head coach, its a very lonely place alot of the time. I feel in college soccer alot of assistants want to be head coaches because the head coach doesn't give them a say in 95% of the day to day running of the program. So the assistant's mind set is, I might as well do my own thing.
This is true, but sometimes ADs establish parameters that coach-established schedules must meet, in terms of the difficulty of the schedule. In addition, from a ranking perspective, if rankings matter to the teams in a conference, it is wise for the conference teams to have guidelines for team scheduling parameters.
I think this is a good analysis. Davidson was a declining program, notwithstanding it had what appeared to be a surprisingly good year in 2022. I say "appeared to be" because Davidson also played its weakest non-conference schedule ever in 2022. Where the team is this year is right about where it was in 2021 and a little earlier. So it may look like they are having a bad year this year, but based on the years preceding 2022, they really are not.
Good connection between the types of players that STU is now attracting and the drop-offs by UMD & Winona. The Tommies' coaching staff is going to have to start targeting the top tier, in-state players that don't want the big school experience at Minnesota and have been going to Mankato instead. I wasn't thinking that NDSU didn't deserve to be on the hot seat list but given how they're now 0-2-3 in Summit League I think there might be some additional pressure to beat UND on Sunday. It looks like 5 tournament spots are pretty much sewn up, but the #6 spot is still a possibility. A win would potentially give them enough points to move ahead of KC who still has to play Denver, Omaha, and both SD schools.
Great post and this is an insight to some of the obstacles of head coaching. And after a few decades I will say it is getting harder as athletes have changed.
Some of these are terrible takes on figuring out if a program is underfunded and trying to piece by comparing it to the mens program or some other sports at the school. You want to look at a school if they’re fully funded? Look at the amount of staff. See if they have a director of operations, see if they have a fourth assistant coach? Now compare it to every school in the conference. Look at stadiums, look at their social media, see if they have elaborate video post showcase communications staff, if they have video flying private. Just the other day App state posted a video of them on a private charter plane. Heck even some of the womens program that do great have more on staff then the mens program and vice versa.
There was a study done by University of Hartford a few years back with the funding of each program in America East, MAAC and NEC. 3 smaller conferences. Its not hard to figure out which program has what and the top funded are almost always the top programs in conference. Is it public knowledge on the power 5 conferences ?
I think a major point is, if the school can recruit and produce competitive men's teams, its pretty likely they can do it for the comparable women's team. There is almost always going to be exactly the same or more funding for the women's team than men's in comparable Olympic sports like soccer. They also almost always use the same field and overall facilities. Now, while there is more scholarship funding for women, many D1 coaches would say the pool of truly "Elite" female US players is dwindling. Various reasons for that can be discussed and debated. And while there are internationals to help supplement the pool of available players on the women's side, there still aren't nearly as many as on the mens side. However, elite women's players aren't skipping college or signing homegrown contracts or going overseas at anything like the rate that younger male players are. So there are trade offs but comparing similarly funded teams like Syracuse and Maryland for example, I would say is somewhat fair. Recalling there isn't even men's soccer in the SEC or Big12, so all the "soccer money" and investment is going only to the women's team at those well funded places. But it is still very true that you aren't going to see many Marshall type teams win titles with 95% Foreign players on the women's side. Marshall played one American when they beat the Indiana team in 2020 that played only one International. It was the US pay to play model on display. Sorry for the detour....
Okay Eddie, lets go off of your similar funded comparison of Syracuse and Maryland. Marylands women soccer staff, 6, 4 coaches, 1 ops, 1 analytics. Syracuse, 3 coaches. Social media, a lot more edited and produced video content for Maryland than Syracuse. Tons of other programs in those similar shoes. The Men’s game is different than the Womens. There are about 200 mens and 340 womens. The mens game is HEAVILY international and juco based at the top level more than the womens p5 level. The game in recruiting is different. The comparison of mens and womens is far off. Its not relevant anymore. The game has changed. If I’m looking at recent winners of mens to 2010, Akron, Indiana, Syracuse, Marshall, Maryland have won a natty on the mens side and have done poorly on the womens side those same years. Its a different game. Flop that around women national champions with bad mens side, maybe a UCLA? But they’re slowly climbing back? And a Santa Clara. The comparison to the mens side has to phase out. If you’re comparing programs on funding and speculating. Go off of the facts you can tell, look at staff, look at social media and see the videos they are editing, flights they are taking, look to see if theyve taken international trips, stadium renovations etc.
One thing that might be relevant in using men's success as a measure for women at the same school is geographic location as it relates to weather. I would have thought Syracuse would be at a recruiting disadvantage due to late Fall weather. I recall playing at Cornell in the snow (and MIT in the sleet). It was not fun. But, if the Syracuse men can win a College Cup, maybe the weather cannot be used as an excuse for how the women do. Other than that, I do not know enough to say whether it is fair to compare how a school's men do to how their women do.
Recruiting on the men's side is so very different than recruiting on the women's side. The men's team at Syracuse is nearly half international. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of those players didn't even visit campus before committing to play there. On the women's side, they have only 4 internationals. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of the domestic players visited campus before committing. It can be easier to recruit talented international players to poor locations than it is domestic players.
I mean no disrespect but is this a drunk post?? I'm saying comparing the men's and women's programs at the same school with Syracuse and UMD as examples. Maryland men or women could never have 5 staff without the other gender program having the same. That is a fact and actually is in the law. Same budgets, conferences, overall support of athletics, athletic and campus facilities, location, academic reputation, quality of life for students. A full scholarship budget! These things matter. They matter to recruits which means they matter to prospective coaches as well and are highly similar between mens/womens teams in nearly every comparable sport at nearly every NCAA school. Anyone with any experience in college athletes knows they have to be. The big difference in those examples is in current/recent success or maybe history of success on the field when you compare the men and women's teams. I mentioned how recruiting is different for the genders and any decent coach should know where to find players that can help them. The debate about foreign players in US college sports is for another thread I hope. From your post: Size of staff? social media? video editing quality? what airplanes are used? international trips? What's your stadium renovation budget?? WHAT?? Really? I've never even heard of these questions being asked by a recruit in 20 years recruiting in all 3 NCAA Divisions! (caveat - keepers do want a good dedicated keeper coach) I don't know if you'll see these questions on anyone's "important questions for coaches" lists. If you want a positive example, what Waldum has done to make Pitt competitive is pretty amazing. I don't like his recruiting methods but they have the only plastic field in the ACC and he has made that a very difficult place to play.
A lot of this comes down to COACHING and also administration. Pensky took a bit to get Maryland going but eventually they became a Sweet 16 program. When Maryland let go of Jon Morgan, all their recruits went elsewhere because they took their time to hire somebody. Set them back years. Leone didn’t clean up the mess. Ryan Nemzer and her staff trying to fix it now. Pitt made an outstanding hire in Waldrum. They were always awful and now are capable of making deep runs in the NCAAs. Well done by the administration to pay the $ for a big hire. For Syracuse they’ve always been bad for the last 25 years. They don’t have a Waldrum caliber staff to get them out of the home. Would need a big name $ hire or someone with massive international ties to turn around that continuing shipwreck of a program.
I'm curious: Is Waldrum's salary higher than that of the established coaches at top women's programs?
We are through the 1st week of October. I’m guessing jobs will start opening as early as November. Anyone hearing anything? My guess is UWGB is going to be moving on from their head coach and that FGCU is retiring after the season.
There are problems everywhere my friend. UWGB is having a huge problem. Stetson is entering end of contract and having another awful season. St. Thomas is not happy with the progress after three years, especially losing to Kansas City. NDSU is Hanging on by a thread. FGCU is retiring. Arizona is getting hot, Creighton needs to change now. There are many, many more.