I don’t buy that weather is the factor that holds Syracuse back. Men’s soccer there won a national championship recently there and other outdoor teams like field like field hockey, women’s lacrosse, and men’s lacrosse are competitive at a national level. Cornell has done quite well in men’s soccer and Colgate women’s soccer down the road has done well at the mid major level before falling off in recent years due to a lackluster hire. They may never get the best US players or even Canadians in which case go international. Have to do the work and find your niche. But don’t let weather be an excuse when other outdoor teams there are thriving.
I understand where you’re coming from and I don’t necessarily intend to defend the current staff at Syracuse with this post, but you make a lot of false parallels here. As it pertains to men’s soccer, there are FAR few teams and a far deeper player pool to recruit from, period (i.e. No SEC or Big 12 on the men’s side). The reason why no northern team other than Penn State has been consistently nationally relevant in years is because there are so many options in the south and west for the top women’s domestic and international players. I find it incredible when a school like Pitt (or even Notre Dame, for that matter) can ever compete at the top of a southern-centered league like the ACC. The other comparisons with lax and field hockey are similarly incongruent. Lacrosse is a northeastern sport and has scarcely spread beyond the Baltimore-to-Long Island corridor. And Field hockey only has 82 teams in all of D1. Much much easier to compete in those sports.
Pitt, Penn St, Boston College, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio St, Minnesota, and some of the Ivy's all have shown some level success in women's soccer within the last decade. Weather somehow doesn't affect them from having success. Plenty of northeast kids that want to go northeast schools.
You are correct about several of those schools, but the vast majority of them are having success against other cold-climate schools (i.e. Big 10, Ivy League). Please correct me if my quick lookup has errors, but out of that list of very very good and accomplished programs you just provided, they have combined for only FOUR elite-8 appearances over the past 5 years (FIVE if you account for all Big 10 teams since Rutgers made it in 2021). Throw BYU in there as a nationally successful cold weather team and that raises the total to 8 out of 40 elite-8 teams in the past 5 years. That is spot on 20%. All of this is to say - maybe you’re right. 20% is NOT an insignificant number of teams in the elite-8. Or perhaps I’m right, since 80% is a strong majority. But that’s also not the only nor best way to measure national success, in all likelihood. I still think it matters in recruiting, but every recruit has their own preferences!
Your bar of success is making the Elite Eight. I am pointing out a program that has won 3 conference games in 53 matches (54 once they lose to Pitt tomorrow).
You are correct, those two metrics of success are very different. Let me remind you again that it is not my intention to defend Syracuse (or any other) staff. The thread started in the first place discussing whether or not cold climate was an obstacle in recruiting and if it was fair to draw parallels to other sports. My claim is that cold weather does affect Womens soccer recruiting in a negative way to a greater degree than the other sports mentioned. I used the national tournament as the broadest example of teams from different geographical regions competing against one another. Weather is one of many factors in recruiting, and I contest that it’s a large enough factor to make it difficult for colder schools when they’re competing for recruits directly against warmer weather peers. I certainly don’t claim that it’s impossible or that elite-8 success is the only metric of winning. We’ve taken up too much room on this forum though. So we can start a new subject on this exact issue if there is interest in continuing the discussion.
I'd maybe liken Syracuse (ACC) to Purdue (B1G) more than Pitt. Pitt has got very established successful names in soccer on the mens and women's side running the show there, and it's a pretty vibrant small city. The reality is top recruits from the West or the South are not going to want to go to school in Syracuse. If you're a top player and want to stay in the Northeast or Great Lakes region, there are just better options from a soccer and location/school perspective. Notre Dame, Boston College, Pitt, Michigan, Michigan St., Rutgers. Maybe even UConn once again? That said, it does seem like Syracuse has improved this year. A lot of kids these days (from across the country) have a weird fascination with Southern college culture, which I guess bodes well for the SEC and Southern ACC schools.
I heard she was not at BU's game on Saturday. The person who told me didn't know the why. Obviously, it could be as simple as being very sick, but it adds to your question.
They struggled during pre season with no wins but seem to have recovered in conference play undefeated thus far. Maybe coach got over aggressive with players during the loses.
Yes that. The rumor I heard is pretty serious and wouldn’t want to inaccurately perpetuate it. Would be NWSL type of issues from a couple years ago if so. Not good.
That word "undefeated" gets thrown around often. Boston U is 0-5 vs teams with RPI under 100 and just had draws to very average Navy and Lafayette to put them in 3rd place in the Patriot. They have only won 2 games on the season and those are vs below avg Patriot teams. The Patriot has great academic schools you can easily argue, but not always great women's soccer. MAYBE a 2 bid conference this year with Army and Bucknell looking like favorites. Everyone knows in this business- the kids are really in charge. That has maybe always been true in college sports but kids (and parents) have figured out how to push buttons and go after coaches for sure. NO IDEA what the facts are in this case but watching it closely.
While I agree that kids hold too much sway in some ways, this is not really that. As mentioned by @allaboutwsoc, the allegations that are out there are not good. Wins and loses won’t even pass anyone’s lips in this discussion/investigation. Also, a PL school doesn’t make mid season moves for W-L records. (BTW, I can tell you as PL fan for decades that there is no maybe. They are a 1 bid league in women’s soccer and most other sports. It has always been that way, but can appreciate you trying to be nice and give benefit of the doubt.)
I would probably adjust your statement to say wealthy parents are in charge with anything college related and not just sports. Don't like administrators, get rid of them or threaten pledges and giving. But hey, coaches should know this comes with the gig otherwise go coach an ECNL team or two.
I don't disagree with that take. If you could measure the volume and intensity of emails coming in to the AD and somehow categorize who they are from.... that may be one of the best indicators of a coaches future. AD's either have folks on the inside of a team culture and do find out the truth OR they just don't want to keep hearing about the squeaky wheel that has become their (WS or other) team right now. "everyone has a boss" is one of my favorite cliche's. This does work "both ways" sometimes too of course. I know a D1 school that actually gave their HC job to a local coach (avg in D3 at the time) who's father was a big donor to the school. Had their name on several things on campus.
What is being mentioned at Boston University definitely has nothing to do with on field performance. Coming down to professional/ethical lines and if they were crossed (or not). Waiting to hear more once an official statement is put out but has nothing to do with wins or losses. Casey Brown still listed as head coach so have to assume it's a process of what needs to be looked into and then go from there.
Do some ADs just accept mediocrity for long periods of time? Arguably Miami OH in the MAC should be at the top of the conference and get the best MAC recruits given the campus, academics etc. She's in her SEVENTH year. Aware of various recruits interested in the program due to family connections / proximity to home / loved the school who wound up committing to far superior teams. Assuming not on the hot seat because school just doesn't care enough about women's soccer. Too bad Nate Lie didn't land there as HC given his connections to the school; he would have killed it like he did at Xavier.
Nate probably had the chance to go to Miami after Kramig retired. Kramig was Nate’s coach when Miami had a men’s team and Nate was an assistant for him a bit for the women’s prior to going to Cincinnati. Why did he stay at Cincinnati instead of going to Miami? It more than likely had to do with money. I don’t believe Miami is paying much and he certainly wouldn’t coach there over Kansas. You mentioned academics and while Miami’s are solid, it is no longer the preeminent state school in Ohio for academics. That honor now goes to Ohio State. I’m not disparaging Miami’s academics at all. They’re fine. That said, Miami can’t really claim best public education in Ohio anymore as its “calling card.” Also, for as long as I can recall, Miami never recruited Ohio well. I haven’t checked the roster but there are probably more local players there now than when Kramer (and Lie) were there.
Have lurked on here for many years. Created an account just to reply to this one. Think some of your info is outdated. Sure, may not be considered the “premier” academic school but still rates very high and not like they would ever get same athlete as OSU. They should always be able to draw those a tick below that level. They used to. As far as drawing from Ohio, actually, they used to a lot but recently less. Not from lack of local interests an other poster said. Also still have many local kids from surrounding programs. The school does well in many athletic programs and for sure expect to perform in soccer. Pay is also very solid and public info. Was a mess when she took over, got it going in right direction but last 2 year trend is not good. Aligns with loss of an assistant. This year will cause some changes of some form. Heat is for sure way up.
Touché. Those are all good points and to be fair, I am not as familiar with the program as I once was. I have contacts in Ohio, mostly in the north part of the state, but I live in Chicago so I am not always up with everything, Also to reiterate, Miami's academics are fine. It is an excellent school and I never intended to disparage the school in that regard. I have a few acquaintances that are graduates of Miami and two nieces that are also graduates. All are doing well and have nothing negative to say about the school. I only mentioned the academics because at one time I believe that Miami was generally considered to be the top public university on Ohio and even was denoted as a "public Ivy." From what I know, OSU is now generally considered the top school and I only brought up the comparison due to BigSoccerMama mentioning Miami's academics. It really isn't pertinent to the discussion and I probably should have left it alone. The basis for my comments about not drawing many Ohio kids was probably based on how it was under Kramig. He did get some Ohio kids but largely shunned those Ohio kids that were from Miami's backyard, meaning the Cincinnati and Dayton areas. That puzzled me since that area does have a lot of talent in most years. After I posted I did look at the roster and sure enough, there are not many local recruits. IIRC, under Kramig Miami hit Illinois, particularly Chicagoland, pretty hard in his recruiting and toward the end of his time at Miami started bring in some kids from Canada. Regardless of all of that, I am not sure what administration expects from the program. It's a MAC school and for some of those schools as long as the kids in the non-revenue sports are graduating, staying out of trouble, and at least making a plausible effort on the field and in the classroom, that's good enough. Meanwhile, though, Buffalo, Ohio, Western Michigan, and even NIU are having really solid seasons and I am sure that the administrations of those schools are happy with that. Lastly, I don't believe that Lie wanted to go to Miami when it was open and to BigSoccerMama's point, I don't believe that he would have brought the same level of prominence to Miami that he did to Xavier.
@QWERTY1 thanks for the solid post and for taking all of 2 seconds to think of your BS account name I think you're spot on about the Miami academic rep and of course there is very little crossover in recruiting with the Big10 and MAC generally. Maybe other than trying to keep local and alumni-connected kids at your school. Not sure this happened here but so many newer younger coaches "over shoot" their recruiting targets and think they'll go to the ecnl national events and just pick kids out. Seeing the forest for the trees maybe is the cliche. or the gift horse... I knew a kid that played for Kramig and her emails to me about her experiences were some of the worst I've read. Apparently he literally tried to run the team into the ground one spring to drive kids off. This player said she was actually happy to be injured at one point and now has terrible memories of her college soccer days.....not good. There is no perfect coach out there but I can't believe they named the field for him...
More for educational value than anything else, here are two charts showing Miami OH's history. The first shows its rank history. The second shows its non-conference opponents' rank history. If you consider from 2017 (prior coach's last year) through 2023, you can see that a good bit of the team's rank history changes may be due to how it has done its non-conference scheduling. Perhaps last year and this the coach was over-optimistic when scheduling. Also, the rank history chart may suggest that Miami OH had a good period around 2012-2014 but since then simply has reverted to the mean. This fits with the idea that teams, due to a lot of factors, have a natural resting place that is very hard to change permanently.
Miami OH has a great academic name. Known as being a public Ivy, which means you can get a great education and it comes at a reasonable cost, especially in a day and age where people are questioning why they would pay $70K to get a degree in liberal arts or whatever. Not sure why they haven't done better. They won't get kids Ohio St can get, but there shouldn't be any overlap there anyhow. Ohio is a pretty good soccer state so even if they get the best second their kids there they should do well. They're in the same conference as Toledo, Akron, Kent St, Bowling Green, and Ohio so should get kids over them. Buffalo does well typically in the MAC and things will get even more difficult when a solid UMass program joins next year. The thing we don't know is how they are supported. If they have a competitive budget to work with and good scholarships $ they should be able to get solid Ohio/midwest kids and then coach them up.