Most jobs don’t need miracle workers. Competent hard-working coaches can get to somewhere near the middle of the conference standings and right around .500 at most any school. Beyond that it starts to be a conversation around resources, location, how good is the coach beyond competent, etc. But just a solid try-hard coach (not necessarily a genius) can make most any program decently competitive. We vastly underestimate the percentage of completely hopeless coaches running college programs. Just being routinely competent will vault a program over a lot of others stuck with those types
Mountain West soccer is going to be pretty bad next season when all the realignment comes into effect and probably for the long term. Shouldn't take a lot of heavy lifting to be a mid-table team in that conference going forward. SJSU were bad. UNLV's coach resigned and they weren't good last year. Wyoming and Colorado College were mid. GCU throws the most money at the transfer portal and will probably be the favored team. Is New Mexico going to be the same without their coach. Air Force was decent this season in conference. For the new teams, UC Davis were terrible this year with their new coach and their old coach taking all her best playerss to Oregon. Hawaii wasn't good after their miracle run last year. UTEP is as bad as the rest.
Nevada is the only program in the league without a true soccer-specific facility. Everyone else trains and plays in a proper soccer environment — Nevada shares a football stadium, that is problem 1. So no, being mid-table isn’t automatic. Nevada still starts behind everyone structurally. That’s why the next coach can’t just be someone who was average at an easy job, where “hard work” or no “heavy lifting” is required. Nevada needs someone who has proven success in tough situations — the type who got .500 or mid-table results at a place like The Citadel or Nicholls State where the deck is stacked against them and they think well outside the box to be successful.
https://hailstate.com/news/2025/12/...-coach-kevin-o-brien-eighth-head-soccer-coach O'Brien's name was mentioned here a few times as someone that could make the jump to P4. Lipscomb now open. Pretty impressive they moved this quick, Zimmerman was hired at Florida on Friday and just two days later Mississippi State has a new coach. Interesting enough, Lipscomb was the team that upset Mississippi State in the first round
OPEN: Akron - Maggie Kuhn (Akron assistant; INTERIM) St. Thomas (10/27) Texas A&M (retirement 10/28) Troy (10/30) Central Michigan (11/3) UNLV (11/4) American (11/10) Le Moyne (11/17) Fresno State (11/18) UCLA (11/24) Murray State (11/25) Washington State (12/1) Old Dominion (12/3) Nevada (12/4) Lipscomb (12/7) FILLED: Bellarmine - Steve Bornhoffer (Northern Kentucky assistant; ??/??-7/22) Central Arkansas - Derek Nichols (Central Arkansas associate head - 7/28) Long Island - Jim O’Brien (Mitchell College head; 7/11-8/6) Arkansas Pine Bluff - Emanuel Stephens (club coach; ??/??-8/7) UNC Charlotte - Sinead Byrne (INTERIM; April 2025-10/17) Northern Iowa - Alex Place Thomas (UNI interim, former Wartburg assistant and HS coach; INTERIM 6/20-11/10) New Mexico - Karley Nelson (UNM associate head; 11/5-11/12) McNeese State - Alexsis Cable (North Texas assistant; [2025 INTERIM] 6/17-11/20) Texas - Margueritte Bates (UCLA head; 11/24-11/25) Louisiana Tech - Matt Lodge (Murray State head; 11/10-11/25) Ole Miss - Todd Shulenberger (Washington State head; 11/10-12/1) Drexel - Shannon Grogan (Stony Brook associate head; retirement 10/28-12/3) USC Upstate - Sam Odell (Shepherd head; INTERIM 9/30-12/4) Southern Miss - Danny Owens (William Carey head; 11/5-12/5) Florida - Nick Zimmerman (Miss State head; 11/12-12/5) Mississippi State - Kevin O’Brien (Lipscomb head; 12/5-12/7)
Great hire! Good opening at Lipscomb too. Impressed with the speed of that hire and still amazed by the lack of pace by A&M and UCLA
I imagine both Mississippi schools understand they are probably among the least desirable in the P4, rivaled only by some Big 12 locations. Moving quickly and pouncing on coaches ready to move up a level is a big part of the those AD’s jobs.
Trev is the typical meathead football AD. He was schooled by Del Conte on the Schlossnagle hire and didn't fire Earley after this past season despite a minimal buyout. Got schooled again by Del Conte over Bates when she put feelers out at the beginning of the season. Ole Miss AD stopped him from hiring Beard and they settled on McMillon. Trev couldn't even get all their boosters aligned for basketball NIL, so they had to hit up an SFA booster for NIL cash. A&M was stupid for giving him a contract extension for Elko's success and Trev fancies himself as a future conference comissioner.
NIL amounts some schools are giving, TCU for top recruits was offering $10,000- $20,000 per player on top of their full ride. Not for all players, but for the top recruits or players, that's a good amount of savings they can put in their bank for a college kid per year.
Yea curious on what NIL people are seeing. I assume that 10-20k range is what most of the top recruits at some schools are seeing or is there more being thrown around by a Texas Tech like school.
10-30 is normal for top players coming out of the club game. Your top older players on a team are getting in excess of $50k at a few select schools.
Thank you for this. Very helpful to understand how things are structured. Any UCLA gossip? Heard they were zooming last week apparently. They seem to be dragging along too, hope not another A&M?
If I am not mistaken, some present contracts are tied to National Championship Match as "The End of the Season", so there could be a lot of movement after tonight. Then again, I could be 100% wrong!
Well, it's $0-$75k. The vast majority of D1 women's soccer programs are still operating with $0 NIL/revenue share. Some kids in those programs will get checks based on cost of attendance and/or academic progress, but most programs are still not offering any actual NIL and/or revenue share for women's soccer.
Pedantic, but since $0 is no NIL.... You would have to assume it is a big advantage to those who do offer it. One of the reasons I no longer follow the College game as closely as I used to.
Yeah, true... but I think most people assume there is far more NIL/revenue share in women's soccer than there actually is. Even limiting the conversation to Division I, only a very small percentage of players are signed to NIL/revenue share deals of any amount
Bumping this to get the conversation back on track... Beyond the Texas A&M job, I am surprised to see St. Thomas still open. I know they are relatively new to Division I, but I feel like it could be an attractive job, no? No idea on scholarships, operating budget, salaries etc., but being based in Minneapolis-St. Paul and a potentially high ceiling makes me think they could get some decent candidates.
Tennessee should have hired O'Brien 4 years ago when Pensky left for FSU. Instead, the athletic director took the easy, lazy approach and hired the Vols longtime goalie coach/assistant with no experience who has been out of his depth.
Did he apply and or have an interest in going to Tenn. If not then hard to blame the AD for not hiring him.
Tennessee went 12-4-3, 6-2-2 in the SEC. #3 seed with an unlucky draw vs UNC in the first round. Their AD is more than fine with Joe Kirt at the helm there
Yea, I know it was the best season he's had by far--and yet the team was really finding ways to win in the first half of the season despite a weak attack, and it was pretty clear that it was going to become a problem, and it did: The Vols went 4 games in the back half of the season without a goal in run of play (and only 1 goal total), and then lost their first game in the SEC tourney and their first game in the NCAA--neither surprising. Kirt has one win in 4 NCAA appearances--and that was.a lucky win. The two previous seasons UT had a losing SEC record but managed to squeeze into the NCAA tourney. In his first year, Kirt inherited a team that had won 20 games the previous season (Pensky's last), and that had won the SEC tourney and won 2 or 3 games in the NCAA tourney. It had nearly every starter back--10 of 11--including 3 ALL SEC players--including Taylor Huff (now a starter in the NWSL), Jordan Fusco (gets minutes in the NWSL with San Diego) and Claire Rain--outstanding defender. Kirt took that team, messed with it needlessly---moving players from positions at which they'd excelled to new positions and inserting players who were not good into the lineup. Upshot: A 20-win team devolved to an 11-win team that was a mess by end of season, losing its first SEC tourney game and first NCAA game. Telling. Huff and Rain transferred, Fusco stuck it out another year and then transferred. Telling. I could go on...Recruiting carries the program. The Vol AD doesn't care much about soccer.