Here's a top five: 1. Saint Louis University BILLIKENS! 2. Indiana University Hoosiers 3. University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Bruins 4. University of Virginia Cavaliers 5. Leland Stanford Jr. (Stanford) University Cardinals I would say this is a composite list compiled through past AND recent history. This is a good indicator of the NCAA's All-Time top 5 college soccer programs.
Also, since he didn't say men's or women's soccer you would have to go with University of North Carolina. Which has pretty much owned the women's game and even one a national title with the men.
Historically there were a handful of schools that finished at the top year after year. These schools posted great records because they seldom ran into serious competition until the College Cup. Over the last 10 years a number of schools, especially private schools, have taken steps to become top tier programs. Examples would be St. Johns, Notre Dame, Santa Clara. As a result the handful of dominant programs is now more like 15 to 20 schools all of which are serious contenders to win the College Cup.
San Diego State seemed to have been good back in the day. A lot of people played for that team. Most notably Eric Wynalda and Marcelo Balboa. Allen Hokins went to SDSU too! But he's an announcer now.
Hey, SMU is a perennial contender, don't leave them out. I believe they are ranked number 1 at the moment as well.
at one time i would agree that st louis university was one of the best. they have not had the top recruits going there lately from st louis but those players are going outside the state
If you're looking for great coaching, it's got to be South Carolina. Only there can a player get BERSONIZED.
College soccer is hard to rank the perennial programs right now would probably be: (in no order here) Indiana, Maryland, UCLA, St. John's, Duke, Virginia; although down here we hate cavaliers. Up and coming are probably Duke, who has an awesome assistant doing all their recruiting, South Florida, Who's coach, george kiefer is probably the most underrated coach in america, also northwestern who went from doormat of the big ten to being a respectable side with gerardo alvarez and there host of others. Also look for the Big Ten too be a factor in the college game for a while they have arguably the best talent playing there in the US. And programs taking a dive for the worse are probably SLU, who has shown that they can't win under a coach who has no clue what the hell is going on, and San Francisco who used to be a contender from the 70's to the mid 90's. My my my how this game changes.
SLU just had one bad year. Of course, we can't ALL live up to the current standard of the Hoosiers, but the Billikens are still one of the nation's best.
Florida International University they play a great schedule and are moving into a much better conference. They play all the big boys during the year. This year they played UNC,Wake, SMU, St.Johns, South Florida, Hartwick,and South Carolina and while they lost a few of those all the games were entertainig and close all the way up to the end. They haven't gone deep into the playoffs in a few years but they also had to deal with the brief suspension of the program while it was brief it did have an affect on recruiting but look out they have some big time kids coming in next year.
I only clicked on this thread assuming, based on the title, it could only be about University of Maryland. In fairness there are lots of choices (and bias).
How in God's name does Creighton not even come up in this discussion? And yet we still hear about SLU as one of the colleges that should be on this "list of best colleges" Give me a break.
IU, Maryland, Wake, UVA, UCLA are my top 5. IU , UVA and UCLA have been producing over the long haul, while Wake and Md have come on really strong in the last few seasons.
I would say the two dominant powers in college soccer are Indiana and Maryland. Everyone else is a step down.
To all the SLU fans who read these boards: if your school is one of the "best in the nation" where are the titles and players. Granted SLU has produced a lot of talent and won a lot of games. I'm not knocking that they are probably my second favorite team in college. But, to be the best you need a coach that brings in more than four kids a year and they need to stay past their freshmen year to make an impact. The team hasn't won a title in 30+ years. This is why i think the team in SLU is on the downfall.