This is a great list, too bad the men's side doesn't do anything like this... Top Drawer is hit and miss...
Yes, cbg2004 ... We really do see it the same way. I'm amazed that our top 4 are identical and that we agree on 8 of the top 10 for 2010. The reason I didn't pick Duke as a top 10 is that they only have two players on national pools (neither recently traveling with the national teams.) As I said in my previous post, the top three players for the quality of the class, and I didn't think that duke was that strong for 2010. I live near Durham and Chapel hill and have seen Molly play several times. She certainly is the top dog in her high school and club environment, but compared to frosh I see at UNC, there is a big gap. As to LSU, it seems that they've recruited most of the Region III ODP team. All 9 (count 'em!) of their recruits are from the Region III team! I did not rank them a top-10 2010 class because they have no players currently in a national pool. All this being said, any ODP player has the potential to blossom into a great Division I performer. The proof will be in the pudding in about 14 months.
Yes, Indeed. After a rather weak 2010 class, UC Santa Barbara has joined some of the other California universities by jumping right on the low hanging fruit for 2011. While high school juniors can't "sign" for over a year yet, UC-SB has already apparently snared three verbals from players with national pool experience. However, they are not the ones currently playing on the national age division teams. The very top players will not verbally commit until after the 2009 season is over.
Are you sure about that? The "very top players" get full scholarships and therefore don't have to wait for anything. I would think they would be the ones commiting first because they don't wait for better offers to come along.
Well, there may be a point there. Here's a view from the dark side That I think SoccerHunter is alluding to. I have heard from more than one source (in different parts of the country) that some of the top players won't commit until after Youth National Team rosters are named. The perception is that certain coaches are using the naming of players to YNT's as not-so-subtle recuiting leverage, ie. the unspoken "I can get you to a National team- come to my school". True or not, there were players who committed in the last cycle only after they were named to a roster. I can think of three of those kids right off the top of my head. All were recruited by the National team coach, and all committed to another team shortly after the roster was published. The top Players don't have to wait for anything, but they can also defer a decision until it is most advantageous for their careers. It's the next tier down from the top that should feel pressure. Coaches will always find a way to find room on their rosters for the best players, and many don't fix the final scholarship apportionment until they are sure there are no blue chip players left on their short list. So- ask yourself when the next Youth teams will be named for the upcoming World cup cycles and you'll know when the top players will start to commit. -Should be next Winter or Spring sometime. The next FIFA u17 World Cup starts next September 5, and there are qualifiers to get through before that. If I was a kid vying for a spot on that team, I sure wouldn't commit before I got a leg up on a spot on the team.
I agree with that but it's just unusual for a team from a small conference to get some of these kids. According to topdrawer the best player in Cali is commited to UCSB.
With Kealia Ohai and Crystal Dunn coming and who knows who else we seem to be doing fine. Parity may be coming but it ain't here yet! Just a little prediction: HEELS take it again in 09!
Big West men's soccer is at par, if not better than PAC or WCC soccer. Don't see how the women can't achieve the same notoriety. Don't know much about 2010 recruits so I'll take your word for it that the best female soccer player is going to Goleta.
well, I think the biggest problem might be self perception. Small conference by what measure? the schools average about 25,000 population, (even with tiny Pacific at just over 6,000) they are looking for inclusion into the BCS (which is why Pacific wants to move to the WCC) All are well funded public schools in the California system except Pacific, which is a well funded private school. hardly a small conference by any measure. Just slightly smaller than giant conference is more accurate. It is called the BIG WEST.
What does big versus small really mean in this context? UCSB is in the University of California system along with schools like UCLA and Berkeley. Those are big schools by any measure. Are Santa Clara and Portland small schools? They don't play like it! Perhaps the point here is that UCSB and others are raising their profiles on the college soccer scene. From where I sit, that ultimately seems like a good thing because it means greater parity, which suggests there are more good athletes out there playing soccer, which hopefully someday translates into a World Cup championship for for US MNT. It happened in hockey!
Being part of the Califonia school system is no guarantee of big $$$. The state is bankrupt and I know that Berkeley athletic staff, are taking furloughs. And the level of scholarship funding and program budgets may differ between one UC to the next. While the WCC may be categorized as a small conference, their athletic programs may actually be better funded than the Big West and don't depend on the largesse from Sacramento.
It's true that times are tough in the California system, but they are everywhere in College Sports. Including such powerhouses as Portland and your own Stanford. I remember reading abut a 10% staffing cut at Stanford, http://www.ultimatesportsinsider.com/2009/02/athletic-budget-cut-update-8-stanford.html and at UP the lead assistant coach wasn't replaced this year until the economy sorted itself out. Coaches here are doing double duty coaching on the Men's and women's staffs to help out until such time as it becomes prudently reasonable to replace the coach. The decision was made near the bottom of the market last year, and they didn't want to hire somebody just to be forced to let them go the next year. I suspect we'll see a new assistant next year. But looking at the EADA database, http://ope.ed.gov/athletics/ it doesn't look like the Big West schools are anywhere near being the poor stepchildren of soccer. Their numbers overall for women's sports in general, ( and women's soccer particularly,) look to be somewhere between the Pac10 numbers and the WCC numbers, for instance. Their recruiting budgets are about half of the PAC10 budgets in the last reporting year (2007) but they have been increasing each year, and they are above WCC numbers. expenses for the Big West schools were 1.4 million per team, while the Pac 10 reported 1.9 million, but the Big West is a much more compact conference, so a lot of that could be travel expenses being lower in the Big West. Big West coaching salaries were lower than PAC10 also,( but still slightly above WCC salaries) but the teams aren't (yet) as successful, so that could explain the difference. also, side deals (camps, clinics, club ties, etc) aren't reported, so the coaches may actually be doing a bit better than reported. They report 80K for a head coaching position. They are still well finance programs.
Coaches have their reasons for staying where they are. I'm glad that Anson's family situation has kept him in Chapel Hill for the duration. If not he might be at Stanford or who know's where. The perks would have been better elsewhere, no doubt. Good for us. Bad for you. The momentum seems to be here for the time being. I've got to hand it to the Cardinal, for they have assembled a somewhat scary entourage. We aren't scared but are eager to see what you've got. Can't wait!
Apparently, Google is having an issue as the spreadsheet has been down all day. You can access it, however, via the following link: https://sites.google.com/site/soccerrecruits/ According to Google help, the error that I am receiving should correct itself. So, hopefully, the link directly to the spreadsheet should begin working again soon. In the meantime, please use the link above. Thanks! Brian
Talked to Brian. The issue is with Google not him. Here is the direct link he sent me. Copy and paste it. https://sites.google.com/site/soccerrecruits/
Over on the Stanford and UNC pages there has been a recent flurry of silly fan bravado. A commentator on the UNC page noted that, for what ever reason, Stanford sure has the UNC fans' attention this season. True, and IMO it has to do with recruiting. Stanford's incredible recent recruiting success has led to the Card's happy position at the moment. If one looks as the recruiting successes of the top women's D-I teams in the past decade, it would appear that parity has truly arrived. (And the results may idicate as much: in the past 8 years there have been 6 different D-I champions.) With the exception of UNC's monster class in 2006 there has been plenty of discussion and debate in this time period as to which schools got the top recruits. And arguably, for the past three years Stanford, cumulatively, has garnered the most and best talent. And 2010 looks like another banner year in Palo Alto. The Card's success is no surprise.