Hot Seat 2023-24

Interesting thought!

 

Any updates on some of the other open jobs? Feel like Marquette and Drexel should be close.

 

Very seriously doubt CP will ever again coach collegiately.

 

The coach that was on Campus this past Wednesday was not from that town, but was from a Top 16 seed in this years NCAA tournament. Also, was told this was the preferred candidate by the administration.

 

Jeremy Gunn?

 

That would make his travel in the ACC far less taxing.

 

Makes a ton of sense outside of just swapping the names Stanford for NC State.

 

My bet is Marc Hubbard.

 

Would be more surprising to me than JG. He’s from NH and has spent entire career in the northeast. Great thing going at UNH and NC State would be a gamble to replicate same success.

 

At this point UNH is a better job, with Hubbard in it than NC State is. UNH has made the NCAAs the last 7 years and only once bowed out in the first round. Some coaches like to so called climb the ladder and take on new challenges, some find their home and never move. Hubbard has been at UNH now nine years and seems to be a better part of the latter.

If I had to guess it's Scott Calabrease at UCF. He started as a HC at ETSU moved to FIU and then UCF. Seems like a natural progression for him.

 

But the ACC is the ACC.

The power conferences are appealing because they're the power conferences.

As good as the America East was this year, it ain't a power conference in college soccer. It ain't the Big Ten or the ACC or the Big East (which boasts 4 former national champions and 2 others that made the Cup) - it would take something major for an America East team to get to the College Cup, let alone win it.

There's a reason we remember Santa Clara (89), UCSB (06), Akron (10) and Marshall (spring of 21) - because schools from outside the big conferences winning it all in college soccer is so damn rare.

Since 1981, all the other national titles in college soccer have been won by: Indiana (8), Virginia (7), Maryland (4), UCLA (4), Clemson (3), Stanford (3), North Carolina (2), Connecticut (2), Syracuse, Georgetown, Wake Forest, St. John's and Wisconsin. All from the ACC, Big Ten, Pac Whatever and Big East (and Akron is now in the Big East) and next year, all those Pac-12 schools will be in the ACC and Big Ten. The numbers don't lie.

So, if you want to win a national title, NC State gives you a much more realistic shot because way more times than not, the national champion is coming from the conference NC State is in. Winning there is do-able. It's not easy but it can be done. If you're a really good coach who also aspires to win it all, you take that ACC gig over one in a conference like America East. Period.

 

This didn't age well.

 

Watching some of Oregon State-Notre Dame last night made me wonder what becomes of OSU's men's soccer program now. They won't be playing any sport in the same world they've been living in and it seems a fair bet the athletic department will no longer have a Power 5-style budget to work with.

 

Syracuse and Pitt still didn't pass the eye test which is who I was talking about. Never said anything about Clemson nor Notre Dame. Penn State deserved to be in over either of them and if Akron didn't have a bad loss to Creighton they should have been too. The committee is just to lazy and goes straight with RPI 99.8% of the time.

 

https://gopack.com/news/2023/12/9/mens-soccer-marc-hubbard-tabbed-head-coach-of-nc-state-mens-soccer

 

This didn't age well neither. Seems he wants the ladder and not the latter.

 

They are fair questions and observations.

History shows us it's harder for schools outside of the Power 5 (or Big East in hoops) to compete in men's soccer. But it's not impossible as Akron, UCSB, Marshall have shown. But a lot has to come together perfectly for a school like that to consistently compete academically.

That said, it's a fluid situation and the West Coast, as a whole, is too heavily populated with so many bigger schools that it's not impossible for a new conference to emerge and be fairly powerful and be able to compete in both revenue and non-revenue sports. But short term, I do expect OSU to dip somewhat without the Pac-12 to offer recruits.

 

Imagine that.

 

Wow, surprising to me on the surface. I can understand wanting your shot in the ACC though.

 

Hubbard was making 150K (in 2022) so presumably he got a raise in this move. If he can pull this off and make NC State a consistent winner, he'll get a much bigger one!

He's got his work cut out for him. Here's the last time each of next year's ACC schools made the College Cup.

Clemson, Notre Dame - 2023
Syracuse, Pittsburgh - 2022
North Carolina - 2020*
Virginia, Wake Forest, Stanford - 2019
Louisville - 2010
---
Virginia Tech - 2007
SMU - 2005
Duke - 2004
NC State - 1990
Boston College, California - never

It will be interesting to see which of the teams in italics breaks through to the College Cup next and if State can make a run for it.

 

UNH is only good because he made them good and took them as far as possible. $$$, resources, facilities, warm weather, grass field... the list goes on, no brainer to take a job in the ACC and I bet NC State is back in the tournament in a year, two max.

That being said as mentioned by The Ponchat, it will be interesting to see the ripple effect. Possible candidate for UNH the Northeastern HC? Former UNH assistant and alum which would then leave Northeastern open again.

 

Call me a skeptic, but how is this hirer any different than the last two for NC State?
Established HC at a top 25 program at a mid-size athletic department. The profile is an easy hirer I guess, but history implies it won't work at NC State. It is hard to win at NC State, not impossible, but real hard. Finding a diamond in the rough takes work, but obviously ADs do not care enough about soccer as has been stated many times on this forum.