D-III Policy and Operational Changes in the Works

Started by Christan Shirk, September 07, 2019, 07:58:21 AM

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Christan Shirk

At the end of D3soccer.com's annual article covering changes for the new season that was belatedly posted yesterday, some policy and operational changes that are in the works were mentioned.  They may warrant some discussion here on the message board.

REGIONAL RE-ALIGNMENT
There has been an on-going project to develop regional alignment alternatives with the most recent effort looking at 10-region models. The Division III Championships Committee's latest proposed 10-region alignment was non-sport specific and based on (1) numerical balance, (2) geographic proximity, and (3) keeping conferences members in the same region. However, the individual sports committees raised significant concerns about the alignment's impact on competitive balance which the proposed model intentionally did not take into account. So the Championship Committee is looking for more input from the sports committees to develop 10- and 8-region models for each sport that retain the original three guiding principles while also accounting for competitive equity.

IN-CONFERENCE COMPETITION THRESHOLD TO EARN AUTOMATIC BERTH
Policy is being drafted to require conference members to compete against conference opponents in order to earn the conference's automatic berth. The initial working group recommendation called for teams to schedule regular season contests against at least 70% of their conference members that sponsor a given sport to be eligible to earn the conference's automatic berth into the NCAA championship. The Championships Committee supports the notion of establishing a percentage threshold for automatic qualification but wasn't prepared to formally endorse what that threshold should be and asked that data be provided on the current percentage of conference opponents that members play in order to determine an appropriate benchmark. Note that this would not directly impact a conference's eligibility to receive an automatic berth, but rather which members can be awarded that berth. Even a more moderate threshold like 50% would prevent a conference from awarding an automatic berth on the basis of just an end-of-season tournament, and that eliminates some, but not all, the motivation for a geographically-dispersed conference to be formed. Any new policy would likely only be implemented starting with the 2021/22 school year.

PRESEASON PRACTICE PARAMETERS
Three changes to the preseason practice parameters have been proposed for soccer and field hockey. The three changes are related but independent of each other, i.e. they are not necessarily an all-or-nothing package deal. They are as follows:
(1) Increase the permissible preseason practice period by three days.
(2) Require a three-day acclimization period at the start of each team's preseason practice period during which only one practice session of not more than three hours and a one-hour walk-through session are permitted each day with at least three hours between the two activities.
(3) Limit the daily athletic-related activity after the acclimization period to two practice sessions of not more than six combined hours with at least three hours between the two sessions.

CONFERENCE OPPONENTS MEETING IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
West region conferences have voiced concern that their schools are paired in the opening rounds of the NCAA Championships more often than schools from conferences in the other regions. The Championship Committee is recommending a two-year pilot program in which conference opponents would be guaranteed not to meet in the first round. The pilot program would require a temporary waiver of the NCAA Bylaw covering bracketing criteria.

ADDITIONAL RANKING AND AT-LARGE SELECTION CRITERIA
The Division III men's soccer committee has shown interest in adding two additional ranking and at-large selection criteria: (1) a performance indicator and (2) results versus teams with a winning percentage above .500. The committee believes this additional information would help them make more defensible rankings and selections and make it easier for people to see and understand the rationale. The publicly available meeting minutes do not elaborate on what this "performance indicator" would be.

Christan Shirk
Special Consultant and Advisor
D3soccer.com

Hopkins92

Just speaking to the preseason rule changes... Those are going to be very much appreciated by the athletes. I hate to frame it this way, but... Back in my day, we had lacrosse coaches pulling in extra cash coaching the soccer team in the fall. All they knew about was fitness, and to prove your mettle you had to come into preseason in shape enough to run two miles under 12 minutes. Brutal.

And when we finally convinced the AD to bring in a soccer specific coach, that clown thought 3-a-days was a great way to put us through our paces.

I'm sure things across the board are better now, but... Some coaches are morons, straight up.

nescacfan94

Changing the preseason practice parameters would be a very welcome improvement imho. Schools start at different times, sometimes weeks apart, others have pre-orientation trips for freshmen which affects freshman eligibility, and others have lots of non-sanctioned captains practices to make up for and/or supplement the crazy short preseason. The season is short enough--giving the players some more time together with the coaches will make early season games more competitive, and will allow freshman to acclimate to college and their new team, and will do away with eligibility issues (a result of too few practices for freshman or injured players) for the 1st game.

The_View_From_732

Quote from: Hopkins92 on September 09, 2019, 10:40:44 AM
Just speaking to the preseason rule changes... Those are going to be very much appreciated by the athletes. I hate to frame it this way, but... Back in my day, we had lacrosse coaches pulling in extra cash coaching the soccer team in the fall. All they knew about was fitness, and to prove your mettle you had to come into preseason in shape enough to run two miles under 12 minutes. Brutal.

And when we finally convinced the AD to bring in a soccer specific coach, that clown thought 3-a-days was a great way to put us through our paces.

I'm sure things across the board are better now, but... Some coaches are morons, straight up.

A two-mile run is not as good a measure of fitness for something like soccer as the Beep Test/Yo-Yo Test, but a college soccer player should probably bee able to run 2 miles at a 6 minute mile pace

Another Mom

#4
Quote from: The_View_From_732 on September 09, 2019, 05:11:29 PM
A two-mile run is not as good a measure of fitness for something like soccer as the Beep Test/Yo-Yo Test, but a college soccer player should probably bee able to run 2 miles at a 6 minute mile pace

My son's prep school had the  2 mile/12 minute test for the past 2 years. Now it's been changed to a mile and a half in 9 minutes. So -- not limited to college soccer!

SlideTackle

#5
Quote from: The_View_From_732 on September 09, 2019, 05:11:29 PM
Quote from: Hopkins92 on September 09, 2019, 10:40:44 AM
Just speaking to the preseason rule changes... Those are going to be very much appreciated by the athletes. I hate to frame it this way, but... Back in my day, we had lacrosse coaches pulling in extra cash coaching the soccer team in the fall. All they knew about was fitness, and to prove your mettle you had to come into preseason in shape enough to run two miles under 12 minutes. Brutal.

And when we finally convinced the AD to bring in a soccer specific coach, that clown thought 3-a-days was a great way to put us through our paces.

I'm sure things across the board are better now, but... Some coaches are morons, straight up.

A two-mile run is not as good a measure of fitness for something like soccer as the Beep Test/Yo-Yo Test, but a college soccer player should probably bee able to run 2 miles at a 6 minute mile pace

My son had to do the 12 minute 2 mile before stepping on to the pitch, as do all freshmen and returning players.  Seems things haven't changed much in 27 years.

Gregory Sager

The_View_From_732 is right. I've had more than one track coach tell me that they consider a soccer coach forcing his or her players to do distance running to be a sign of rank incompetence. It's easy to understand why; a coach should have a good understanding of how his or her sport operates and the specific physical activities it thus demands from a player in competition. Soccer isn't a marathon; even the center mids don't run continuously for 45 minutes straight. It's an extended series of short sprints interspersed with walking and jogging over the course of those 45-minute halves, which is why interval training and sprint-and-brief-recovery work like the beep test are the best forms of conditioning and testing that there are for soccer players.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Hopkins92

Yep, which is why I hope the context I put my post up is still in play: These were lax coaches who knew nothing of the game. I mean, if they were making their lax players run the cooper text... What in the world does that have to do with how lacrosse is played??

Mr.Right

Quote from: Hopkins92 on September 13, 2019, 02:19:52 PM
Yep, which is why I hope the context I put my post up is still in play: These were lax coaches who knew nothing of the game. I mean, if they were making their lax players run the cooper text... What in the world does that have to do with how lacrosse is played??


It was like this all over D3 and smaller D1's still in the early 90's. Things began to shift mid 90's and then it took off from there.

Mr.Right

Do we have the capability to get D3boards secure like D3soccer.com or is that a separate entity?

Another Mom

So, my son's now in college,  and had to hit a 13.6 on the beep test. (Thankfully he did). Can someone put this in context for me? Is 13.6 the benchmark most coaches use?

Ron Boerger

Quote from: Mr.Right on August 28, 2021, 07:59:26 AM
Do we have the capability to get D3boards secure like D3soccer.com or is that a separate entity?

This would probably be a question more for Pat Coleman than for the d3soccer.com folks because the boards are part of the d3sports.com umbrella.   Christian and his team took on the d3soccer.com domain a while back back when d3sports made the decision to focus primarily on football, baseball, and basketball, but for convenience sake use d3boards.

And frankly, given the dramatic drop in traffic on the boards over the years, I'm not sure the effort required is going to be justifiable.

nescacfan94

The 12 minute 2 miles is still widely used as a test of soccer fitness. Some use the Man United test (as it is a called by some).

The Man United--14 100-meter runs. 16 seconds to 'sprint' the 100, 44 seconds to walk back to the start. Then do it 13 more times.

But both of these "tests", and the results of the "test", are not the point, right?! Coaches are not playing guys because of their 2 mile times. It's about accountability, to your coach, to your team, and to yourself. It's about getting in shape. Your coach asks the team to run each of these every week all summer long and share the results with the group... if you do that, you will show up in shape and ready to play on day 1. If you don't, in a season of 5 classes fighting for 4 classes worth of roster spots, you might find yourself on the outside of the roster looking in.

fishercats

Quote from: Another Mom on August 28, 2021, 11:27:55 AM
So, my son's now in college,  and had to hit a 13.6 on the beep test. (Thankfully he did). Can someone put this in context for me? Is 13.6 the benchmark most coaches use?

Quite frankly, it is difficult to compare across schools because there are many different iterations of beep tests. As stated above, it is most important to hit the goal that the coach set. That is the real test and the real context. So at this point, you son has passed the first test.

Mr.Right

Quote from: Ron Boerger on August 30, 2021, 10:40:00 AM
Quote from: Mr.Right on August 28, 2021, 07:59:26 AM
Do we have the capability to get D3boards secure like D3soccer.com or is that a separate entity?

This would probably be a question more for Pat Coleman than for the d3soccer.com folks because the boards are part of the d3sports.com umbrella.   Christian and his team took on the d3soccer.com domain a while back back when d3sports made the decision to focus primarily on football, baseball, and basketball, but for convenience sake use d3boards.

And frankly, given the dramatic drop in traffic on the boards over the years, I'm not sure the effort required is going to be justifiable.

Grim realities