"I expected more from a varsity letterman"

[Ejay]

Saint of Old and I were just discussing Union in the Liberty League thread.  My feeling is they are a school that should be much more competitive on a consistent basis.  The school has so much going for it that you would think it would attract better players (or coaches). It got me thinking about other schools that are surprisingly poor, or at the very least inconsistent in their year-to-year performance. 

The poster child for me is TCNJ. Why they aren't a top 4 NJAC team every year is puzzling. And regardless of how tough that conference may be, they should absolutely put a significantly better product on the field than Kean. And I don't see why this team should ever be under .500 on the season. 

Trinity (CT) is another one that I feel has loads of potential to be much better on a regular basis. I'm not saying they should go on a Tufts-like run, but Trinity is a school that should have a soccer program that can at least go .500 every year. 

Dickinson is another one that's underperforming in my opinion.  A good year should be 14-4, but a bad year should be 8-8, not 2-11-2 like the season they just had.  Granted, this past year was a bit of an outlier, but that's just embarrassing. If a bad year is 8-8, you would hope that a terrible, no good, very bad year would at least have 5-6 wins.

Am I too harsh? Any thoughts on these schools or others?

[jknezek]

The only thing I'll say... if you take this stance, you also have to take the opposite stance. You have to look at who these teams play every year and say "that school should be consistently worse." Because it's a zero sum game, and Dickinson or Trinity can't pick up 3-8 wins a season without the other teams on their schedule losing them.

[Kuiper]

I don't have any insight on those particular schools. I do think that in some of these losing programs, they either lose a bunch of close games or they at least get better as the season progresses.  In the former case, Trinity (CT) lost a bunch of 2-1 games in NESCAC and tied Middlebury 0-0 in 2OT.   In the latter case, Dickinson was not good, to be sure, but they lost to Swarthmore 3-2 in double overtime and 2-1 to Washington College later in the season. Their opponents may have looked at Dickinson's record at that point and decided to rotate players, but it suggests improvement compared to losing to Messiah 6-1 early in the season. 

In both types of losing programs, the difference, in addition to coaching/recruiting, may be a culture of accountability when the coach isn't around that promotes working hard in the off-season and in working back from deficits in games during the season. The season is so short that if you aren't ready to go from Day 1, you fall behind and it's hard to recover mentally. 

[PaulNewman]

In 2010 if you told me one among Conn, Bates, Colby, and Trinity would win a national title.....1) I wouldn't have believed you; and 2) In a forced choice I would have picked Trinity.

If I'm reading you correctly, you are targeting some very attractive schools, including at least some, like Trinity, that should enjoy a recruiting advantage over peers at least in terms of admissions leeway.  Trinity can consider kids that have no shot at the top 2/3 of NESCAC.  And despite extremely stiff competition Colby and Bates (with tougher admissions) have made progress whereas Trinity has not.

I'm not sure I always believed this but coaching seems to be the key variable.  Programs that have done well in recent years all have an impressive coach who seems to have a clear vision.  A school has to provide resources, and certainly schools that are attractive all around are at an advantage, but we've seen a good number of coaches turn programs into winners pretty quickly.  See Bianco at Denison, Wall at St Olaf, and of course Burk at Conn and Singleton at W&L.

There are also schools that have had a couple of seasons of high level success only to drop back towards mediocrity, and would be interesting to look at how many of these involved coaching changes and sometimes multiple changes within a relatively short span.  Like a Haverford.  And even Williams where 7-8 years after Russo retired the program still hasn't fully recovered.

[Ejay]

Yes PN, you're reading me correctly. I started looking at this a few years back when my son was looking at schools. There were many "attractive" schools that just didn't have a program of interest.  I know deciding on a school includes many things outside of soccer, but the soccer piece has to play some role in that final decision. Not many people want to spend four years working their tail off only to go 4-14 each year. For this reason, a school like Gettysburg becomes much more attractive than a school like Union even though they're somewhat similar.

And I agree that coaching plays a large role. As soon as Denison nabbed Bianco I made the comment that they wold be a top 20 within 3-4 years. And the TCNJ example might truly be an example of coaching as their coach has a reputation for having the personality of a wet blanket. I've met him, and he's a nice guy, but I can totally see why a kid might be turned off.

I've mentioned Trinity in other threads. That's a school in my opinion that should be MUCH better. Hopefully their new coach will turn things around but I don't know much about him so the jury is out for me.

 

[Ron Boerger]

Please - it's Trinity(CT).  The "other" school with that name is far from 4-14.

[camosfan]

I agree with most of what you are saying, TCNJ is a puzzle, sits in such a talent pool yet not attracting a lot of the male players.

[Saint of Old]

Please - it's Trinity(CT).  The "other" school with that name is far from 4-14.

Yes, the Ballers from out west who have a deep run each and every year and a perfect championship under their belt.

Trinity (TX) Yes. Different schools.

[Hopkins92]

I can really only speak to Dickinson... They are in serious transition mode, with a new coach having come on board during a COVID year. They played a lot of teams very closely, as mentioned above... The game against Hopkins was very close until things unraveled a bit.

Gonna need to give the coach another couple of seasons to see what's up in Carlisle.

[Novacat]

Yes PN, you're reading me correctly. I started looking at this a few years back when my son was looking at schools. There were many "attractive" schools that just didn't have a program of interest.  I know deciding on a school includes many things outside of soccer, but the soccer piece has to play some role in that final decision. Not many people want to spend four years working their tail off only to go 4-14 each year. For this reason, a school like Gettysburg becomes much more attractive than a school like Union even though they're somewhat similar.

And I agree that coaching plays a large role. As soon as Denison nabbed Bianco I made the comment that they wold be a top 20 within 3-4 years. And the TCNJ example might truly be an example of coaching as their coach has a reputation for having the personality of a wet blanket. I've met him, and he's a nice guy, but I can totally see why a kid might be turned off.

I've mentioned Trinity in other threads. That's a school in my opinion that should be MUCH better. Hopefully their new coach will turn things around but I don't know much about him so the jury is out for me.

I totally agree on Trinity.  They are a well-positioned school.  Good academics, great conference, and a good location near a lot of D3/strong academic kids.  They played a tough schedule pretty well this year with poor results but were competitive in every game except Amherst.  They also return all of the top 12 players and 11 or their top 12 were first year players (Fresh or sophs).  I saw them a couple times and think they will compete for 500 record this next year with a new coach.

(modified by GS for formatting)

[SimpleCoach]

Ok.  This sort of thing is fraught with danger.  As in ... Danger Close.  Lists I make are generally inconsistent of judgement, largely based on what I've seen, and not necessarily based on records.  So with that in mind, I'd been keeping track of teams I have watched where I expected more or was left waiting for more...   This started when we first discussed this in the fall with ... @Ejay?  So I kept a running list of those teams.  And there are teams I have excluded but would add ... including one that got past the Round of 16....  So for what it is worth.  I have watched, to one degree or another, all of them.  Solely based on what I watched, image I had of the school, and how I good I thought they would be... again in my own warped mind.  In no particular order.

Hamilton
Mass-Boston
Trinity (CT)
Brandeis
Western NE
Hartwick
Manhattanville
TCNJ
William Patterson
Dickinson
Earlham
Catholic
Drew
Elizabethtown
Scranton
RIT
Clarkson
Hope
Widener
Lycoming
Lake Forest
NC Wesleyan
Carnegie Mellon
CWRU
Rochester
Emory
NYU
Colorado College
Mount Union
Wabash

[Hopkins92]

Of all the teams on that list, the one that resonates most with me is E-town. And that's solely because "back in my day" they were very highly regarded, and playing on their field felt daunting and awesome at the same time.

[Ejay]

Of all the teams on that list, the one that resonates most with me is E-town. And that's solely because "back in my day" they were very highly regarded, and playing on their field felt daunting and awesome at the same time.

Would be interesting to hear SC do an interview with Skip Roderick. He's been around almost as long as Jay Martin and has a national championship, but hasn't been nearly as consistent as OWU. Why has OWU continued to succeed as a top 20 team while Elizabethtown only occasionally sniffs the top 20?