2025 Schedules

[Kuiper]

Southwestern

The other Texas school leaving the SCAC for the SAA with Trinity. It is playing most of the out-of-state and non-conference Texas teams mentioned as Trinity opponents in my earlier post, including Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (which is apparently not playing St. Thomas as I suggested might be the case), St. Thomas, Kalamazoo, Concordia (TX), Texas Lutheran, Mary Hardin-Baylor, and UC Santa Cruz.  It departs from Trinity in also playing Howard Payne, LeTourneau, Austin College, and East Texas Baptist.  They have 14 home games out of 19 total, including the first 7 and 9 out of the first 10, plus it's hosting the SAA tournament.  It kind of feels like Trinity and Southwestern left the SCAC and got the best of both worlds.  At least this year, they both are playing a ton of home games and they still get all the games against SCAC and ASC schools they want.  As much drama as Texas conferences have had over the years with teams switching from one to the other, they basically all need each other to fill out their schedules (at least in soccer).

[Kuiper]

Some NESCAC schedules

Connecticut College

Drops Western New England (the only non-conference team to score a goal off Conn last season) and adds University of Hartford (which beat Trinity (CT) last season, but lost to Western New England).  National Championship rematch is the second game of the season at Conn, so that will be on everyone's must-see list.  Their double game weekend is at home against Colby and Tufts

Colby

Drops RPI and adds St. Joseph's College of Maine (a team that was merely average last season, but did hand Babson a 0-0 tie in the opening game of the season).  Starts the season with 5 straight at home, which includes Bowdoin and Tufts

[Kuiper]

Ohio Wesleyan

Year one of the Matt Weiss era at OWU (I hear that the last guy occupied the job for 47 years and was the NCAA career leader in wins, so no pressure  ).  This year, they drop Mount Union, John Carroll, and Stevens and pick up Berea, Bethany, and Wilmington.  That's a pretty noticeable decline in opponent pedigree, but they still have a plenty tough schedule with returning opponents Hope and Calvin (away on opening weekend) as well as Otterbein, Carnegie Mellon, Ohio Northern, and Marietta. 

Mary Hardin-Baylor

With only 6 conference games this season now that LeTourneau has left and McMurry and Schreiner won't come back to the ASC until Fall 2026, Mary Hardin-Baylor had to load up on non-conference games this season.  They make a big trip to Colorado Springs the second weekend of the season to play Whitman and Colorado College and they travel to Memphis to play Rhodes and Jackson to play Belhaven, but otherwise they just load up on Texas opponents.  They drop UT Dallas and LeTourneau, but play Schreiner, Texas Lutheran, Concordia (TX), St. Thomas, Austin College, Southwestern, and Trinity.  With 18 games total and only 4 teams in the ASC, it looks like there may not be an ASC tournament this year, which means the Mary Hardin-Baylor game at Hardin-Simmons on Nov. 1 to end the regular season could be the de facto championship game.

UPDATE:  According to the East Texas Baptist schedule, the ASC is having a conference tournament this year Nov. 6-8.  Presumably, everyone will make it, which is how LeTourneau got to the championship game last season.

[Kuiper]

Maryville

Drops Southern Virginia, Greenville, Bob Jones, Oglethorpe, Greensboro and Rhodes with Lynchburg on opening day, Johnson University (TN) (NAIA), Spalding, Emory, LeTourneau, and Warren Wilson.  They are playing LeTourneau in the Berry University Classic in Georgia, which makes this the second year in a row that LeTourneau makes an out-of-state trip after traveling to Michigan last year to play Calvin and Hope.  Maryville is a more competitive matchup for them and Georgia is only a 9-10 hour bus ride, but I still wonder what changed for a program that almost never traveled as far as they have last year and this year.

[Kuiper]

Buffalo State

After a 16-3-4 season in which they beat Tufts in the NCAA tournament in the second round on PKs before losing to Dickinson in the Sweet 16, I wondered if Buffalo State would up the quality of their schedule this season.  They're typically going to have some decent games in the SUNYAC with Cortland, Oneonta, Plattsburgh, but their non-conference schedule was pretty pedestrian.  It appears not much has changed.  They drop Elmira and Mt. Aloysius in favor of New Jersey City University and SUNY Geneseo, but otherwise it is the same as last year, playing Alfred and Bryant & Stratton in the Fredonia Classic and then SUNY Brockport, Houghton, and Hilbert at home and Grove City away.  They had 12 seniors last season, so it will be interesting to see if last season was a one-hit wonder or something to build upon.  Diego Rivera, their first team All-American forward who scored 18 goals and had 8 assists, was only a junior, but I think they are losing Manu Prieto, their second team All-American Portuguese midfielder who had 10 goals and 17 assists (he played 1 year at NAIA Mount Mercy before 3 years at Buff State), who is going to be really difficult to replace.  Not many people manage 17 assists in a college career, let alone a single season.  They also may be losing Shae Wirt, their GK, who was an underrated key to their success after starting his career at D1 Presbyterian (he was at Presbyterian for two years, but that includes a Covid year, so maybe he redshirted the second year and still has a year left).  Wirt made some strong saves in PKs against Tufts to allow Buff State to advance.

Mississippi University for Women

(BACKGROUND:  Yes, that is still its name.  Yes, they have a men's team.  Yes, it is 2025.  Yes, there were proposals to change its name, but they were withdrawn because of criticism from alumni.  Yes, there was a bill last year to merge it with Mississippi State, but the bill died in the Senate.  Apparently, it is now known for athletics purposes as the "W," but a recently released internal memo written while the proposed merger was under consideration reveals that Mississippi State University officials had considered making "W" official, but as a designation for "Workforce," rather than "Women," because they proposed to focus the campus on nursing, speech pathology, and culinary arts)

MUW was 0-17 last season.  They were bad.  Like, historically bad.  Like, Lewis & Clark might have actually had a chance of beating them bad (seriously, we need these two teams to play each other).  MUW scored 11 goals and gave up 100 goals.  And if you take out the Ecclesia game, where they scored 3 goals after an Ecclesia player was red carded, but still lost 5-3, and the Principia game, where they scored 2 goals after being down 7-1, they only scored 5 goals in 15 games.  They had 18 players listed on the roster, including only 1 player listed as a GK (a 5'9" freshman) and they used a midfielder in goal in the one game the regular GK was unavailable. The bench was pretty thin some games, including one game they lost 11-0 with only one player on the bench according to the box score.  They listed a 2025 Spring roster with 10 players.  And with the legislative battle in March of 2024 about whether the school would even continue to exist as a separate entity, I wouldn't be surprised if recruiting was less than stellar. 

So, the bottom line is that there may be no schedule that MUW could construct for 2025 that would allow them to be competitive or even find a win.  They do still have "TBA"s on their schedule for 9/21 and 9/28 if you're a coach looking for, shall we say, a less stressful game.  Nevertheless, they do have a schedule.  They drop Centenary (LA), Ecclesia, Austin College, and Belhaven and add Millsaps, Warren Wilson, and Toccoa Falls College (NCCAA).  Warren Wilson, which was 0-6 last season before the flooding in western North Carolina from Hurricane Helene forced the cancellation of the remainder of the season, seems like MUW's best chance for a victory.  Toccoa Falls, which lost to Huntington 4-0 and Bob Jones 8-0, is the next best chance.  I'll be rooting for them.  I like underdogs.

[Kuiper]

A few New Jersey schedules

Kean

Kean drops Hunter, FDU-Florham (although perhaps not because they are going back to the FDU Florham tourney for opening weekend but have a tbd for the second game), Centenary, Merchant Marine, Swarthmore, Muhlenberg, Widener, and Franklin & Marshall and adds Hobart, a trip to VA the second weekend to play Randolph-Macon and Shenandoah, Scranton, Saint Elizabeth, Moravian, Lehman. The only non-conference opponents it kept were Stevens and Western Connecticut.  Seems like it will be a drop in SoS in the non-conference schedule for this season, but the NJAC games should make up for some of that. 

Rowan

Rowan's schedule last season was a Murderer's Row of opponents.  In non-conference play, they scheduled a highly-ranked opponent virtually every week.  So, they couldn't help but have a more manageable schedule this season.  It is, but they still have some potentially difficult games.  They drop St. Mary's of MD, Johns Hopkins, Mary Washington, Christopher Newport, and Washington College.  In their place, they've added NYU (in NYC), Gettysburg, Scranton, Arcadia, and Alvernia.  They also host Franklin & Marshall and Cortland and visit Messiah.

[Kuiper]

Redlands

Redlands's 2025 schedule looks like it is designed to provide Head Coach Ralph Perez a victory lap of sorts.  Perez is retiring after 50 years and 445+ wins after this season, including almost 20 years at Redlands, in which he led the team to 10 SCIAC regular season titles, 7 NCAA tourneys, 2 Sweet Sixteen appearances, and 2 Elite Eight appearances. I don't know if he has the players this season to truly send him out on a high note, but he generally gets guys who fight hard for him and play sound, technical, soccer.

They start by traveling to New Jersey and playing an exhibition against Drew and then playing opening weekend against Rutgers-Newark and Swarthmore.  What's the significance of that for Perez?  He was born and raised in New York and played soccer at Oneonta State.  After about 20 years coaching in college, he was recruited to be a coach in Major League Soccer as it was just getting off the ground.  In his first gig, Perez was an assistant coach for the New York-New Jersey Metrostars that played in the Meadowlands at Giants Stadium under former Cosmos coach Eddie Firmani, former Portugal coach Carlos Queiroz, and former Brazil national team coach Carlos Alberto Parreira.  Aside from the Perez nostalgia, the Swarthmore game should be a really good early test for both teams.  It will be the second year in a row Swat opens playing against a SCIAC team, after playing Occidental and Cal Tech last season.

The following week, Redlands travels to southern Virginia and plays Virginia Wesleyan and Christopher Newport.  As I mentioned in an earlier post discussing the CNU schedule, Perez coached Old Dominion to its best record and highest ranking ever in the early 1990s.  Virginia Wesleyan is only 18 minutes away from ODU and Christopher Newport is about 30 minutes away.  Sounds like Perez is going to be visiting his old haunts in the area, if not actually getting some recognition from Old Dominion and some of his former players.

Finally, in a very unusual move, Redlands has scheduled the Alumni Game on Saturday, Oct. 25th, a few days before traveling to what could be a crucial SCIAC matchup at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.  That's sure to bring out a huge turnout of alums.

[Kuiper]

Swarthmore

After starting last season on an 8 game streak without a loss (7-0-1), Swat fell short against the Centennial Conference's traditional powers (F&M, Hopkins, Washington College) and fell out of even qualifying for the conference tournament with successive losses to Muhlenberg and McDaniel.  And yet, most people acknowledged that it was a dangerous team, tying Dickinson 2-2 and playing Hopkins tight in a game Coach Appleby told Simple Coach recently was one of their toughest opponents last season.  So, I expect they will be a team primed to turn the corner in 2025, especially since they will return almost all of their regular contributors other than 2nd team all Centennial conference Forward Tejas Sarna and starting GK Christian Bignotti.  If they can fill those spots (and develop a more consistent scorer at the striker position as their top scorers were all midfielders last season), they should be a handful.  I think their 2025 schedule suggests that this is the expectation of the coaching staff as well because they've added a few more difficult early non-conference opponents.  They even start that right out of the gate with their first scrimmage against DI NJIT.  Gone from last season's schedule are Penn State Abington, Moravian, Occidental, Cal Tech, Kean, Wilkes and they've added Yeshiva, Redlands, Montclair State, Stevens, Juniata, and UMass Boston.

Simpson

Simpson, which played Colorado College very tough in a 1-0 loss early last season and tied Wisconsin-Eau Claire 2-2, also looks like a team on the cusp of a better season.  The schedule seems a bit weaker than last season, though, with a few more winnable games.  They drop Macalester, Concordia-Moorehead, Colorado College, and Wisconsin-Eau-Claire and add Illinois College, North Central (Ill), Saint Mary's (MN), Bethel (MN), and Webster. 

[SierraFD3soccer]

Swarthmore

After starting last season on an 8 game streak without a loss (7-0-1), Swat fell short against the Centennial Conference's traditional powers (F&M, Hopkins, Washington College) and fell out of even qualifying for the conference tournament with successive losses to Muhlenberg and McDaniel.  And yet, most people acknowledged that it was a dangerous team, tying Dickinson 2-2 and playing Hopkins tight in a game Coach Appleby told Simple Coach recently was one of their toughest opponents last season.  So, I expect they will be a team primed to turn the corner in 2025, especially since they will return almost all of their regular contributors other than 2nd team all Centennial conference Forward Tejas Sarna and starting GK Christian Bignotti.  If they can fill those spots (and develop a more consistent scorer at the striker position as their top scorers were all midfielders last season), they should be a handful.  I think their 2025 schedule suggests that this is the expectation of the coaching staff as well because they've added a few more difficult early non-conference opponents.  They even start that right out of the gate with their first scrimmage against DI NJIT.  Gone from last season's schedule are Penn State Abington, Moravian, Occidental, Cal Tech, Kean, Wilkes and they've added Yeshiva, Redlands, Montclair State, Stevens, Juniata, and UMass Boston.
 

Should be an interesting for Swat with Mont. State and Stevens back to back with a day in between during the 2nd weekend of the year.  Also interesting, they play JHU then week off, F&M on Sat. and Muhls on Tues. Later they play Dickinson on Sat and travel to WC on Wed. IMO, very tough.

Quirk in the schedule maybe, but F&M goes to Swat two years in a row and they don't particularly like each other plus Swat has not beaten F&M in 10 or 11 years.

[Kuiper]

Allegheny

Drops Stevenson, Alfred State, Mount Union and converts Hiram from non-conference to conference.  Adds Penn State-Behrend, Carnegie Mellon, and Case Western Reserve.

Wooster

Wooster is often competitive, but last year it struggled. It only won two games in the NCAC - against Hiram and Oberlin - and Hiram has left for the PAC and John Carroll - a team that beat Wooster 3-0 last season in non-conference play - has replaced it.  So, if it wants to end with a decent record, it probably needs to stack up some non-conference wins.  This year, they drop Guilford and Pfeiffer and add Waynesburg and Bethany (W.Va), but they still have a decently tough non-conference schedule with Case Western and Mount Union.

King's College

King's had a winning record last season for the first time in a few years, which is great, but I'm not sure they are in any way ready to play DI Penn State University at University Park, as they are scheduled to do on Sunday Oct 4th at 3 pm, the day after they open conference play hosting Stevens Saturday Oct 3 at 7 pm and after playing Hood, Union, and Stevens in a three game week already.  I mean, it's great to give the players the opportunity to play a Big 10 program on their field, but less than 24 hours after playing the best team in your conference and as the 4th game in 8 days is kind of rough. 

Beyond that, they drop Keystone, Penn State-Behrend, Catholic, Juniata, Marywood, and Washington College.  They add Utica, Oneonta, Hartwick, Ithaca, Neumann, Hood, Union, and Gettysburg, plus playing Penn State (the O.G.). 

[NEPAFAN]

someone has to help me with why PSU would play Kings and vice versa?

[Kuiper]

Some UAA schedules for everyone who won't watch their games anymore because they'll be on FloSports

NYU

NYU was 1-5-1 in the UAA last season and a pretty weak non-conference schedule was the only reason they didn't end up with a losing record overall. Even then, they were inconsistent, losing to Penn State Harrisburg and almost losing to Sarah Lawrence, but beating Rochester.  So, it's pretty surprising that NYU's non-conference schedule is significantly harder this season.  They drop Purchase College, Mount Saint Vincent, St. Joseph's Brooklyn, Penn St. Harrisburg, Baruch, and Sarah Lawrence.  In their place, they add Farmingdale State, Aelphi, Rowan, Vassar, Stockton, Misericordia, Montclair State, Stevens, and Rutgers Newark.  I had to check to see if they were a really young team and this year they were returning everyone, but that's not really the case.  NYU's top three scorers from last season and two of their regular starting defenders were all seniors.  Maybe they have a great recruiting class arriving?

Emory

They played three invitational tournaments last season, so turnover in non-conference was to be expected.  That said, I'm surprised they don't play Oglethorpe in their own tournament or as a stand-alone game (especially after playing them twice last season).  They also drop Belhaven, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Colorado College, Brevard, and UT Dallas.  In their place, they add Washington & Lee, NC Wesleyan, Wisconsin Lutheran, Maryville, Berry, Ozarks, Hendrix, and Piedmont.

[Hopkins92]

Kuiper - Any insight on how far out these schedules are arranged? 1 year out, 2?

[Kuiper]

Kuiper - Any insight on how far out these schedules are arranged? 1 year out, 2?

In most cases, I've found that teams schedule opponents in two-year cycles where each team gets a home game in one of the years.  If you are scrambling for opponents every year, you probably will have to travel farther and play more away games, which is expensive.  This is the best way to ensure enough home games and a stable travel budget. 

Invitationals, however, are generally one-year deals.  There are also one-off games where a team just needed one game to complete its schedule, sometimes with one team basically "fitting in" the new team into their schedule by adding a game.  That can happen because a school closed or a team did an invitational one year and just wants to complete the cycle with a one-off.  It can also happen when one team travels in a return trip on a two year deal and is looking for two games.  For example, Coach Appleby mentioned to Simple Coach that the trips to Tennessee and Ohio this year were return trips to Sewanee and Kenyon, but the Rhodes and Denison games are just one-offs to make the travel more worthwhile.

There are also standing non-conference games between non-conference rivals or geographic pairs (e.g., Mary Washington and Christopher Newport; UC Santa Cruz and a bunch of SCIAC teams, Elizabethtown and F&M).

The result is that is about a third to one-half of the non-conference schedule turns over every year under this system, but it's more in some schools, especially those that are geographically isolated or who are stronger and more ambitious than their local schools.

[BigSoccerFan]

I don't know where to put this.  Bryn Athyn drops all athletics.