2025 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[Mr_November]

I figure that these sorts of "down" seasons or "rebuilding" seasons will become all too common and will continue for different programs each year. The margins in quality between D3 teams will continue to shrink with the growth of the sport in the country, as well as the new rules at the D1 level. There's a bigger pool of quality players for D3 programs to recruit from.

Of course the sky is blue and my point is fairly obvious to most on this board, but it's an exciting prospect to think about how competitive the D3 landscape is now.

[Kuiper]

Here is an interesting D3 to D1 story I have been following.  Kevin Box was a good goalkeeper for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps for three years.  Not a "special" one though.  No All-SCIAC awards, let alone all region X awards.  Played 27 games over three years, but wasn't a locked-in starter until senior year.  Might have been All-SCIAC if he had stayed last season for a COVID year, but instead entered a grad program at UCLA as a regular student.  In the Spring of his first year, he came out for the UCLA Men's Soccer team as a tryout player, mostly because they had a number of transfers and needed a body in goal.  Then, as things shake out between transfers and recruits, they have an extra spot and offer him.  He takes it as a 3rd string GK. The 1st string GK starts, but the team is losing and he gave up a bunch of goals against UC Irvine.  Then they start the prized freshman recruit, but he is worst in the Big Ten in a number of metrics.  Last game, they turned to Box against Maryland and he pitched a shutout. 

In his debut, graduate student goalkeeper Kevin Box and the Bruins' defense kept the Terrapins scoreless.

"Kevin was phenomenal. Phenomenal. First game, first shut out, first clean sheet," said graduate student defender Schinieder Mimy.

More than that, the UCLA coach said that they wanted to use his superior skills with his feet to control Maryland's press.

Jorden said the decision to start Box was influenced by the goalkeeper's on-ball ability, which helped stifle the Terrapins' attacking options – an arsenal headlined by Masereka, who is tied for sixth-most individual goals in the Big Ten, and forward Stephane Njike, who has recorded a shot on goal in all but two games this season.

He added that Box was able to act as an 11th player in possession for the Bruins.

"They have maybe the two most dynamic attacking players in their two wingers, means that they're going to play some direct stuff behind," Jorden said. "Kevin does a good job athletically in covering and dealing with that. We knew that could be a feature. We also knew that the way they were going to press there was a reality that we were going to need the additional outfield player in possession."

Think about that.  The 6'0" (generously) D3 good, but not great, GK, was the guy they went to because he was better with his feet and better as an extra field player than the two guys who are MLS Academy and USYNT players.  Pretty cool.

[BaboNation]

While Messiah's results thus far this season may constitute a historical low for the program, they are not the only traditional powerhouse to be arguably under-performing their lofty standards this year.  Just to name a few:

Messiah
Johns Hopkins
Franklin & Marshall
Redlands
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Amherst
Mary Washington
Babson
Kenyon

Some of this is cyclical.  In some cases, there may have been school-specific factors, like coaching changes or injuries etc. And, to be fair, some of these schools are still going to make the NCAA tournament this year, so relatively speaking they will be just fine. 

Are there, however, common explanations? Here are a few possibilities

Players: 

Some had valuable 5th years/grad students who departed after last season.  Not only do they miss those players, but those players may have limited development opportunities for younger players or led typical recruits to look at other schools where there was more playing time available. 

Similarly, the roster restrictions at D1 may have led to an infusion of talent across D3, which could have jump-started the ability of other programs to challenge the traditional D3 powers. 

Rule changes: 

The elimination of overtime didn't just increase ties.  It enabled some of these upstart teams to develop defensive playing styles that allowed them to better compete with the top teams and those playing styles may have taken a few years to develop and spread across D3. 

Also, the advent of NPI changed how you might schedule.  Some traditional powers are still playing very strong opponents originally scheduled prior to NPI, while other schools were more easily able to pivot to more NPI-friendly schedules.

Changes in athletic priorities/recruiting:

The increasingly competitive environment for students has led some schools to change their approach to athletics.  In the SCIAC, for example, Pomona College made a major investment in new facilities, athlete-only weight room, etc, started recruiting nationally while the old coach was on medical leave, and hired a new coach from DII.  Whittier pivoted to a much more aggressive recruitment strategy for international students and focused on developing a pipeline to Sweden.  Both schools are starting to see returns on those investments and they are starting to challenge traditional conference powers like CMS and Redlands.

With regard to Babson it's what you've listed under Players, although I'd go further (probably implied) that the end of the Covid era has come to the fore.  They are not "down" in the historical sense.  They are either 1-2 in the conference, but no longer have the infusion of 2-4 impactful grad xfers to which they became accustomed.

[Footy]

Here is an interesting D3 to D1 story I have been following.  Kevin Box was a good goalkeeper for Claremont-Mudd-Scripps for three years.  Not a "special" one though.  No All-SCIAC awards, let alone all region X awards.  Played 27 games over three years, but wasn't a locked-in starter until senior year.  Might have been All-SCIAC if he had stayed last season for a COVID year, but instead entered a grad program at UCLA as a regular student.  In the Spring of his first year, he came out for the UCLA Men's Soccer team as a tryout player, mostly because they had a number of transfers and needed a body in goal.  Then, as things shake out between transfers and recruits, they have an extra spot and offer him.  He takes it as a 3rd string GK. The 1st string GK starts, but the team is losing and he gave up a bunch of goals against UC Irvine.  Then they start the prized freshman recruit, but he is worst in the Big Ten in a number of metrics.  Last game, they turned to Box against Maryland and he pitched a shutout. 

In his debut, graduate student goalkeeper Kevin Box and the Bruins' defense kept the Terrapins scoreless.

"Kevin was phenomenal. Phenomenal. First game, first shut out, first clean sheet," said graduate student defender Schinieder Mimy.

More than that, the UCLA coach said that they wanted to use his superior skills with his feet to control Maryland's press.

Jorden said the decision to start Box was influenced by the goalkeeper's on-ball ability, which helped stifle the Terrapins' attacking options – an arsenal headlined by Masereka, who is tied for sixth-most individual goals in the Big Ten, and forward Stephane Njike, who has recorded a shot on goal in all but two games this season.

He added that Box was able to act as an 11th player in possession for the Bruins.

"They have maybe the two most dynamic attacking players in their two wingers, means that they're going to play some direct stuff behind," Jorden said. "Kevin does a good job athletically in covering and dealing with that. We knew that could be a feature. We also knew that the way they were going to press there was a reality that we were going to need the additional outfield player in possession."

Think about that.  The 6'0" (generously) D3 good, but not great, GK, was the guy they went to because he was better with his feet and better as an extra field player than the two guys who are MLS Academy and USYNT players.  Pretty cool.

Love it.  Another D3 to D1 story is Adam Carter, Messiah's stand out GK the last two seasons.  He transferred to UConn.  While serving in a reserve role, impressive shift to a highly regarded program with a history of producing exceptional GKs.

[Freddyfud]

While Messiah's results thus far this season may constitute a historical low for the program, they are not the only traditional powerhouse to be arguably under-performing their lofty standards this year.  Just to name a few:

Messiah
Johns Hopkins
Franklin & Marshall
Redlands
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Amherst
Mary Washington
Babson
Kenyon

Based on NCAA.com the median number of seasons for all of the head coaches on the list above is 23.  The median number of seasons for coaches of the current NPI top 10 teams? (based on games thru 10/5) 12

[eaglesoccerdad]

for Mary Washington it is really clear the reason for the drop. They graduated 19 players that garnered 95% of the minutes. Only two returning starters (Macek & Amarose) and 2 other players that played measurable minutes (Hoskins, Valoyi). With just 6 seniors and 4 juniors on the roster it is a young squad.