United Soccer Coaches: Year End Awards

[JGM92]

I promise, I searched for answers before posting. If this topic has been addressed and someone can point me to the thread, I am happy to search there.

First, congrats to the awardees for 2025 season. Lots of deserving recipients; however, several of the awards do not seem to make sense (statistically or in context of the award).

Yes, I know a) there will always be those on the outside looking in, and b) awards like this are extremely subjective, and c) there is no way the voters can see all performances. That said, a simply search on a team's website can shed a lot about positions the player plays and game stats. That simple step could help inform on b & c, above.

Can anyone provide any insight into what the voters are looking for with individual awards (at least on the men's side). Any USC voters on this thread care to weigh in?

Thanks.

[Kuiper]

I promise, I searched for answers before posting. If this topic has been addressed and someone can point me to the thread, I am happy to search there.

First, congrats to the awardees for 2025 season. Lots of deserving recipients; however, several of the awards do not seem to make sense (statistically or in context of the award).

Yes, I know a) there will always be those on the outside looking in, and b) awards like this are extremely subjective, and c) there is no way the voters can see all performances. That said, a simply search on a team's website can shed a lot about positions the player plays and game stats. That simple step could help inform on b & c, above.

Can anyone provide any insight into what the voters are looking for with individual awards (at least on the men's side). Any USC voters on this thread care to weigh in?

Thanks.

The link and discussion is in the 2025 AA List thread.  I added the full lists to the USC Rankings 2025 thread as well just to keep the United Soccer Coach stuff in one thread.

There is a discussion of some of the selection oddities there, although not so much anyone questioning a specific player's selection, but that there were so few NESCAC selections.  Here was my response (and I don't have any role in selections):

There are always some odd selections, some who are really deserving but they don't play at schools that other people watch, while others are real head-scratchers based on their stats.  No coaches watch all these players and most of them never play each other in a way that a fair comparison can be rendered.  That said, I usually accept that there are many more outstanding players around the country than could be properly watched and recognized.  I tend to think the conference awards are probably more accurate than the national awards.

With that as context, 4 is a pretty standard number for NESCAC schools

Here are the number of NESCAC players that have been named All Americans in past years

2024 - 5
2023 - 3
2022 - 4
2021 - 4
2019 - 5

And while that response was to someone specifically asking about the perceived lack of NESCAC players this season, I think it also answers your question to some degree.  United Soccer Coaches have always been about representation.  That is, they generally try to spread the recognition around to players from various regions by relying upon regional all-conference teams as a starting point so that one conference or region doesn't dominate the awards. 

I analogize it to the principle of Universality in Olympic selections, which limits the number of entrants that can qualify from a single country so as to preserve spots for entrants from more countries (even if, for example, the 10 fastest times in the 50M butterfly all come from the US).  And, of course, a sport like soccer doesn't have anything close to an objective way to rank players the way swimming or track does.

[JGM92]

Thank you so much. That is what I was looking for; the "formula" someone posted the the other thread you referenced.  The representation point you make is frustrating, but it is what it is. I guess I just saw 1 specific (and 1 blended) example where an AA awardee was named to an AA team in a position he does not play...that's one of the largest frustration with this year's picks