DIII Men's Soccer Equivalent of Indiana Winning the Nat'l Championship?

[Kuiper]

Men In Blazers, a soccer show/podcast, asked the question, "What's the football equivalent of Indiana winning the national championship?"

Indiana apparently had the record for the most all-time losses for a program in DI college football for years until it started to win two years ago, which is what makes their victory this season so incredible even though their record this year hardly made them a big underdog. 

I don't think there is any comparable national champion in DIII men's soccer history where the program went from complete rags to riches, but what's the closest?

In recent history, my initial guess was that Connecticut College in 2021 would be the closest.  When I looked back at the records, though, they had 5 straight winning seasons before 2021 (not including 2020), including in-conference.  The last losing season was 2014, when they were 7-9-1, and they had winning seasons in the two previous years and were generally a middling team.  They certainly weren't a blue blood like Tufts or Amherst, but they were hardly an Indiana.

I next checked St. Olaf, who won in 2023.  They had strong records in the two previous years, but pre-pandemic they had a dry spell for at least a few years.  Still, they got to the third round of the NCAA tournament in 2015, which is definitely not an Indiana-like rebirth of a program.

Among older champions, Stockton in 2001 was notable for being the first national championship for the school in any sport, but they were a top team in the 1990s, qualifying for the NCAA tournament 6 times in the decade.

Another candidate might be Brandeis in 1976.  They only had 5 winning seasons in the first 25 years of the program's existence before winning the national championship.  Hard to gauge things that far back, though, because most of that history is pre-DIII, which means the difficulty of the competition may have skewed the records.

Any other ideas?

[Hopkins92]

It's a great topic, but I don't think you're going to find a like-for-like in any sport. The closest thing I think of in the NFL is a hypothetical where the Jets somehow go from - whatever that is -- to winning a Super Bowl.

Leicester City doesn't really work and I don't feel like typing out why.

Miracle on Ice in 80 has a very close vibe, in that the US was getting absolutely wrecked in its exhibition games leading into the Olympics. And the US hadn't won gold for 20 years... And they hadn't been particularly competitive since that win on the international stage.

But looking at the D3 champions, as you've already done... You'd need something like a bottom dwelling NESCAC, NJAC, Centennial or UAA team to come out of nowhere to becomes a national contender/champion and we just haven't seen that. (Unless I'm missing something.)

When I look at teams like Bethany, E-town and San Diego... I don't have time to dig into their history, but I highly doubt they were rags-to-riches stories.

[Hopkins92]

But what stands out about IU is that they have been historically bad in a highly visible conference. I grew up in Ann Arbor. IU and Northwestern were, by far, the two most booked teams for homecoming games.

It's not just that they had a few down years and crawled back out of the muck. The last time this team won 9 games was in the 60s. Vanderbilt is the only other team in the ballpark, in terms of historically bad.

[jknezek]

Yeah. I don't think there is a D3 soccer equivalent. Indiana is a byproduct of the massive shift in D1 athletics, especially football and basketball, and a fantastic coaching hire. The ingredients required for this kind of rags to riches shift, impossibly fast roster turnover, traditional power becoming irrelevant by dollars, and a coach that learned what Calipari struggled to learn... strong, proven men all over the playing surface are better than outstanding young talented boys.

But without the earthquake of changes to how FBS football works, it doesn't happen like this. I'm not saying Indiana couldn't have improved, I'm saying the lightning shift doesn't happen without the transfer portal, the importance of dollars, and a brilliant coach.

If FBS programs have any sense, the value for proven 20+ year old players should have just blown past the value for flashy 5 star incoming freshman. Honestly, the G5 has become AAA. They should be able to recruit better young players now, but they are going to get picked clean for any of them that actually develop after a year or two.

[Kuiper]

Yeah. I don't think there is a D3 soccer equivalent. Indiana is a byproduct of the massive shift in D1 athletics, especially football and basketball, and a fantastic coaching hire. The ingredients required for this kind of rags to riches shift, impossibly fast roster turnover, traditional power becoming irrelevant by dollars, and a coach that learned what Calipari struggled to learn... strong, proven men all over the playing surface are better than outstanding young talented boys.

But without the earthquake of changes to how FBS football works, it doesn't happen like this. I'm not saying Indiana couldn't have improved, I'm saying the lightning shift doesn't happen without the transfer portal, the importance of dollars, and a brilliant coach.

If FBS programs have any sense, the value for proven 20+ year old players should have just blown past the value for flashy 5 star incoming freshman. Honestly, the G5 has become AAA. They should be able to recruit better young players now, but they are going to get picked clean for any of them that actually develop after a year or two.

Interestingly, there are some parallels in DIII to the kind of changes that propelled Indiana to the top - roster limits in DI, the transfer portal, the creation of the NPI (which potentially allows some underrated teams to climb the rankings more quickly than they would have under the regional ranking system), expanded recruiting georgraphically, retirements/removals of chronically underperforming coaches as DIII schools recognize the importance of athletics in enrollment, expanded international recruiting in DIII, etc. 

As I said in the original post, there probably are no actual Indiana stories in DIII men's soccer.  There are some pretty quick turnarounds in records in recent years, but none of these teams made any noise in the NCAA tournament:

TCNJ (2-12-15 in 2024; 11-5-5 in 2025)
Caltech (1-12-1 in 2021; 8-7-3 in 2024)
Haverford (2-11-5 in 2024; 10-0-10 in 2025)
Lake Forest (4-13-1 in 2021; 19-2 in 2025)
Edgewood (1-15-1 in 2022; 17-2-2 in 2024)

There are probably other good examples of this.
   

[Ron Boerger]

My alma mater won its only WBB NCAA championship in '02-'03 having never previously won an NCAA tournament game, and they had been pretty bad prior to the then coach showing up but she had been there for about a decade when they won it all.

[VASoccerDad]

Yeah. I don't think there is a D3 soccer equivalent. Indiana is a byproduct of the massive shift in D1 athletics, especially football and basketball, and a fantastic coaching hire. The ingredients required for this kind of rags to riches shift, impossibly fast roster turnover, traditional power becoming irrelevant by dollars, and a coach that learned what Calipari struggled to learn... strong, proven men all over the playing surface are better than outstanding young talented boys.

But without the earthquake of changes to how FBS football works, it doesn't happen like this. I'm not saying Indiana couldn't have improved, I'm saying the lightning shift doesn't happen without the transfer portal, the importance of dollars, and a brilliant coach.

If FBS programs have any sense, the value for proven 20+ year old players should have just blown past the value for flashy 5 star incoming freshman. Honestly, the G5 has become AAA. They should be able to recruit better young players now, but they are going to get picked clean for any of them that actually develop after a year or two.

Interestingly, there are some parallels in DIII to the kind of changes that propelled Indiana to the top - roster limits in DI, the transfer portal, the creation of the NPI (which potentially allows some underrated teams to climb the rankings more quickly than they would have under the regional ranking system), expanded recruiting georgraphically, retirements/removals of chronically underperforming coaches as DIII schools recognize the importance of athletics in enrollment, expanded international recruiting in DIII, etc. 

As I said in the original post, there probably are no actual Indiana stories in DIII men's soccer.  There are some pretty quick turnarounds in records in recent years, but none of these teams made any noise in the NCAA tournament:

TCNJ (2-12-15 in 2024; 11-5-5 in 2025)
Caltech (1-12-1 in 2021; 8-7-3 in 2024)
Haverford (2-11-5 in 2024; 10-0-10 in 2025)
Lake Forest (4-13-1 in 2021; 19-2 in 2025)
Edgewood (1-15-1 in 2022; 17-2-2 in 2024)

There are probably other good examples of this.
   

I think these are some good potential examples, however like you said, they died quickly in the tournament. They each had great regular seasons but did nothing after that. Indiana not only went undefeated in the regular season, but also made the tournament (playoff) run to win it all.

Haverford went undefeated but then faded once they got to the tournament/playoffs. They would have needed to win it all (what, 4-5 more games?) before we could consider them in the same level as an IU football story.

Maybe if Dickinson won it all last year, it could have been similar? But they had a great season the year before as well.

I think it's going to be tough to really get a good D3 soccer comparison because of the lack of NIL/$$$. Unless an NYU (UAA) or Trinity (CT) (NESCAC) or similar type school starts buying players, I don't think we're going to see it.

[SierraFD3soccer]

It's a great topic, but I don't think you're going to find a like-for-like in any sport. The closest thing I think of in the NFL is a hypothetical where the Jets somehow go from - whatever that is -- to winning a Super Bowl.

So as to Super Bowl runs, 2007-08 Giants third Super Bowl where they were 10-6 and a wild card only to beat the 18-0 Pats? Yeah Jets did something, but Giants beat probably the greatest team in football.

2010-11 Giants were 9-7

[stlawus]

It's a great topic, but I don't think you're going to find a like-for-like in any sport. The closest thing I think of in the NFL is a hypothetical where the Jets somehow go from - whatever that is -- to winning a Super Bowl.

Leicester City doesn't really work and I don't feel like typing out why.

Miracle on Ice in 80 has a very close vibe, in that the US was getting absolutely wrecked in its exhibition games leading into the Olympics. And the US hadn't won gold for 20 years... And they hadn't been particularly competitive since that win on the international stage.

But looking at the D3 champions, as you've already done... You'd need something like a bottom dwelling NESCAC, NJAC, Centennial or UAA team to come out of nowhere to becomes a national contender/champion and we just haven't seen that. (Unless I'm missing something.)

When I look at teams like Bethany, E-town and San Diego... I don't have time to dig into their history, but I highly doubt they were rags-to-riches stories.

I don't mean to be that guy, but I would contest the notion about the hockey team. They got wrecked in the 1 game against the Soviets before the Olympics, but they had a really good lead up.  The played about 60 games before that and won ~40 of them

[Hopkins92]

You are absolutely correct. I got caught up in taking the Disney version of the story at face value. Most of the country, even folks in hockey country, weren't following their exhibition season until it was closer to the Games. I distinctly remember the Russians smoking the US, which stuck with a lot of folks.

But, yes, the overall run-up had its blips, but was mostly successful.