2026 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[SimpleCoach]

Just saw that Amer Lukovic received a medical waiver last year after suffering an injury after only 7 games at Rutgers. He's now starting in the MF as a Grad Student and has 3 assists.

Watched highlights of the Rutgers  game v UCLA. Seems like at this point he must be what, 32?

SC.

[jknezek]

Just saw that Amer Lukovic received a medical waiver last year after suffering an injury after only 7 games at Rutgers. He's now starting in the MF as a Grad Student and has 3 assists.

Watched highlights of the Rutgers  game v UCLA. Seems like at this point he must be what, 32?

SC.

He was class of 2021 in h.s. So he's on his sixth season of college soccer. D3 player of the year in 2023 I believe? Still going.

[SierraFD3soccer]

FYI, both Mohamed Toure, Miami, and Cornelius Brown, Alabama A&M, are in their 8th year of college while going for their PhDs obv. 

Then Stetson Bennett at Georgia spent 6 years and did not actually graduate, unlike John Urschel, Penn State and later Ravens OT, spent 3 yrs getting bachelors in math and 2 years more to get his masters with a 4.0 GPA. He redshirted his first year. He went on to MIT to actually get a PhD in math.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

It's finally happened... Lewis & Clark have won a game! They beat Whitworth 2-0 for their first win since returning to varsity status in 2022. They were 0-68-4 in that time. Their last win was Halloween 1990 when they beat Concordia (OR).
Congrats to the River Otters

[DagarmanSpartan]

Hopkins played Towson (State, at the time) for a number of years. Most of the matches were fairly competitive into the second half, but I don't think they got a result in the modern era.

*looks up record book*

Yep, last game was a 2-0 win for Towson. Last time Hop pulled a result was 4-2 win in 1977.

Your comment reminds me that I meant to check the roster for Johns Hopkins (which was late to post) as kind of a gauge of trends in grad transfers in D3.  Last season, Hop had two (Vadeghi and Howlett).  This season, they have two again, although one is their own 4 year player taking advantage of a medical year to play his 4th season (Laudisa).  The new grad student player is Dylan Ellis from Brown (D1), who did not play in Hop's first game. 

Chicago has one grad student this year, Austin Murawski, a transfer from Hartford (D3) and before that Bryant (D1)

Emory has one, Walker Stebbings from Hampden-Sydney (D3)

Rochester has one, Aidan Hartman from Fort Hays State (D2), plus one of their own students returning after missing a year (Mikey Burke)

That's just a small sample of schools with strong grad programs, but nothing suggests these types of schools with strong grad programs are using it to obtain a massive advantage.

Grad school at a UAA school is a much different world than anywhere else. UR got a grad transfer in basketball from Duke a few years ago (who played minutes at Duke) and didn't last through preseason.

A lot of the talent using a 5th/grad year are going d1 instead of leveling up elsewhere in d3

Well, UAA member CWRU has a grad student on its undefeated men's team.  Had played at D1 Drake previously.  Studying molecular biology.

[Another Mom]

Washington and Lee 5 - 0 Mary Washington.

Glad to see the scoring come from a number of different players too.

[jknezek]

Washington and Lee 5 - 0 Mary Washington.

Glad to see the scoring come from a number of different players too.

Yes. 3 of the goals from freshman, 2 from a junior. Jenkins getting 2 assists feels right also. If they can establish an offensive identity, I think the rest of it is there to be very, very good again. Let's see if they play up or down to the opponent in the first couple ODAC games.

H-SC could be interesting. They've got a good jump on the season, but the schedule leaves a lot to be desired. Don't know what to make of Batten (VWU). That looks like how W&L started last year except with weaker opponents. Lot of ties and I suspect the Marlins just aren't all that good. Roanoke looks bad, but that's a lot of close losses to decent teams. After the jump they got last year, 'Noke just hasn't been able to put it together. Lynchburg is doing their thing. The Southwestern loss is a good loss, even though Southwestern isn't getting much love. They are proving to be pretty good, and that was a long road trip. It happens.

Let the ODAC unbalanced mishmash begin!

[Another Mom]

Plus Mary Washington is ranked 14th? Even if not terribly accurate surely they aren't a weak team. So augurs well for W&L.