What is a "typical" college player?
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Anonymous
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I know this is a bit general but want to hear from people played or have kids who played in college.
What is a "typical" D1 male player? A starter on a winning ECNL national team by Freshman/Sophomore year in HS? A good player on a MLS next year? What about D3? A starter on a winning ECNL RL team by freshman/sophomore year of HS? My son is in 6th grade and is a top player on his NCSL D1 team right now. We never thought about playing in college before but he improved a lot recently. |
Anonymous
Size matters for college soccer. The bigger you are the more opportunities you will have for college soccer. Go to colleges and look at rosters. It's not everything, but when looking at the differences it's noticeable. |
Anonymous
This is a great tip - go to a few college rosters and you can see where the players came from. |
Anonymous
A typical college player has very good grades in school (GPA 3.5 and above), plays Travel and subsequently Varsity at school. A College player trains hard and plays hard and stand out from most of his teammates. Some kids choose D3 because they want to play in College but don't have the rigid training and demanding schedules/games on top of academics. Regardless of D1 or D3 your kid needs to have the grades to into college first. My son was a good MLS NEXT player but by his Junior year (11th grade) in High school he knew he didn't want to play soccer in College. Since your son is only in 6th grade, a path through more rigorous ECNL or MLS NEXT would set him on the right direction. |
Anonymous
A typical D1 player right now will go to college around age 20 and come from international academies. They are big, with international training, and they are older. The percentage of international D1 players is going up every year on the men’s side. D3 is different. D3 now gets the kids who five years ago would have been D1 recruits. |
Anonymous
For men’s soccer (generally): D1 starters = strong starters at MLS academies, the rest are intl. D1 bench = MLS Academy players + top 1-3 players from MLS Next (non-Academy) and ECNL. A really strong MLSNext/ECNL team like Bethesda or Pipeline might have 5-7, but the rest in VA and MD are usually more in the 1-3 range. D3 - Can vary a lot (depending on the D3), but generally solid MLS Next/ECNL players and strongest players in EDP/ECNL-RL. It’s really not that relevant where boys are Fr/So year, more important towards the middle/end of junior year and into senior year. Two really important things to keep in mind: 1) The demand for HS players is really low. Colleges can pick up intl players and transfers who are both older and way more seasoned. 2) It’s important to start to move boys out of the youth system - at least partially - when they hit 15/16/17 and get them experience playing against men. The better clubs, like the MLS Academies and some non-Academy MLS Next/ECNL clubs (e.g. the North Carolina ECNL clubs) do that by getting their players into USL/MLS Next 2/UPSL games when they hit u17/u19. |
Anonymous
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Take a look at the NCAA Top 20 or Top 10 D1 soccer programs rosters.
International players star the show. Followed by former MLS Club Academy players. That's the reality, or you can listen to opinions and theories. |
Anonymous
| The D3 players who graduated from DC's school were starters on MLSNext and ECNL teams. |
Anonymous
This. |
Anonymous
D1 is a full time job on top of academics. And it's year round. D3 is kids who want to play soccer but also want a life outside of soccer. FWIW club soccer at some schools like UMD can be at the same level as D1. |
Anonymous
A typical D1 starter is a Latin American or European who was previously in an academy |
Anonymous
When did D1 soccer become "full time job" and "year round"? The schedules do not reflect that. (August/September to November) |
Anonymous
Plus spring mini-season, plus practices/lifting/running sessions multiple days a week from season end to school. And at least at my kid’s school they report back in July to help the assistant coaches run camps for kids and potential recruits. This is described as optional, but in reality it’s not. |
Anonymous
Winning ECNL/mLS next team does not mean that much for the individual players on that team. The difference between winning and losing is usually 2-4 top players and the 2-4 bottom players on a team. The rest of the team is just the rest of the team. College coaches are interested in the 2-3 top players on a team. They will take a top player on a “losing” team over a “rest of the team” player on a winning team. Most college players go from being the fastest on their team to middle of the pack. College like speed and size. Also soccer is not a priority for colleges and universities. There is little pressure to win, little money for recruiting, etc. Here is this weeks top 10 1 Marshall (7) 2 198 7-0-0 2 West Virginia 4 190 5-0-1 3 UCF 5 180 4-0-2 4 Akron 3 171 5-0-2 5 Portland 11 165 4-1-0 6 SMU (1) 16 162 6-1-0 7 Syracuse 7 155 3-0-3 8 Stanford 1 148 4-1-1 9 Missouri State 15 127 4-0-1 10 Louisville 5 122 4-1-1 Notice anything? Marshall acceptance rate is 98% but good luck getting on their soccer team. Maybe you thought there would be more top 50 schools/power 5 conference in the top 10? Does not work that way. Soccer is not a money sport. Many really good players end up going D3 because of grades and disinterest from D1 schools. The top D3 team could beat many D1 schools. Being a good player in 6th grade does not mean much. Let your kid have fun and make an evaluation after puberty. Everything changes at puberty. |
Anonymous
It became year around since MLS NEXT and ECNL became year around! ... Tell me your kid is not playing top level without telling me your kid is not playing top level. LOL. |