Reply to New Additions to Leagues Check Up (ECNL & GA)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Soccer wire had a really good article on the upcoming recruiting changes and the landscape moving forward.  Because college rosters will be limited to 28, and they can offer all 28 full rides, college coach's will not be tossing out large nets to commit as many kids as possible hoping that a few will hit.  They will be reducing their watch lists from around 80 to 30 which means they're failior rate will have to be much lower.  A majority of the D1's will choose to rely on the most prominent ECNL clubs that have the highest rate of turning out top talent and national pool players.  Also keeping their already deeply connected club director's close as a pipeline for top talent.  It's already the halves and halve not's in recruiting but this gap will get even wider going forward.  The best way to get committed D1 is to play for a top ECNL club in the country that competes regularly in the playoffs and preferably wins national champions.  The historical top clubs have coaches and directors that communicate regularly with college coaches and their endorsements will now go farther than seeing kids at low level ga showcases.  These will be the players dropped off the watch lists and parents and players will be left spinning their wheels to be even looked at at all.[/quote]

No schools, or I should say very few schools, will have 28 scholarships for women's soccer. Lets just get that clear. Now, the reason for the wide net is because not every school has every major and not every ECNL or GA player even wants to play D1 or go to a D1 school. On top of that, players court several schools, so coaches can't put their eggs in a few players and hope they choose them over another school.

Lets look at the simple numbers:

There are 336 D1 schools, after this mess with the roster cuts - provided the courts don't allow them to be grandfathered in - they will still have to replace open spots year after year which will still be 3-8 players on average. So you get anywhere from 1008 to 2688 players needed just for D1. For 2025, the only list I know of is imyouthsoccer and he comments that the 2025 list had 1989 names which comes out to average almost 6 players per school and I'm not sure how final of a number that is - https://www.instagram.com/p/DA9aVOypqpn/. The verbal commit list he has from Jan has 1320 for the 2026 class so far and I know several D1s around here that have several spots still.

There are 128 ECNL clubs so roughly 2560 players (average 20 per team) in u19. Now we all know not every player from this list will be D1 caliber or even want to play D1 or continue soccer in college. Even if every player at the top 50 clubs went D1, which we all know isn't a thing, that would still only be about half of all D1 commits.

Coaches budgets will be lower which means less travel. Coaches would most likely cut travel to showcases farther away unless there is some kind of justification for it like number of actual targets in a single showcase. By targets I mean confirmed interested players. Coaches won't be able to spend the money to just show up and spray and prey with emails to players they liked. I'm also not sure if you ever noticed but a majority of most schools, D1 or otherwise, wind up with players close to home. Athletes may travel a little farther on average for school but most will still stay within that 400 mile radius of home. Not many players on the east coast are beating down the doors of D1 schools like Prairie View, Alabama St., Oakland Univ, or any other low tiered D1 not in their comfort zone away from home.

Anyway - So concerned about D1, this is a thing that coaches/clubs beat into players and parents as justification for the high prices and travel. Truth is this sport, like any other, is more of a tool to help a player go where they may want to go or open the possibilities of schools they never considered. I've seen all kinds over the years, from D1 or busts that took preferred walk on status ie no scholarship or even guarantee to make the team over being a D2 or D3 starter. I've seen, often, top players go to a D3 school because the school is closer, has a really good program, got them academic money, and/or is big deal for their major. Clubs should be helping players find the best fit for the player instead of trying to shoehorn or convince them that if they don't go D1 they are worthless. If they did then the transfer portal wouldn't have 1000+ players between D1 and D2 every year looking to move.[/quote]

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