A coach gives three pieces of advice for high school sophomores trying to play college soccer: contact coaches now, play on elite youth clubs like MLS NEXT or ECNL, and email every Division III and Division I program to keep options open. He notes that Division I schools vary wildly—IUPUI starters versus Duke benchwarmers—and cites Vermont's NCAA championship as proof that rankings don't predict outcomes.
What are 3 things sophomores should never do? Number 1, if you think you cannot reach out to college coaches because you're a sophomore, then you're out of your bloody mind. Division 3 schools want to talk to you, especially the top academic schools, because they want to get you to do what's called ED1. They want you to fall so in love with their school that when you go to do applications, that you're willing to apply to their school, and if you get in, you must go to their program. Number 2, you need to be playing on an MLS NEXT 2 MLS Next ECNL or ECNL team. But if you're not playing on any of those levels, playing college soccer at a top academic D3 or top academic Division I becomes very difficult. Number 3, you must understand the difference between Division I and Division I major tiers. So if you go to a school like IUPUI, which is a great program, or you go to a school like Duke, those are very different levels. Do you want to play every minute? At IUPUI, or do you want to sit on the bench at Duke? You must email all the Division IIIs that are in your list, all the Division Is, good, bad, or middle. And remember, Vermont won the entire NCAA tournament, and they weren't even considered a "best" quote unquote team. So you might think you know what's a high-level team, but you don't know, nobody knows until the season begins. So this is why you must email almost all of them. If you want more help playing college soccer, give me a call, links in the bio. Bye.
