A 9th-grade soccer player learns how a new NCAA rule cutting Division I roster sizes will shift when coaches offer scholarships. Offers that used to come senior year will now arrive junior year, jumping from 45% to potentially 60-80% of all offers.
Soccer guy, I'm in 9th grade. Do I really need to think about this recruiting process? Well, let me ask you, what level of college soccer do you want to play at one day? Oh, I'm for sure playing Division 1. Are you out of your mind? Like, why would I even do this if I'm not going to play Division 1 soccer? Do you know what percentage of Division 1 soccer players are committed at what time of the year? Uh, senior year, obviously. I'm sure like most of them are committed senior year, like, duh. There's a lot of truth to that. You know, most of them were recruited for sure and give an offer senior year. But have you heard about this new NCAA rule? What do you mean NCAA? What? I'm a freshman. I know what— what are you talking about? So the NCAA just announced that they're going to cut the rosters of most teams for Division I schools, and this is going to change the recruiting process a lot. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean change? You know, I don't like change. I mean, I might be Gen Z, but I don't want change. Well, unfortunately, change is coming, and what this basically means is for this year The recruiting process is going to happen a little bit later for seniors just because they don't know what the rules exactly mean. And some schools are going to be able to opt out of it, and some schools are even going to cut their programs entirely because they're not going to be able to fund the schools with less players on their team. But for other people, what it means for the future is college coaches are going to have to make decisions earlier because they don't have as much time to make such a big roster. They don't need as many players. So you're saying the rule will potentially make the recruiting process start earlier? So you're saying you think more players will get recruited, like, when? I mean, we already know for like the top-level schools, while most offers for D1 happen in the fall, many offers happen during junior year, if not 50, maybe 45% of them happen during junior year. So my prediction is that will move up to 60 to 80% will happen in junior year, more so than in senior year, because one, there's less players to recruit, so there's less people to go look at, but also it's going to get more competitive So people will want to make decisions earlier. Okay, you just freaked me out. Like, what do I need to do now that I'm a freshman? What if you want more help? Comment, call, and we can schedule a call with you and your parents.
