Just taking the three schools we're comparing here.

A&M is a top school regionally, both in academic prestige and in women's soccer prestige.

UNC is the school nationally in women's soccer.

Stanford is known as a top schools nationally in academics.

UNC is interesting in that they were able to establish themselves as such in the early years of women's soccer. They had like a 15 year head start on A&M. UNC was already the team that girls wanted to play for before A&M even started their program. Their early investment in that program continues to pay off. Kids still want to play soccer at UNC and North Carolina is synonymous with women's soccer, even for casual observers.

A&M has built itself into a regional powerhouse. A lot of area girls want to play soccer at A&M. We can win head to head recruiting battles with regional teams off of that. We might even be able to win battles with UNC from time to time for local kids that grew up watching Aggie soccer.

The same thing kind of goes for Academics. A&M is known as a good school. But for academics, Stanford is a national brand.

Facilities are something that schools have more control of and can be a tool we pull out in these battles. You've seen the videos of college football locker rooms or Oregon recruiting visits. That wow factor can help set a school apart.

Another important component is fan support. That has built programs. I'd credit that in a large part to making Gonzaga basketball what it is today. We have that, but it's fallen off a bit (RIP Maroon Militia). But that's another one of those wow factors that can help convince a recruit that they want to play in Aggieland.

Scouting and identifying talent is an important component, but by the time they sign, the top players in the nation and state are well known. You've got to find a way to win those battles.

Like I said before, I was kind of surprised because this seems to be a bigger project than I expected. I'm curious to hear more about it moving forward.

I definitely was wrong on the stadium size not sure exactly what I was imagining but the photos posted don't do the stadium justice. But definitely smaller than A&M.

But Stanford has won 2 of last 3 national championships and has won 3 of last 10. And then was in the finals losing 1-0 to Notre Dame and 1-0 to North Carolina. That was North Carolina's last championship little over 10 years ago.

Stanford has been a power in Soccer the last 10 years and would have been in the running if not for COVID this year.

But yes, I totally was off on the stadiums and not sure what I was thinking.

ColoradoMooseHerd said:

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I definitely was wrong on the stadium size not sure exactly what I was imagining but the photos posted don't do the stadium justice. But definitely smaller than A&M.

But Stanford has won 2 of last 3 national championships and has won 3 of last 10. And then was in the finals losing 1-0 to Notre Dame and 1-0 to North Carolina. That was North Carolina's last championship little over 10 years ago.

Stanford has been a power in Soccer the last 10 years and would have been in the running if not for COVID this year.

But yes, I totally was off on the stadiums and not sure what I was thinking.

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No doubt who has the better program, that's for sure!

Stanford's academics attract a lot of athletes.

I heard before the game we were playing 4 back and it looked at kickoff that it was Kolb, Sample, Diamond and Smith. G said in the press meeting Friday that Carolina was staying in the same Marriott that they were at so I think every team was in the NCAA bubble. The majority of the Aggie fans were families of the players. The wind was a huge factor as every long kick we tried in the second half was knocked down by the wind. Give credit to the team for not giving up a goal , but it seemed that we spent so much energy defending we didn't have any to attack. Add in that Carolina's ball handling is superb. They were content the last 15 minutes to just kick the ball to the end line and keep us from crossing midfield.

Good discussion.

It would be good to know what those knowledgeable with women's soccer recruiting think about where the top recruits are? I looked at our current 20 woman roster, and I believe that we have four from California, one from Canada, one from Georgia, one from Colorado, two from Oklahoma, and 11 from Texas. So barely half are from Texas. Can we build a national contender using only Texas recruits or do we have to get players from out of state? Given the reputations of multiple California schools, having to go there to get recruits seems to put us behind.

Also, it appears to me that league-wise, there is the ACC and everyone else. The SEC might have some good teams but it appears to me that we are no better than a good second tier league. We got to the round of 8; Ole Miss and Arkansas got beat in the round of 16. The ACC had five teams in the final 8, three of the final 4, and at least one in the championship game.

Beyond its national academic reputation, it is consequential that Stanford has a national athletic reputation for ****ting out at least one championship and three Olympians every morning after breakfast. Only a few schools have that reputation---and *ahem* it is largely separate from football success.

Soccer's success lifts up other Aggie sports and other Aggie sports will help push soccer higher. It wasn't a coincidence a decade ago that we saw a bunch of sports take "the next step." And it probably is not a coincidence that a bunch of sports have slid backwards at the same time.


*This is not me saying football isn't the lifeblood of a Texan/Southern athletic department or trying to debate the merits of a good football team, but I've been afraid for the rest of the athletic department that we really started to turn too strongly towards the "football school mentality" after the SEC move, Kyle Field renovation, etc. Hopefully we can get back to promoting an all around fantastic athletic department.

2011,

From an old Ag looking in from the outside, I agree with your perception. Although Bill Byrne was a lightning rod, his philosophy was every sport should be national champions. During his tenure, I think we hired coaches in almost every sport except Coach G and became a stronger presence in the Director's Cup every year.

I like that we are competitive in everything. Look at Florida and Georgia. They may go through ups and downs in specific sports, but in general there isn't any sport in which they compete that they aren't national contenders. On the other hand, LSU seems like football and whatever. They have a nationally competitive track team this year, but not every year. Baseball seems to be the same way- they are competing for the last SEC tournament spot along with us right now.

I want Bjork to take us to be like UF and UGA. Let's use our hopeful football success to be contenders in everything. We are already a "regional" soccer power. I think that's a fair statement. Let's strike while the iron is hot, and see if we can't get to the national championship level.

coloradoag69 said:

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Good discussion.

It would be good to know what those knowledgeable with women's soccer recruiting think about where the top recruits are? I looked at our current 20 woman roster, and I believe that we have four from California, one from Canada, one from Georgia, one from Colorado, two from Oklahoma, and 11 from Texas. So barely half are from Texas. Can we build a national contender using only Texas recruits or do we have to get players from out of state? Given the reputations of multiple California schools, having to go there to get recruits seems to put us behind.

Also, it appears to me that league-wise, there is the ACC and everyone else. The SEC might have some good teams but it appears to me that we are no better than a good second tier league. We got to the round of 8; Ole Miss and Arkansas got beat in the round of 16. The ACC had five teams in the final 8, three of the final 4, and at least one in the championship game.

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I would argue that the PAC-12 is a pretty solid league itself. Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington all solid squads that have been in the running lately