SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums College, Pro & International Soccer Recruiting locally, regionally, and nationally and college program success

For Women's NCAA D1 Soccer I have recently been wondering, and studying, about the success of college programs year to year based on whether they mostly recruit locally (in state), regionally (adjacent states or near by states), and nationally (say an SEC school recruiting from the northwest, northeast, or west coast). I am not sure I am noticing any trends but am still collecting data. I would be curious if any of our esteemed scsoccer friends have thought about this. Thoughts?

Not sure exactly what information or thoughts you are looking for, but if you look at schools in South Carolina you will not see that many South Carolina kids on rosters:

1. USC is the best team in the state and they only have 6 kids from this state. The rest of the team is mostly from region III and then small amounts from mostly the east coast.

2. On the other hand, Winthrop has only 3 kids from South Carolina and a pretty diverse roster otherwise. They really struggled for the most part, but had some decent wins along the way to a poor season.

3. South Carolina State has almost no one from South Carolina mostly due to the fact that hardly any decent player from this state wants to go there. They have mostly California, Canadian, and island players and do better then a Winthrop or Wofford.

4. NCAA Division II Newberry has 10 South Carolina players on the roster and made the tournament this year in problably the second hardest D2 conference in the country.

What does this all tell us? Perhaps not enough quality South Carolina Division 1 players or do colleges simply ignore players from their own state. Some thoughts....

I think our ODP program in the state hasn't helped very much in recruiting. In my daughters age group (she's been in ODP for the full 5 years) we've seen a steady decline in quality players participating year after year. The kids get discouraged going to the ODP events and seeing GA, FL, NC, TX players getting all of the attention. They end up giving it up, because their not getting anything out of it. The SC ODP team in U16 and U17 girls is 4-5 girls who could play D1 and the rest of the team is usually challenge and classic players who will play D2/D3 or not play at all. It's hard to show your skills when you have that kind of makeup on a team. You can't blame the state's ODP coaches, because their not getting much to work with. I think new leadership in the state's odp program is needed for our kids to get more looks. It needs to be run by soccer people.

odp on the girls side is more about college coaches using it for networking and recruiting. sure there is some upside but not so much about development any more.

ODP is being "phased/pushed out" for ECNL on the girls side like it is for Academy on the boys side. Not sure there is much chance for it to survive if ECNL continues to grow, at some point kids will stop doing ODP to focus on their ECNL.

The college coach/political side of ODP may have also done some damage in a lot of players/parents eyes. Rumors/stories from last couple years had players being passed on becasue they were not commiting to the "right" schools. May be true may not be but the fact exists that the rumors are there and makes people question the process/ system.

letme: "odp on the girls side is more about college coaches using it for networking and recruiting" I have to agree with you. Looking at the roster for the girls' 1992 Costa Rica trip there are no female SC players listed, although, the Region III ODP coach is from USC. There are; however, 3 of USC's 2010 recruits from Georgia listed on the roster. I am wondering if those listed are truly better than all of the 2010 South Carolina players who have signed with ACC, SEC, Southern Conference, etc. schools. Just my opinion, but, that is pretty sad when the Region coach is from South Carolina and doesn't roster any South Carolina players. Especially, when there are several who definitely have the talent to represent SC and Region III ODP. These girls represented the SC ODP program throughout their soccer careers. The posted roster provides evidence about the lack of respect some college coaches from South Carolina have for the female players from our state.

I can only speak for mine but USC was offering little when other schools were offering mush more. I think in some cases but not all, they try to get the in-state player with academic money which may not pay for everything and use their athletic money to make big offers to the out of state player. Others schools do it so it is not just USC. Its not a bad idea if it works.Some of the in state players get better offers from other schools (SC or out of state schools) so that may be a reason the bigger SC schools has a lower number of SC kids.

Do you think (objectivly speaking) that the out of state "big fish" players were "better" signings for USC? Did they lose out on better/higher ranked (again very subjective) in state talent using this method?

sweet what is your definition of a true D1 player.