2021 D3 Men's Soccer National Perspective

[PaulNewman]

Wait... I'm not a flamethrower or anything, but a guy that has won 2 MLS Cups is considered a failure at the pro level? (ETA - Sorry, talking about Caleb Porter, if not clear.) He was very seriously considered for the NT job on at least two occasions.

I take the overall point, it's very difficult to make that transition. I just don't CP is a very good poster child. You already trotted out a great one, but Nick Saban is probably the very best example in the CFB-->NFL universe.

I would also trot at Bruce Arena as a very strong counter to this argument. Just to continue to e contrary.

CP also coached Akron when it was THE premier program in the country.  I remember his team with Darlington Nagby, Teal Bunbury, Perry Kitchen, Kofi Sarkodie, etc and a bunch of other top 25 recruits that was so good Scottie Caldwell (one of Massachusetts' best players ever this side of Sam and Kristie Mewis) couldn't crack the starting line-up but I think scored in the national final game as a soph when Akron won it all after getting to the final the year before.

[Hopkins92]

Wait... I'm not a flamethrower or anything, but a guy that has won 2 MLS Cups is considered a failure at the pro level? (ETA - Sorry, talking about Caleb Porter, if not clear.) He was very seriously considered for the NT job on at least two occasions.

I take the overall point, it's very difficult to make that transition. I just don't CP is a very good poster child. You already trotted out a great one, but Nick Saban is probably the very best example in the CFB-->NFL universe.

I would also trot at Bruce Arena as a very strong counter to this argument. Just to continue to e contrary.

CP also coached Akron when it was THE premier program in the country.  I remember his team with Darlington Nagby, Teal Bunbury, Perry Kitchen, Kofi Sarkodie, etc and a bunch of other top 25 recruits that was so good Scottie Caldwell (one of Massachusetts' best players ever this side of Sam and Kristie Mewis) couldn't crack the starting line-up but I think scored in the national final game as a soph when Akron won it all after getting to the final the year before.

By far one of my most favorite D1 teams of all time. Certainly, put Porter on my radar that first NT run... Team played so well going forward... Really kind of uncommon for that level, as we know.

[jknezek]

Wait... I'm not a flamethrower or anything, but a guy that has won 2 MLS Cups is considered a failure at the pro level? (ETA - Sorry, talking about Caleb Porter, if not clear.) He was very seriously considered for the NT job on at least two occasions.

I take the overall point, it's very difficult to make that transition. I just don't CP is a very good poster child. You already trotted out a great one, but Nick Saban is probably the very best example in the CFB-->NFL universe.

I would also trot at Bruce Arena as a very strong counter to this argument. Just to continue to e contrary.

Yeah. You got me on Porter. I don't know what I was thinking. I'll just chalk that up to being an idiot.

[PaulNewman]

Yup, for a few years at least the "Messiah of D1."  And that had to be 95% about CP.  Caldwell was/is a super-smart kid who could have gone to Harvard, Duke, UNC, UVA, Stanford, UCLA or wherever, and I remember how odd it seemed when he committed to Akron. 

Caldwell's older brother Keith was All-Ivy at Brown (when Brown was nationally relevant and as teammate of Larentowicz) and had a cup of coffee with MLS, and his older sister Amy was a Massachusetts high school legend who famously opted to play in a high school state final instead of making a national camp or call-up or whatever for U17 or U20.  She had a good but not great college career at BC and was eclipsed at BC by fellow club player Kristie Mewis.

RE:  the age angle...CP is 46 now and so was in his early to mid 30s when he had that run at Akron...and of course was a product of one of the top D1 programs historically at Indiana.

[d4_Pace]

This is a lot to wade into and I don't even know where to start.  I think first there is no more than a 1% chance coach Shapiro ever ends up with a MLS let alone national team gig. I think the main factor that has been left out of this conversation is the human aspect. He's got kids and a family that would have to be dragged around the country a few different time in order to make that happen. I think one of the reasons the Harvard gig was so appealing was that he didn't even have to hire movers.

Now if that reality didn't exist could he do it? who knows. The path would be something like the current coach at Notre Dame who dominated at Dartmouth. The problem is even once you make it to a top 10 d1 school like notre dame the jump to the MLS is huge and unfortunately is still largely based on playing experience and the old boy network.   

I think the strength of our teams was more two-way play then blowing teams away offensively. I think his biggest strength was creating a culture where the high end offensive guys bought into doing the defensive work. Thats what separated us from other final four teams that had guys who put up 15-20 goals a season but never crossed back into their own half.

[Hopkins92]

Wait... I'm not a flamethrower or anything, but a guy that has won 2 MLS Cups is considered a failure at the pro level? (ETA - Sorry, talking about Caleb Porter, if not clear.) He was very seriously considered for the NT job on at least two occasions.

I take the overall point, it's very difficult to make that transition. I just don't CP is a very good poster child. You already trotted out a great one, but Nick Saban is probably the very best example in the CFB-->NFL universe.

I would also trot at Bruce Arena as a very strong counter to this argument. Just to continue to e contrary.

Yeah. You got me on Porter. I don't know what I was thinking. I'll just chalk that up to being an idiot.

Your body of work suggests otherwise. Also, Porter has moved around a bit -- And not of his own volition a couple of times. He's a very good MLS coach, but he certainly could've put a negative vibe in your head with a few of his lackluster seasons.

[PaulNewman]

I think the strength of our teams was more two-way play then blowing teams away offensively. I think his biggest strength was creating a culture where the high end offensive guys bought into doing the defensive work. Thats what separated us from other final four teams that had guys who put up 15-20 goals a season but never crossed back into their own half.

The above rang true and for some reason caught my attention and a distant memory jumped into my head, and well....I'm already on thin ice and know I need to get myself in a really nice rehab spa in Arizona for my D3soccer.com addiction (and seriously, folks, I thought I was done with the Covid year providing a great off-ramp opportunity), but what the heck...

D4, not asking you to comment or any other Tufts person, but obviously feel free if so inclined.

First, as backdrop on the Shapiro era, the last year of the Ferrigno era was 2010 and Tufts was 5-8-2.  As was noted a couple or so weeks ago, another guy was hired, Carl Junot, who before actually starting took the job at Harvard (and lost that job pretty quickly and now is in some admin role at the Melbourne Grammar School in Australia).  In comes Shapiro in 2011 and Tufts has a much improved 9-4-2 season but no NCAA tourney bid.  Then in 2012 (I had thought it was 2013 but this imo makes the story more interesting) Tufts goes 9-4-4, making the tournament but exiting 1st round to Vassar in pod played at Brandeis.  I was sort of right about how that ended.  Tufts dominated the stats, but instead of a PK shootout lost when Vassar got a PK in the 102nd minute.  Next, with arguably a better team in 2013, Tufts did NOT make the tournament, finishing with a rather pedestrian 8-5-2 record.  The breakthrough onto a big national stage occurred in 2014, but it was hard to see coming.  The Jumbos had lost 2-0 to Brandeis earlier in the year (a game I saw live because I was interested in seeing a couple of Brandeis players who had played club with my kid).  After draws with MIT and Amherst, Tufts went on a run of Ws until getting bounced in the NESCAC quarters by Conn Coll.  As I think has been acknowledged before, Tufts was sitting at 10-2-4 and hoping for but unsure of a NCAA bid.  They got it but the pod host was actually Wheaton (MA) so Tufts at that point was not projected to get past Dickinson and Wheaton.  They handled both with relative ease, took care of Muhlenberg, and then of course the infamous game with Messiah.  In the national semis, a certain frosh right back (and this is why I always get confused and think he was a left back) scored improbably inside the first 2 minutes with a left-footed strike and from there OWU was never really in the game.  A fellow named Gus Santos of Framingham, MA fame notched two more goals for a 3-0 Tufts win.  The Jumbos went on to defeat a very good Wheaton (Ill) team 4-2 in a tilt that had 3 PKs (2 for Tufts, 1 for Wheaton).  [As a side note, how many times has a team beaten both Wheatons in the same tournament???]  Anyway, as far as I recall, no one (not even Tufts) was predicting a Tufts national title or even a long run.  That interests me in terms of the psychology question...how a program goes from improbable to feeling almost inevitable.

So, back to the awakened distant memory...I can't recall if this was 2012 or 2013 (and it's quite possible I'm just making this up beyond the fact that some here actually discussed this on the site at the time), or could even have been 2014 early in the season, but something happened (or some thought) with the aforementioned Santos, one of the key Tufts offensive players along with Hoppenot, where Santos wasn't started or was benched or something like that.  I think there was a thought that that had something to do with the creative, offensively dangerous guys playing defense (see D4 in post above).  So what I'm wondering is if that was a seminal dynamic or some kind of reckoning when it became clear that the players were going to do what Shapiro wanted or not play.  I can't recall if this involved one game or several, but Santos returned, apparently was on board...and so my question is whether there is anything to this that Shapiro drew a red line that could have backfired but didn't....and the rest is history.  Remember, made tourney in 2012, fell short with no bid in 2013, and then the season no one saw coming that ended with lifting a trophy (and now there's four).

[d4_Pace]

Paul your Tufts knowledge and memory rivals mine and I was there for most of it. The 2012 team was solid and made the tournament almost entirely on the back of the sophomore and freshmen classes that would win the title in 2014. The 2013 team had a disappointing season for a myriad of reasons and took a step back. The 2014 team was definitely better than their overall record as demonstrated by the fact they went undefeated in the Nescac regular season. The only two loses were the aforementioned 2-0 at a top 5 Brandeis team that could have gone either way until I got burned and we conceded with about 5 minutes left and a Nescac quarterfinal defeat at home to Conn College which is as much a Tufts tradition as any.  We weren't sure about our bid to the tournament largely out of naivety and unfamiliarity with the process and in hindsight we were not one of the last teams off the board.  That being said once we were in the attitude was lets get through this weekend so we can extend our season by one more week. After we beat Wheaton (MA) we literally chanted "one more week of practice" because thats how much the group liked being together and didn't want it to end.

When the bracket was made no one expected to beat Messiah. In preseason we watched their youtube clips and talked about how cool it would be to have the chance to play them and see what it was like. We beat Muhlenberg in a pretty comfortable game, although shoutout to the Muhlenberg student section which was hilarious.  Coming off of that I think the attitude had changed and everyone truly believed that in one game we could beat Messiah. A ton of factors played into it actually happening, but if anyone had some residual doubts scoring 45 seconds in erased them all. Then the mentality was different. After beating Messiah I don't think the program has expected to lose a game since.

[Hopkins92]

(Good call on the Muhles student section. I remember them behind my goal with very creative/hilarious barbs during a MAC playoff game back in the day.)

[PaulNewman]

Correction...I botched the post above.

Ferrigno's last year actually was 2009...2-10-2 (0-8-1).

As a well-known poster here often has mused, Ferrigno left Shapiro a couple of cones, a sack of balls, and a broken Keurig machine.

So Shapiro's first season was in 2010 and 5-8-2 (3-4-2).  Tufts made the tournament and lost that first round game to Vassar in 2012 in his 3rd year at the helm, missed in 2013, and then made again in 2014 and every year since with 4 titles.

I can't find a box score anywhere that reflects this so perhaps a very mild case of dementia hallucinosis, but I also recall a Tufts player suspension for a punch or vicious elbow.  I thought it was inside the 18 versus Bowdoin, but again, I can't find evidence, and so I can't place what year that was or if that had any significance in terms of Shapiro's influence over the program or not.

[PaulNewman]

RE:  Tufts-Brandeis 2014...Interesting that I was there to watch Brandeis, at a grass field I think somewhere in Boston that was Tufts' home field at the time (or part-time there and part-time at Bello?).  Anyway, I recall that Tufts did have a rep at that time of being quite talented (and maybe underachieving) and in some ways Tufts looked like the better team.  I recall Kayne being excellent and dangerous...recall a clever pass into space that almost put Majumder 1v1 with Woodhouse?  Woodside?  I recall Connor Brown and Robbie Lynch (one of the kids I knew along with Savonen) going at it down the right side.  I think #10 for Brandeis got the 2nd goal on a header for Brandeis to close the deal.  But there was definitely a sense that Tufts was gonna be a handful.  Viera maybe?  Kid with a headband?

My vote for one of the most underrated Tufts players ever?  Monil Patel at left back.  He probably hit the corner that Majumder headed in in Gambier in 2015, but he was an impressive-looking, rangy, smooth left back.

[FBALLISLIFE]

RE:  Tufts-Brandeis 2014...Interesting that I was there to watch Brandeis, at a grass field I think somewhere in Boston that was Tufts' home field at the time (or part-time there and part-time at Bello?).  Anyway, I recall that Tufts did have a rep at that time of being quite talented (and maybe underachieving) and in some ways Tufts looked like the better team.  I recall Kayne being excellent and dangerous...recall a clever pass into space that almost put Majumder 1v1 with Woodhouse?  Woodside?  I recall Connor Brown and Robbie Lynch (one of the kids I knew along with Savonen) going at it down the right side.  I think #10 for Brandeis got the 2nd goal on a header for Brandeis to close the deal.  But there was definitely a sense that Tufts was gonna be a handful.  Viera maybe?  Kid with a headband?

Here you go...   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rq266q_G5Q

Goals by 4 (Zach Vieira) and 13 (Mike Lynch)    https://www.brandeisjudges.com/sports/msoc/2014-15/boxscores/20140920_jr32.xml?tmpl=soxml-monospace-template

[Ejay]

(Good call on the Muhles student section. I remember them behind my goal with very creative/hilarious barbs during a MAC playoff game back in the day.)

I played striker against Muhlenberg back in the day. A HS friend and ALL his fraternity brothers sat right behind the end line and were relentless. I believe I gave them "if you can't go Greek go teke" comment a few times.

[FBALLISLIFE]

I can't find a box score anywhere that reflects this so perhaps a very mild case of dementia hallucinosis, but I also recall a Tufts player suspension for a punch or vicious elbow.  I thought it was inside the 18 versus Bowdoin, but again, I can't find evidence, and so I can't place what year that was or if that had any significance in terms of Shapiro's influence over the program or not.

Red card came in 2015 against Nathan Majunder in a 1-0 loss against Bowdoin.  Don't think it was in the area, since there is no mention in the play-by-play of a penalty.   

https://www.gotuftsjumbos.com/sports/msoc/2015-16/boxscores/20151031_6573.xml?view=plays

[PaulNewman]

I can't find a box score anywhere that reflects this so perhaps a very mild case of dementia hallucinosis, but I also recall a Tufts player suspension for a punch or vicious elbow.  I thought it was inside the 18 versus Bowdoin, but again, I can't find evidence, and so I can't place what year that was or if that had any significance in terms of Shapiro's influence over the program or not.

Red card came in 2015 against Nathan Majunder in a 1-0 loss against Bowdoin.  Don't think it was in the area, since there is no mention in the play-by-play of a penalty.   

https://www.gotuftsjumbos.com/sports/msoc/2015-16/boxscores/20151031_6573.xml?view=plays

Thanks for your research.  Could have been in the other box instead of offensive box (or is that a PK automatically either way...I'm confusing myself).

Anyway, that may have been another incident.  Almost positive the one I'm referring to involved PLK, and vaguely recall being pretty hard on him on this site along with several others.