SimpleCoach D3 Soccer YouTube Channel

[SimpleCoach]

Check in with Coach Matejka to see how the season went.

Chris Matejka, Head Coach at Ohio Northern University

[Saint of Old]

Despite my Mount Union Purple Raiders losing in the Stagg Bowl, still excited for this latest interview with Adam Clinton, Head Men's Coach at RPI.

Adam Clinton, Head Men's Coach at RPI

Always said Coach Clinton is one of my all-time favorite coaches.
Type of coach any kid would be lucky to play for.
His biggest upside is that he will always maximize the talent he has available.
RPI will always be in the league tourney and threaten to have a good season.
When the talent is there you can get a deep NCAA run, if not quite a great season still making it to league tourney giving yourself a shot.
One thing is for certain, he will get the most out of the young men he has and will always provide entertaining soccer.

[SimpleCoach]

So after roughly 350 videos this year, my last one (well, two actually) are my Best XI Men's Players in Division III.

Best XI Men's Team

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday season.  Thanks for all the support and encouragement over the last year.  Grateful for your passion and love for the game.

SC

[Kuiper]

So after roughly 350 videos this year, my last one (well, two actually) are my Best XI Men's Players in Division III.

Best XI Men's Team

Hope you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday season.  Thanks for all the support and encouragement over the last year.  Grateful for your passion and love for the game.

SC

Thanks for all of your content, enthusiasm, and good cheer about DIII soccer this year.  If there were a Best XI for college soccer media content at any division level, men's or women's, you surely would be pinned on it from the start.

And I say that even though I think you should have kept Boardman in the Best XI and swapped one of your other GKs for Diffley! 

Hope everyone is staying safe in the dangerously cold weather today.  Sending warm thoughts from the DIII soccer hinterlands of Southern California, where the high is supposed to be 77 degrees today.

[Fitz@615]

Thank you for all your content. It has made following D3 soccer so much more enjoyable for someone who is new to the sport as I have a Fr son who plays. Your passion for the sport and time you put in is much appreciated. Merry Christmas!!

[SimpleCoach]

Happy New Year All!  As I resolve to do better in 2023, I wanted to turn my attention to you.

I've been wondering what I can do better, or more of to make watching one of my videos more enjoyable. 

If you have any ideas, no matter how big or small, I would love to hear them.

Thanks a bunch and many blessing to you and yours.

SC.

[Kuiper]

Happy New Year All!  As I resolve to do better in 2023, I wanted to turn my attention to you.

I've been wondering what I can do better, or more of to make watching one of my videos more enjoyable. 

If you have any ideas, no matter how big or small, I would love to hear them.

Thanks a bunch and many blessing to you and yours.

SC.

Happy New Year!  I've enjoyed your videos as they are, but here are a couple of ideas in case you are looking for new content:

1.  Panel discussions on individual topics - I could see you moderating in a Zoom-style split screen panel where you could get multiple perspectives on a single topic in the same session, rather than asking individual coaches the same question in separate interviews (as you've been doing, for example, to get their views on ties and the no OT rule). 

2.  Interview a few GK coaches on staff with a D3 program.  You've mostly confined your coach-to-coach interviews to head coaches, which makes sense especially at the D3 level where the head coach is often the only full-time employee and has his or her hands on the entire program, but as we've often discussed on the boards, GK coaching is a different animal and D3 programs are spotty in the extent to which they cover that area well or at all.  Given your background as a former college GK coach yourself, I certainly would find it interesting to hear about things like how much time they have with the GKs each week, what they do with them, how they prep them tactically and coach them during the games, their views on stricter rules for GKs in PKs, if they are involved with recruiting them and how they evaluate potential recruits, etc.  I don't necessarily think a conversation with a volunteer asst who coaches GKs, or a trainer who just preps them during practices, would be useful, but there are some schools who have GK coaches as a regular assistant coach (e.g., Michael Mauro at Chicago is a former D1 GK and I assume he coaches the GKs at U of C, while Bill Schmid is the only assistant at Williams and he was the GK coach at Yale and Amherst after playing GK at Springfield). Admittedly, this concept for a show may only interest me and a couple of other people on the board, but I imagine a few head coaches might be interested in what dedicated GK coaches are focused on in training and games!

3.  Analysis of a game in a coach/telestrator format with video playing. I know this runs counter to your move from YouTube only to a more podcast format since it requires someone to watch something on a screen, but it would be interesting to see how you (either alone or with a coach) explain tactics or a particular play.  This could be just a segment within a coach-to-coach interview that you could then break out into a "chalk talk" short video or it could be its own show if you wanted to focus on a specific game or a particular tactical development in multiple games involving different teams.

4.  Interview a recently recruited student-athlete (maybe even a HS student after they committed).  This would probably involve asking them about their process and how they experienced recruiting from the student side of the table.  Perhaps what they liked or what turned them off (in general terms).  Maybe get their views on the D1 or Bust mantra which you've asked college coaches about in your interviews.

In any event, those are just a few ideas off the top of my head.  As I said, I don't think you necessarily need to change or add anything if it's more trouble than it's worth to you.

[Hopkins92]

I like a lot of what kuiper suggests. I haven't given it a ton of thought (will do so this week when I'm procrastinating at work. )

But, off the top of my head... At whatever frequency suits your schedule, it would be cool for you to do a "Live Watch" of whatever game seems to be the GotW. You could even enlist this community to do what we have done in Coach Jeff's thread in terms of what game folks are circling. You wouldn't have to sit there and do play by play... I don't typically jump on those channels doing that while the game is on, but I've seen a few minutes of the recorded version... and it's fun while the person comments on the game and interacts with those in the chat.

It's a lot more fun and interactive then when a handful of us are posting here... I love this place, but it's not really built for that kind of thing.

[jfreddys]

SC,

As stated previously, really enjoy your content as well and would just add a couple thoughts to the above suggestions:

1. I second the round table/panel session with the coaches on the more general questions (you probably have a feel of which ones would work well together and you might even get some feedback from the coaches themselves on who they'd enjoying sitting with).   I'm sure the coordination of something like that might be tough but it might also save you time having them sit together rather than interviewing each one individually.    The only catch is you might not to get into the more specific questions for each coach in this format (season overview, recruiting, etc...) and may still want to interview the coaches individually for that which would mean more time involved.   Certainly, don't want to put more on your plate but still a great suggestion from Kuiper.

2. Also like the idea of interviewing the players but more nearing the end of their college experience (maybe 3rd years about to move into 4th years or after their 4th year-almost a cathartic thing for the players).   Think they would still have good recollection of the recruiting experience and can really share the ins and outs of being a DIII college athlete.

But whatever you produce, I will be listening.   

Thank you and Happy New Year.

[Yankeesoccerdad]

SC,

Your content is great and I enjoy it as is.  Here are some suggested topics.

1.  Top 10 plays of the season (top 10 goals, top 10 saves, top 10 defensive plays, top 10 assists).  You could even ask for nominations via email to expand your reach.

2.  Your take on rivalries you like.

3. Teams that most over-performed and under-performed last season.

4.  Best (and worst?) d3 soccer fields.  Trinity (CT), for example, has a pristine field and spectators sit/stand behind the benches, so you get to hear all the trash talking and strategy.

5.  Why did certain conferences evolve to a particular playing style?

6.  How did good soccer become a thing at d3 Christian colleges?  (I realize that might sound weird to folks who have been around d3 soccer for a while given the Messiah dynasty, but when I first heard about Messiah I thought, "How many good d3 soccer players would want to go to a devoutly religious college?"  Obviously there are many more than I imagined.)

Thanks again for the great show.

[Gregory Sager]

6.  How did good soccer become a thing at d3 Christian colleges?  (I realize that might sound weird to folks who have been around d3 soccer for a while given the Messiah dynasty, but when I first heard about Messiah I thought, "How many good d3 soccer players would want to go to a devoutly religious college?"  Obviously there are many more than I imagined.)

Some of them have long soccer traditions that date back to before the rest of the U.S. "discovered" the sport. And it's due, in varying degrees (depending upon the school) to what's known in evangelical circles as "MKs" -- missionary kids. If you grew up overseas playing soccer as part of a missionary household, because (of course) every kid in the country in which you were raised played soccer, and you then came to the U.S. to continue your education at a Christian college, you'd probably have skills that American kids lacked.

I know for a fact that MKs played a significant role in the development of the Wheaton and North Park programs back in the dark ages of American soccer, and I'm guessing that they did at Messiah and Calvin as well, among others, as well as at such non-D3 schools as Westmont and Seattle Pacific.

[Newenglander]

I know its covered by another site but one standard question I would like to hear is when do you start recruiting and when are you "typically" done.

It's good for parents and players to be grounded on when it starts "getting late early".

[Hopkins92]

SC,

Your content is great and I enjoy it as is.  Here are some suggested topics.


2.  Your take on rivalries you like.



Thanks again for the great show.

A deep dive on some rivalries would be pretty cool. Would just need to guard against just going round robin on the NESCAC.

[Spartan94]

SC, I recently came across your content while researching a school my son was looking at attending/playing at, and I agree with all of the previous comments here in saying that it is great and keep up the good work. 

As a part of the recruiting process for my son, it was hard to decipher what leagues were "good" vs which ones were not ... again, subjecting based upon the fit for each kid, but as a suggestion of what to add for content might be a weekly/bi-weekly "League Power Rankings" across the D3 landscape.  Could be an algorithm mainly and wouldn't require working with high level tech etc.  Again just a thought, but like I said before keep up the great work and content. 

[Hopkins92]

SC, I recently came across your content while researching a school my son was looking at attending/playing at, and I agree with all of the previous comments here in saying that it is great and keep up the good work. 

As a part of the recruiting process for my son, it was hard to decipher what leagues were "good" vs which ones were not ... again, subjecting based upon the fit for each kid, but as a suggestion of what to add for content might be a weekly/bi-weekly "League Power Rankings" across the D3 landscape.  Could be an algorithm mainly and wouldn't require working with high level tech etc.  Again just a thought, but like I said before keep up the great work and content.

Nice. We kind of did this exercise in one of the regional threads (mid atlantic) this year.

I'm pretty sure Massey kind of does this, if not, wouldn't be hard to use Massey and just use the average of the respective schools rankings to figure it out.