2023-24 Schedules

[4231CenterBack]

Messiah:

https://gomessiah.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2023

[Flying Weasel]

Messiah:  https://gomessiah.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2023

To be honest, a bit underwhelming and disappointing.  The Falcons are losing W&L, Lynchburg, NYU and Christopher Newport from their 2022 schedule and the only similar level teams that have bene added are Catholic and Mary Washington.  Brockport isn't a bad pick-up, and I don't mind the Lancaster Bible addition as it will give a nice boost to a nearby program's SOS.  But it would be nice to have a couple more Top 25 to Top 40 calibre teams.

[Ejay]

Others who follow the Centennial Conference closer than I do may already know this, but I just found out that the Centennial actually publishes the conference schedules for men's soccer (and other sports) in three year cycles and they do it years in advance (the latest one on the website for 2021-2024 says it was last updated Oct. 11, 2019).  So, you can already see the conference schedule for all teams in 2023 (and 2024 if you wanted to plan ahead).

https://www.centennial.org/Schedules/2021-24_Men-s_Soccer_-_APPROVED.pdf

In the current world of small liberal arts colleges closing left and right, I would expect most conferences either don't do this or don't publish it.  They also list the Jewish Holidays and then proceed to ignore them by scheduling games that appear to conflict (depending upon game time) 

The Landmark has been doing this for all sports for a few years...
https://landmarkconference.org/sports/2022/5/20/Landmark-Conference-Schedules.aspx?path=admin

[Ejay]

Messiah:  https://gomessiah.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2023

To be honest, a bit underwhelming and disappointing.  The Falcons are losing W&L, Lynchburg, NYU and Christopher Newport from their 2022 schedule and the only similar level teams that have bene added are Catholic and Mary Washington.  Brockport isn't a bad pick-up, and I don't mind the Lancaster Bible addition as it will give a nice boost to a nearby program's SOS.  But it would be nice to have a couple more Top 25 to Top 40 calibre teams.

I felt the same way looking at W&L's schedule.  It seems much softer than last year. Maybe teams are starting to rethink the need to load up on strong non-conference games?

[Kuiper]

Trinity University (Texas)

https://trinitytigers.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2023

Trinity's early non-conference schedule is usually filled with teams traveling in Region X because San Antonio is a convenient airport on Southwest and it's a good way for teams in the Region to cross-pollinate for strength of schedule purposes.  This year, Pomona-Pitzer and Willamette are traveling to Trinity to play in a Labor Day Tournament with Trinity and St. Thomas (P-P and Willamette each play St. Thomas and Trinity, but they don't play each other and Trinity and St. Thomas play later in the fall).  With Willamette and St. Thomas fresh off of NCAA tourney runs, Trinity a traditional power playing at home, and P-P no pushover after advancing in the SCIAC conference tournament last year with a lot of freshman in the lineup, that's a challenging set of early matches for those teams.  Those are some games to circle on the calendar, especially Willamette v. St. Thomas at 11 am (central) on Sun, Sept 3, if Simple Coach is planning out his viewing schedule in advance. 

[Kuiper]

I posted an expanded version of this in the GO WEST thread, but I'm reposting here to call special attention to the Christopher Newport trip:

Another regular early September tournament that, like Trinity, allows for cross-pollination of the three leagues in Region X, is held at UC Santa Cruz.  UCSC has posted its schedule and they have a pretty good set of teams participating (UCSC, Whitworth, Pacific, and Cal Lutheran), even if none of them are likely to be quite as highly ranked as the teams playing at Trinity over Labor Day.

https://goslugs.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2023

One other interesting note about UCSC' schedule is that two weeks after their tournament with the SCIAC and NWC schools, they will be traveling to Colorado Springs to play Christopher Newport and Colorado College.  Not only does that get UCSC exposure to two strong teams, but they get to play Christopher Newport outside of the C2C conference tournament, which I think is a first.  Quite the trip for Christopher Newport, however, which not only has to travel across the country and play USCS on a short turnaround on Friday morning, but they have to play in Colorado Springs and deal with the altitude.  Only the UCSC schedule has been posted and not the Colorado College or Christopher Newport schedules, but I can't imagine that Christopher Newport is coming all that way to play only UCSC.  It's possible that they are also playing Colorado College, but CC is playing UCSC on Sunday afternoon at 4 pm, so it's more likely that there is a fourth team involved playing Christopher Newport on Sunday morning to allow them to fly back to Virginia.  There's no one else local from D3, so it will be interesting to see if Colorado College got someone from the upper midwest to visit them (given their trip to Minnesota last year) or got someone from perhaps the ASC in Texas like Mary Hardin-Baylor.  Either way, that would be a really interesting national event!

[Kuiper]

University of Chicago released its schedule and they definitely aren't coasting after their national championship.

https://athletics.uchicago.edu/sports/msoc/2023-24/schedule

Starting the season at St. Olaf and at Gustavus Adolphus (in a rematch of last year's NCAA QFs), hosting Wisconsin Eau-Claire a week later, going on the road for games at North Park and Hope, and finally hosting Calvin three days before they start UAA play with Rochester.  We'll know pretty quickly whether their defense has adjusted to the departures of Wada and Gillespie (assuming they aren't staying for a Covid year), although I heard through the grapevine that they have a big time D1 CB grad transfer coming on board.

And just to provide equal time, last year's runner up from Williams also posted its schedule

https://ephsports.williams.edu/sports/mens-soccer/schedule

Normally, the NESCAC schedules aren't all that interesting because the conference games provide so much strength of schedule that they can ease up on the throttle for the non-conference games.  One very interesting non-conference addition to Williams' schedule, however, is Western Connecticut State (20-0-2 last year), in a mid-week game late in October.  My guess is that Western Connecticut sought this one out as they hope to raise their strength-of-schedule and avoid getting shut out of the tourney like last year.  Good for Siebert and Williams for being willing to fit them in.

[SKUD]

Williams added a non qualifier and lost a qualifier

[PaulNewman]

Full credit to the great Travis Wall.  I suspected as much when I saw he was taking St Olaf to play his alma mater but now confirmed also playing Kenyon. Impressive and aggressive scheduling.

SC mentioned OWU schedule.  John Carroll's is a monster as well, inclusive of OWU and Kenyon, Denison, CMU, Calvin, CWRU, North Park, etc

CMU schedule by contrast is frankly embarrassing.

[Kuiper]

Full credit to the great Travis Wall.  I suspected as much when I saw he was taking St Olaf to play his alma mater but now confirmed also playing Kenyon. Impressive and aggressive scheduling.

SC mentioned OWU schedule.  John Carroll's is a monster as well, inclusive of OWU and Kenyon, Denison, CMU, Calvin, CWRU, North Park, etc

CMU schedule by contrast is frankly embarrassing.

Here's CMU's for anyone wanting to check for themselves without googling it

https://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/msoc/2023-24/schedule

Charitably, I would say if they were trying to save on travel costs and driving time, they almost succeeded.  They must have been turned down by Chatham University.

[PaulNewman]

I know you're joking, and I know arguably times are tough, but it's hard to think of the words 'Carnegie...Mellon...saving on costs' without doing a bit of a double take.

[stlawus]

I know you're joking, and I know arguably times are tough, but it's hard to think of the words 'Carnegie...Mellon...saving on costs' without doing a bit of a double take.

Next thing you know they'll paywall their streams, can't imagine anyone who would resort to that.

[EnmoreCat]

At the risk of raising the ire of some in here, America is getting nice weather at the moment, I would have thought getting outside rather than fretting about schedule quality is a better use of people's time.  I understand a lot better now the intricacies of SOS (I originally only knew it as an ABBA song), but given it's May, surely having a happy, safe and hopefully productive, summer, should be the priority.  Apologies in advance if I haven't taken this topic seriously enough.

[Kuiper]

At the risk of raising the ire of some in here, America is getting nice weather at the moment, I would have thought getting outside rather than fretting about schedule quality is a better use of people's time.  I understand a lot better now the intricacies of SOS (I originally only knew it as an ABBA song), but given it's May, surely having a happy, safe and hopefully productive, summer, should be the priority.  Apologies in advance if I haven't taken this topic seriously enough.

Fair point, but I'm not sure having nice weather is going to differentiate May from any other month for someone like me living in Southern California! 

More seriously, social media is partly to blame for some of us paying more attention to D3 soccer in the spring than we might have in past years. It used to be that off-season was a dark period in college soccer, but spring is when men's D3 soccer programs' Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts start to come alive with news of their schedules, their new commits (often rolled out gradually over days and weeks), coaching hires, players graduating or returning (some of which is a Covid phenomenon), and, unfortunately lately, schools closing.  Schools also use social media to post videos and photos from their spring practices and games (except at NESCAC schools like Amherst, which may result in less activity on the accounts of those schools).  And, finally, Simple Coach's coach-to-coach interviews during the off-season, which only just began last season I believe, and articles in publications like the New England Soccer Journal, work to keep people interested.

But, I also think there are at least a few of us now who follow D3 men's soccer generally rather than just as parents of a son playing at a specific school.  if you're the latter, your interest may wane when your son's team isn't playing (or even during the season if your son isn't playing).  If you're the former, though, the off-season is a time to examine broader issues like rule changes, conference realignments, coaching philosophies, and something like schedules, which give a preview of how coaches are thinking about the upcoming season.  It's not much different than being a fan of any sport in America these days.  There really isn't an off-season anymore in the age of 24 hour sports media news with drafts, free agent signings, spring training/training camps, etc.

And, of course, we may just be insane.  But I'll leave it to Paul Newman to discuss the clinical nature of our hobby/obsession!

[PaulNewman]

You'll never convince an Amherst-affiliated person that he isn't just living LIFE a little bit better than you. And any criticism only makes them even more certain. And yet apparently seeing irony is elusive.  Beachgoer asks why other beachgoers would be wasting their precious time at the beach.

As for diagnoses...I know I'm whacked...so I'm good.