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OT: Hey Ray Reid ...

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Pudge said:
I still think the big guy is lazy. The Program isn't where it was. WHY? My standard is Joe Marrone and when we had a Soccer Booster Club that had the most energy on campus. And YES ... sportsart ... you can kiss my butt. I could care less about how sacred you think the football board is. If Ray Reid can't keep our first dominant program at a high level, then go to the next application process. Heck ... Marrone was pushed out for this guy. We do have a UConn Hockey coach that has his 2014-2015 ROSTER UP ... and that is a winter sport. I also don't buy this bringing kids into camp bit. For Fall 2014? He still is sifting through recruits? That was 1975 type stuff. Today, they are at least as broad recruiting as Hockey and he has his full complement signed and the scholarship papers are done.

It's more complex than that these days, because unlike 1975, men's sports don't have bottomless rosters to keep everyone they want. In order to try to keep participation across the whole athletic department roughly compliant with Title IX, most schools will cap the roster size of their non-revenue men's sports. The women's crew team at Michigan can have 80 people on it, some of whom have never held an oar before, but men's soccer will be restricted to, say 28, and have to cut some guys who can actually play. Sucks, but that's the reality.

So let's say you coach soccer and your roster cap is 28 players (just picking a number out of the blue) and you have 35 coming in, making cuts mandatory. You have 21 players returning and 14 new ones - eight of whom you recruited and have gotten scholarship money. The other six are invited walkons or tryouts, several of whom you know full well won't make it, but a couple of whom might be good enough to crack the 28, maybe beating out the worst of the eight recruits. Then you also have a couple juniors deep on the bench getting minor scholarships (say, $3000), but they haven't gotten any better and don't have much of a future. You think you may cut them to make room for a decent walk on or two, but you want to see how those guys perform in camp first. The scholarship money is peanuts - they get to keep it without making the team (that would never happen in a full scholarship sport).

So right now, even if you have a pretty good handle on which 28 you want to keep, or the top 26 of the 28, you still want to let preseason camp play itself out before you make your cuts official, especially if you cut a returning player or two. You could maybe put all 35 guys up on line and delete the ones who are cut, or only put up the returning guys until the new ones officially make it, but ultimately it's up to the coach if he wants to do that or just wait until his roster is final. Every place is different - some may have 26 locked up and have 10 walkons trying out for two spots, so they put the 26 up and then just add the last two when they make it.

Hockey, meanwhile, can be in an entirely different situation and not have any walkons coming (very very few people skate well enough to consider competitive hockey) and have their roster size below their cap (or don't have a cap at all if they are considered revenue).

This is all my best guess - I have no idea of UConn's specific situation, but that's the reality many DI soccer programs face. Perhaps Reid really thinks his roster is classified info and he's hiding it from everyone to keep it a secret to get a competitive edge.
 
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It's more complex than that these days, because unlike 1975, men's sports don't have bottomless rosters to keep everyone they want. In order to try to keep participation across the whole athletic department roughly compliant with Title IX, most schools will cap the roster size of their non-revenue men's sports. The women's crew team at Michigan can have 80 people on it, some of whom have never held an oar before, but men's soccer will be restricted to, say 28, and have to cut some guys who can actually play. Sucks, but that's the reality.

So let's say you coach soccer and your roster cap is 28 players (just picking a number out of the blue) and you have 35 coming in, making cuts mandatory. You have 21 players returning and 14 new ones - eight of whom you recruited and have gotten scholarship money. The other six are invited walkons or tryouts, several of whom you know full well won't make it, but a couple of whom might be good enough to crack the 28, maybe beating out the worst of the eight recruits. Then you also have a couple juniors deep on the bench getting minor scholarships (say, $3000), but they haven't gotten any better and don't have much of a future. You think you may cut them to make room for a decent walk on or two, but you want to see how those guys perform in camp first. The scholarship money is peanuts - they get to keep it without making the team (that would never happen in a full scholarship sport).

So right now, even if you have a pretty good handle on which 28 you want to keep, or the top 26 of the 28, you still want to let preseason camp play itself out before you make your cuts official, especially if you cut a returning player or two. You could maybe put all 35 guys up on line and delete the ones who are cut, or only put up the returning guys until the new ones officially make it, but ultimately it's up to the coach if he wants to do that or just wait until his roster is final. Every place is different - some may have 26 locked up and have 10 walkons trying out for two spots, so they put the 26 up and then just add the last two when they make it.

Hockey, meanwhile, can be in an entirely different situation and not have any walkons coming (very very few people skate well enough to consider competitive hockey) and have their roster size below their cap (or don't have a cap at all if they are considered revenue).

This is all my best guess - I have no idea of UConn's specific situation, but that's the reality many DI soccer programs face. Perhaps Reid really thinks his roster is classified info and he's hiding it from everyone to keep it a secret to get a competitive edge.

Thanks for this explanation. I did not know much of this.
 
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Pudge said:
Thanks for this explanation. I did not know much of this.

No problem. Like I said - this is just a guess, but I know this happens a lot with men's soccer teams due to a perfect storm of issues (fall sport, a lot of walk ons, partial scholarships, capped rosters). Many DI places don't settle their final roster until the week before they open.

It could be Reid playing games and trying to keep his roster a secret for a competitive edge. If UConn doesn't do a release on players who have signed LOIs, then that would maybe increase the odds that they are trying to operate under a veil of secrecy. Which is silly, but coaches can be silly people.
 
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Heh... just found this.

http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...n-i-dont-care-about-my-program--list.2002851/
 
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Bigsoccer.com has had people who post college schedules and incoming player announcements on their website for a number of years now. They always give a lot of grief to programs that don't release information on incoming players in what they consider a timely fashion, like before the start of summer. I don't recall the last time that UConn men's soccer issued a press release on who was coming into the program, or at least before August comes around. The people at Bigsoccer.com have noticed this as well, and have put Ray Reid in the title of that particular thread for several years running. They figure a school with as big a program as UConn has should be doing more to publicize collegiate men's soccer. The irony of it all is that UConn is always one of the leaders in NCAA men's soccer attendance, but I certainly understand way they put Ray Reid in the title of that annual thread.
 
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