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    #1

    College Futbol

    I went to the season opener for the NATIONAL CHAMPION pre-season #2 Penn State women vs #6 West Virginia. The final was 1-1, but I didn't see any of that. I wasn't feeling well, so I left at half-time. (No problem, as it turned out. Just one of those things)

    It was a record crowd of 5,700+. More than they were expecting since they didn't take the tarps off some of the seats. They've established a new tradition of starting the season with another top ranked opponent on the first day the students move in. So every freshman, their RA, their parents, the team alumni, the usually 1,500-2,000 regulars, and anyone in the region interested in a quality match-up comes to the game. They probably won't get more than 3,000 the rest of the year. That's ok.

    PSU has a good team, but it's mostly a new team. They were generally better than WVU, but not so much so that 1-1 was a bad result for a game in August. In addition to the graduation of some of the keys to the championship team, four players are taking the year off to train with the US U-20 team (I'm not 100% sure, but I assume they're using the same the same NCAA rule that college Olympians can use to take a year off and keep their eligibility).

    They've got two new girls from Germany - one of whom scored - and one from Bromley, who plays center back. She handles the ball well but wasn't as fast as WVU's big woman up-top.
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    #2
    College Futbol

    That's very smart marketing by PSU, and something other schools should emulate.

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      #3
      College Futbol

      Are they still playing at Jeffrey Field? If so I take it there's been a lot of development there over the last decade - when I was there it couldn't have held more than a couple of thousand.

      Comment

        #4
        College Futbol

        That's very smart marketing by PSU, and something other schools should emulate.
        Yes, it's a great welcome-to-college kind of thing. Where I sat last night I was surrounded by freshmen. I could feel the anxiety in the air.

        Are they still playing at Jeffrey Field? If so I take it there's been a lot of development there over the last decade - when I was there it couldn't have held more than a couple of thousand.
        Not sure when you were here last, but yes, still on Jeffrey Field. They've made some minor upgrades to it over there years, but it's still basically a beautiful grass pitch with sets of metal stands on either side.

        It's a good place to play and watch a game, but they still don't have proper locker rooms or bathrooms there and the team's offices and main locker rooms are on the far side of campus in Rec Hall. Suboptimal.

        Putting a building there with offices, locker rooms, and a weigh room is one of the many items on the athletics department to-do list. The usual pattern with athletics facilities at PSU is not to invest too much out of the general budget just because it needs it, but instead to let it conspicuously suck for a while until a big donor or few big donors emerge to pay for it. That's been effective for most things, but the soccer facility has been in that state for a while even as other things like golf have found benefactors. From the facilities people I've talked to, I think there also might be some paralysis of analysis with competing ideas on how to upgrade the soccer facility.

        But any talk of moving it, or God forbid, putting in FieldTurf, is considered blasphemy by the coaches and the fiercely proud turf grass program and alumni. They're very proud of the pitch, as they should be, and want to preserve that.

        Probably the most important upgrade in recent years is giving both soccer teams their own dedicated grass practice fields next to Jeffery Field. They are where the baseball field used to be before Medlar Field was built on the other side of the football stadium. The practice fields are protected - no IM games in the fall or football parking on them. To make up for that, some new IM fields were built across the road on what used to be some kind of ag test plots, and then those were moved further out into the cow pastures, and the fill from the hockey rink project helped flatten out some other areas of pasture so that they can be used for football parking, so that all worked out. And now lacrosse has it's own turf field down by the indoor track and field hockey has its own turf field in an area that once had chicken coops, as I recall, so only men's and women's soccer use Jeffrey, which makes it easier to maintain the pitch.

        Comment

          #5
          College Futbol

          PSU is now 2-1-1. 0-0 draw at Stanford, which is a pretty good result to start the season on the road, then a 2-1 OT loss at Cal, 1-0 win at home vs JMU and then 2-1 OT win last night vs Oakland (MI) in the first game I've been to this year. Really good match. The result seems about right. PSU had more chances and possession, but Oakland were very good on the counter.

          Canadian U-20 candidate Aymar Sigue scored the winner for PSU within about 24 hours of coming home from playing with Canada in Costa Rica.

          Highly edited and stylized highlights here.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3as7AqPMhq8

          PSU has three Canadians (that I counted. Maybe more) including a guy from Quebec that wears rec-specs. We also have the Brandon Hackenburg at left back - he's the brother of former PSU QB and future Jets-fans hate figure Christian Hackenburg.

          There's not a game on PSU's schedule - including Stanford, Maryland, Indiana, and Akron - that they can't win - but there's not a game on the schedule including St. Francis (PA) and Bucknell - that they couldn't lose.* We're a bit too reliant on Connor Maloney for all of our offense and the defense seems a step slow.

          My prediction for the season is that we finish third or fourth in the B1G regular season, win against some higher ranked teams, lose to some lower ranked teams, and make to about the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament.

          *As I've mentioned before, men's college soccer is so tight. The very best North American players skip college (imagine how good PSU could be if we had Hershey PA's Christian Pulsic!) and schools that can't stay competitive in the sport have just dropped it altogether so it's a very narrow slice of the talent bell-curve. Plus, transfers can play right away and nobody is on a full scholarship so it's not as easy to stockpile talent as it is in some sports.

          Because nobody gets a full scholarship, teams are then largely at the mercy of who can afford to go to their school and Penn State is kinda pricey for out of state students. So they need to rely on PA talent. There's a fair amount of good talent in PA, but a lot of competition for that talent in the state and the region. Fan support isn't great, so even though Bob Warming is a great coach that his players love and the program has won a number of BigTen championships, they still don't have the mystique in PA that Indiana and Maryland have in their respective recruiting areas.

          On the women's side, PSU is basically taking the year off. Five of their best players are taking the semester off to play for the U-20 team. There's a lot of talent, but most of that talent haven't played much before this year. I think Minnesota will win the B1G this year and PSU will return to form next year.

          Comment

            #6
            College Futbol

            I need to get to Columbia for a game this season, now that I have more time.

            The relative quality of Ivy Soccer has declined significantly, but the matches within the league still tend to be quite competitive. The other local option is St. John's, who seem to be having an off year.

            Comment

              #7
              College Futbol

              St Johns have had a lot of very good teams over the years with a number of alumni in MLS. Not sure what's going on with them now.

              Columbia's field is fieldturf, which is suboptimal but probably not terrible if its only used for soccer.

              Comment

                #8
                College Futbol

                They use if for lacrosse, too.

                But they seem to be playing their entire non-Ivy schedule at Manhattanville in Westchester, returning "home" for only 3 matches at the end of the season.

                Will have to ask my nephew (who rows for them) what's up with that.

                BTW, someone just told me that Joey Julius, PSU's 260 lb freshman kicker/Vine sensation, played with Pulisic on Pennsylvania youth select teams.

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                  #9
                  College Futbol

                  Joey Julius doesn't really have the, umm, physique for soccer, but I think that's true. I know they both played for PA Classics, one of those elite travel team deals, based in Lancaster.

                  Julius was 185 lbs in high school and highly recruited for soccer. He was going to play for SIU. He changed his mind to football, possibly because it offered a better scholarship situation.

                  http://highschoolsports.pennlive.com/news/article/4311091827151388634/boys-soccer-joe-julius-issues-commitment-to-siu-edwardsville/

                  Comment

                    #10
                    College Futbol

                    ursus arctos wrote: I need to get to Columbia for a game this season, now that I have more time.

                    The relative quality of Ivy Soccer has declined significantly, but the matches within the league still tend to be quite competitive. The other local option is St. John's, who seem to be having an off year.
                    Hofstra have a kid I used to work with at Lewisham College, who is a second team All-American and avowed John Stuart Mill fan (he's a philosophy major). And raging about Brexit.

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                      #11
                      College Futbol

                      I saw Penn State's #10 in the supermarket the other night, along with who would normally be the starting goalkeeper - the one who trained with Hull. He's on IR right now after getting his sinus broken in a collision.

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                        #12
                        College Futbol

                        Harvard cancels the rest of the season because of asshole behavior.
                        http://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/17965882/harvard-cancels-men-soccer-rest-season-review-found-team-had-made-vulgar-comments-documents-women-team

                        Comment

                          #13
                          PSU men have won the B1G double. They won the league despite losing twice because they pulled out a big comeback win over Maryland and then IU lost to Maryland.

                          So they got homefield for the B1G tournament. Beat Michigan 2-0, MSU 2-0 and IU 3-0. IU is such a pain in the ass to beat. They are always deep.

                          Great run, especially since the women had such a down year. Hopefully it will continue in the NCAA tournament.

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