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So how does BE soccer look? Seems to be very competitve. Are the Men and Women teams excited?

I would like to think they are excited. I would also like to think it will help in recruiting and in luring some transfers.

It might be too late for this signing day but hopefully by next year...

Big East soccer is some of the best in the country and the schools have great soccer fan support. St. John's, Notre Dame, UConn, USF, Louisville and west Virginia routinely put over 1,000 fans a game in the stands. It would be nice if we could ramp up and pull that kind of excitement and support for our team consistently. Recruiting and coaching are now going to be at a premium since the competition is going to be that much tougher. These are about to be exciting times for the soccer program because our national exposure is really going to increase.

We could get big attendance if we marketed Los Mestengos to a certain demographic. We are much closer to where most of them live in Dallas than frisco where the burn plays

Dutch wrote:We could get big attendance if we marketed Los Mestengos to a certain demographic. We are much closer to where most of them live in Dallas than frisco where the burn plays

Dutch, this may be one of your smartest posts on here.

even though you worded it poorly

meh, cut a guy some slack. you knew what i was getting at.

we should ABSOLUTELY be marketing the soccer program to the hispanic community; how great would it be for our guys to play to a packed Wescott crowd? Great opportunity to try the "buy one adult ticket, bring a bunch of kids free". The Dallas Cowboys did it with 5 kids free when they were trying to fill the Cotton Bowl endzones.

totally. i know there are always issues with 'free' tickets, but soccer is a good one to build brand reputation.

we're about to see it with BE basketball drawing attention/fans to our stadium. there will be trickleover to football.

should be doing it with soccer too.

i've been to USC games, and there were TONS of SoCalMex in the parking lot tailgating. make them SMU fans. get them in the RBA for SOCCER, they'll follow on saturdays. it CAN happen.

Believe BE had three men's teams in NCAA quarters this year although all lost. We will be competitive on the men's side but it will be tough. Women need to raise the ante on recruiting. We are still a notch below the top level

We are going from the 3rd or 4th best soccer conference to the 2nd best soccer conference behind the ACC. One thing though, BE soccer is more of the tough kick in the shins variety and not the graceful style that we play. We'll have to adjust to that style, but I believe that we'll certainly continue to be a player in college soccer. We won't have to have a tough OOC schedule anymore to prove our bona fides.

EastStang wrote:We are going from the 3rd or 4th best soccer conference to the 2nd best soccer conference behind the ACC. One thing though, BE soccer is more of the tough kick in the shins variety and not the graceful style that we play. We'll have to adjust to that style, but I believe that we'll certainly continue to be a player in college soccer. We won't have to have a tough OOC schedule anymore to prove our bona fides.

so it's like lacrosse but w/o sticks. very east coast.

How would one market to the Hispanic community? Posters in front of Ojedas and every Fiesta grocery store? They have a huge Dallas rec league with tons of Latin/International teams...give them free tickets to hand out (NCAA official attendance in men's soccer be damned)

I would think there will be a much bigger impact on the women's side than the men's side.

As mentioned earlier, C-USA is very good in men's soccer (of course, SMU and UCF leaving will hurt) so the lure of the Big East isn't as big. I still think it will help us in recruiting against Tulsa (our top recruiting rival) since we currently offer the same thing but can now offer a bit better soccer and certainly more national exposure.

The wildcard on the men's side is if Houston adds a team since we still get quite a few club players from Houston. Based on how much they put into their women's team I certainly wouldn't worry about Houston becoming any sort of powerhouse in the near future though.

On the women's side the Big East should be a huge recruiting advantage. We lose most of the really good local and regional recruits to the Big XII since it is much better than C-USA. The ability to offer Big East soccer should allow us to get some of those players at SMU. We should also have a nice advantage to get some of the top players who are currently choosing Tulsa or Rice since we can now offer a lot more.

The wildcard on the women's side will be Memphis, since currently Memphis and UCF are the only real top C-USA schools. I would think Memphis is established enough to keep recruiting well so I wouldn't expect their current target recruits to all of a sudden start going to SMU and UCF.

In all seriousness though, even though the women's team has been recruiting pretty well over the past four years, things will need to pick up if we want to be competitive in the Big East.

EastStang wrote:We are going from the 3rd or 4th best soccer conference to the 2nd best soccer conference behind the ACC. One thing though, BE soccer is more of the tough kick in the shins variety and not the graceful style that we play. We'll have to adjust to that style, but I believe that we'll certainly continue to be a player in college soccer. We won't have to have a tough OOC schedule anymore to prove our bona fides.

That's probably the best thing about the move. SMU needs to be able to physically compete and not rely on superior skill. Football is a game where physicality is underappreciated.

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