Well let’s see what Donigan has in store for this season I guess. The non conference schedule looks easier than last year, but the real test will be how they fare in big 10. I think less than .500 in conference means what should have happened to Donigan the past two years maybe finally will. I have to believe that AD will be paying close attention and must realize that the program is on precipice of irrelevance.
Rutgers men's soccer...Donigan...
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A 3rd straight last place finish in the B1G has to be a wrap for Donigan this year. Be like Rachel Phelps in Major League and root for the team to lose.
The recruit locally paradigm has killed Rutgers Athletics for years. Get the best possible players, period. Recruiting locally is provincial and dated. We have years of proof that it does not work.
That’s because we’re forced to recruit 3rd level players.
Get the top tier NJ soccer players, the ones that actually have multiple high level choices and see how we’d do.
We’d be a force.
Getting third level players from other states won’t help you either.
Why would a kid from NC or Florida come here, it’s because we’re their best option
You’re only argument is a kid from elsewhere with no options is better than a NJ kid with no options.
I don’t believe that, you’ll lose with both.
You need top tier talent, end of story
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This is true, but sometimes the perception of Rutgers outside the state is better than in-state and therefore it can be easier to attract top oos talent. Win with that talent and the NJ kids will be lining up to play here. We saw that with lax. When Brecht first got here NJ kids would take any offer other than Rutgers. So Brecht went out and pulled some good players from traditional hotbed areas like LI and MD and other surrounding states in the NE. But he also found some real gems in non-traditional areas like Utah, Texas and Georgia. Since we’ve been winning the last few years you are starting to see NJ kids from programs that would never have given us a sniff a few years back listing RU as their top choice. But now that Brecht has established pipelines and is pulling in stud athletes in other areas, there are fewer offers going to NJ kids. So now an RU offer is a rare commodity and rarity creates value. When a NJ kid now gets an RU offer it is truly special.
Need to follow this blueprint in MSOC and other sports as well. However it requires that a coach can sell his vision and RU value to top oos kids the way Brecht has. If Donnigan is not that guy he needs to go and we need to bring in someone who can. It is the only proven way to win at Rutgers.
None of this is incorrect, but every sport is different. Something that works in lacrosse may not work in football, soccer, wrestling, etc.
I disagree. Getting the best athletes possible, regardless of geographic location and establishing a winning tradition will always be a path to success. If MSOC or any other sport can win consistently with oos talent, in-state players will soon want to be here and be part of it too.
In the end, RU successfully recruiting high end players from its own backyard is our key, always has been, always will be.
Whatever you have to do to achieve that is what I’ve been waiting 40 years for[cheers]
In lacrosse, there have been a lot of NJ kids to get the squad back to relevance. There has also been a lot of non NJ kids too.
If the non NJ kids bring back the Jersey kids, that net result is our blue print to win.
It would help if the program was more active in NJ recruiting. There is so much north jersey talent that never seems to be reflected in Rutgers rosters. I’m talking about Essex, Passaic, and Bergen counties specifically (Hackett and the transfer Franklin are 2 of the only ones from up north I can think of). Recruiting now seems so south and central jersey based-which is fine to an extent-but you really could add some different kinds of talent by reaching out into the north. Of course this factor seems to reflect both Donigan’s own south jersey pedigree and well as the deep ties the coaching staff has to PDA. Not terrible factors, but certainly limited when one considers how deep and rich NJ soccer is across the state.
There will never be an all NJ team in MLAX. The base will always be NJ, but Coach Brecht wants a well rounded geographical roster. The blue print we have now isn't changing. Hopefully we can continue to pick off even more of the NJ studs, but we will never have a team full of NJ kids only. That's by design.
Mike O'Neill, Meg Ryan & Co are very successful in doing just that in Women's Soccer. They also sprinkle in some recruits from around the country & the results speak for themselves.
My thoughts is you will always supplement and find gems free elsewhere to support your NJ base.
Like I said, NJ will always have a large presence for obvious reasons (lax is great there, home state) but Coach Brecht will never look to have a roster full of NJ kids no matter what. He wants geographical diversity and will continue to recruit that way. It's working. Different areas are producing different types of players now. It's good to have it all represented on one roster.
I am so tired of this discussion.
If it isn't obvious by now, I have no idea when it will be.
Quite frankly, it is a complete joke.
If it isn't obvious by now, I have no idea when it will be.
Quite frankly, it is a complete joke.
He might be fine for the job if you think about the context. I mean, it is likely that the team will do much better than last year with a possible legit threat up top and young players with a year of playing under their belt. Think about the possibility that he guides the team to a 500 record and middle of the pack finish in big ten. Prolly good enough for him to stay. Then next year things go a bit downhill, followed by a slightly better year, then cellar again. Who knows, I’m just saying that by not having gotten rid of him yet, it’s likely that he could stay for another 3 years or so of overall mediocrity. All this in the context of NCAA soccer which is really not good soccer for the most part. Just alot of athleticism and power with little tactical finesse. The DA games I watch are far more polished than most of what I see at the college level. In the college game, a coach like Donigan can last with an AD who gives him a long enough rope to garner decent results-which he hasn’t for the past few years, but he can literally only go up this year.
On recruiting front, at Montclair state last night there was st. Benedict’s prep game vs. another top high school from Ohio. Anyhow, huge crowd and people were taking about some of the SBP commitments—UCLA, Akron, Manhattan—not even a sniff of RU. Kind of telling that the best high school soccer program in the nation in the backyard of RU is not on Donigan’s radar. The Brazilian kid at SBP who is going to UCLA would likely have the kind of impact on program that Jason Wright did before Donigan couldn’t keep him from transferring to Clemson.
I was looking for info on the length of Donigan's contract and found this quote from an article in May of 2018:
"In men’s soccer, coach Dan Donigan has drawn consistent praise in New Jersey soccer circles for his recent recruiting efforts and he added a pair of instant-impact transfers in Kevin Silva and Vincenzo Pugliese."
Is there really anyone praising our recent recruiting? I always thought it was bad. That was quote was from Seargant by the way.
"In men’s soccer, coach Dan Donigan has drawn consistent praise in New Jersey soccer circles for his recent recruiting efforts and he added a pair of instant-impact transfers in Kevin Silva and Vincenzo Pugliese."
Is there really anyone praising our recent recruiting? I always thought it was bad. That was quote was from Seargant by the way.
Wonder if Hobbs flexes some P5 muscles and poaches UConn's HC. We could over him like $400k a year. Anyone know how much UConn's HC makes?
Not sure but my suggestion would be to try to poach an assistant from a top tier program. Temple did this by hiring a really good Maryland Assistant coach.
May have to go this route. One coach I’ve been interested in is Jamie Franks. Jersey guy who has done a great job at Denver. It’s a stretch at best given doing great at Denver.
Problem is that Hobbs hasn’t shown any overt commitment to MSOC and the kind of search and recruitment necessary for a quality hire might not be possible for him.
The Franks guy from Denver looks great—young, successful, great soccer pedigree. What are his jersey roots? Would be very hard to woo away from Denver where he sits atop a real awesome program. But the east coast Big10 lure could be attractive IF there is the energy to put into a hardcore recruitment. And once again, I just don’t see Hobbs having the time, commitment, and vision for MSOC to make such a sensible and game-changing move happen. It’s very simple, does Rutgers want MSOC to be a flagship Olympic sports program or not? Right now the answer is NO or simply I don’t care.
Shawnee kid I believe. Went to Wake and won a national championship there, so who even knows how attached to jersey he really is or if he’d be interested in coming back.
Do you have inside info about Hobbs with the caveat that it seems clear he doesn’t have the vision for soccer?
Such a shame what’s happened to this program.
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