M&W Soccer Wins

[FloridaMustang]

Congrats to the men's soccer team on pulling out a 2OT win over Vandy last night. We're definitely not playing at the same level as past teams, but we're young and injury plagued. What happened to TJ Tomasso btw? Don't tell me he got injured. Erick Foss filled in well for him, at any rate. Keep fighting!

The women also shut out Nevada and are looking solid. I'd say this team is definitely as good as last year's group. I think they need to play a tougher OOC schedule next year, perhaps Texas, A&M, and a ranked west coast school ahead of the C-USA change.

Good luck to both soccer teams and hopefully they pull off yet another couple coference championships.

Go Stangs!

<small>[ 10-25-2003, 05:39 AM: Message edited by: FloridaMustang ]</small>

[peaker]

Rumor has it the 2004 OCC does not include A&M but how about Stanford, Texas, UCLA and OK State before the final WAC tour.

[HorsePower]

Good! Sure hope that's right. Anything that lessens the accomplishments of A&M is a good move, as far as I can tell. As far as women's soccer goes, that's the team I'll always root against. Their coach thinks he's some kind of coaching genius, but all he can do is promise the world to recruits so he has superior athletes, and then hand them off to some pretty capable assistant coaches who actually teach. Have you ever watched him at a game? He struts around like he knows something nobody else does, when all he knows is speed - he can spot a fast player in high school, then hopes his assistant coaches can teach them to be good overall soccer players. To his credit, he's hired some assistants who can really coach.

But I just can't stand hearing the claims that he has some great program down there in College Station. He doesn't. Give his caliber of athletes -- and A&M's patsy schedule -- to Coach Coss or Coach Van Linder or Coach Kirkup and SMU would have rolled to a nice fat record, too.

If what you're saying is true, good. A&M might have been better than SMU this year, but if so, it was by the smallest of margins. A&M beat SMU early in the season -- barely -- and then tied the Ponies in the playoffs at home in front of a horde of those weird, whooping jarheads who wouldn't know a corner kick from a goal kick, much how to explain soccer's offside rule. Yes, A&M went on after winning the PK shootout. Big deal. What SMU showed this year is that the Ponies are right there at A&M's level, but did we ever get credit for it? No! Were we ranked? No! We even had to win the WAC tournament to ensure a bid to the NCAAs. But there's A&M sitting up there in the top part of the rankings, when there's no difference between their team and ours. I say to hell with them. If they think they're all high and mighty, let them roll through their schedule which has a few good Big 12 teams and a bunch of scrubs. Then, when they face a good team like Penn State in the NCAAs, they get drilled. No way we should help them by making them tougher.

If those teams you mention are, in fact, on next year's schedule, that's obviously Coach Coss calling on his west coast connections. And what that (plus his recruiting ability) will do is make the Ponies more talented and tougher as a team come playoff time. And if we get another shot at those fraudulent Aggies .... look out.

Go Ponies!

[ladyluck03]

not only are those awesome teams you mentioned o next year's schedule for the women, but i also hear that santa clara and St. Mary's are also on the out-of-conference schedule. all smu has to do is beat a couple of those teams to get noticed, and eventually ranked. coss isn't messing around with his scheduling. i just hope some of these games are being played at home-- i'd love to watch!

[giacfsp]

Having met Coach Coss a few times, I get the sense he doesn't mess around with much of anything. He's exactly the type of coach who will get the best out of his players, and I gather he'll keep recruiting better players until the current players have to bust their tails just to keep their jobs -- which is exactly how things should be. Here's hoping they schedule all those tough games, win a bunch of them and re-claim their rightful spot as the best team in Texas and one of the best anywhere.

[ladyluck03]

looks like there's gonna be quite a youth movement! with all five of the present freshmen starting and several upcoming freshmen coss has a lot of faith in, i'm not so sure there's gonna very many upper-classmen getting much playing time.