Portland slams Lady Mustang's soccer

[redpony]

I would certainly prefer to be able to write that the 'Mustangs slam Portland' but that wasn't the case. Maybe we will be able to beat someone in the bottom of our conference.

GO PONIES!!!

[HeyHey]

I find it interesting that there are so many posts on this thread but not a single reply on the two threads regarding SMU's win over UTSA. Is everyone only interested in beating on the negatives and just ignore the positives since they don't fit the agenda?

[redblue08]

I find it interesting that there are so many posts on this thread but not a single reply on the two threads regarding SMU's win over UTSA. Is everyone only interested in beating on the negatives and just ignore the positives since they don't fit the agenda?

Excellent observation!!

[GrapevineMustang]

Mods need to get rid of this thread and let the "I have no axe to grind" gang go fight it out at recess.

[EastStang]

McClements was an assistant to SH for several years with a hiatus at Vanderbilt (I think). Erwin was a player and assistant under SH. So, why is it okay for Portland State to promote assistants and not for SMU to promote assistants? Both were protoge's of SH and certainly you have to give them the benefit of the doubt at hiring that they learned something from SH. At this point his credibility as a women's coach has to be seriously questioned as a really bad experiment. The sad part about this is, he might very well have been a decent hire for the Men's position, but now that he is out of position, he might be out for good if things don't turn around for the women's team.

First, I do not believe that Erwin ever played for SH as he attended froggie high. One big difference I see is that the Portland assistants started coaching at Portland without going to other schools to coach first. I would not speculate as to why they are very successful and our assistants have not been. TMc's head coaching record for eight years was 84-98-12 and Erwin's was 13-17-3 at UCF. I would hope that you would agree that those records are hardly what you would expect in replacement coaches for a program(s) that had consistently been nationally ranked, highly successful programs in the past.
If you were a sales manager for a large company would you hire a sales person that met his quota less than 50% of the time?

If these programs are not turned around this year then there need to be some major changes made.

GO PONIES!!!

Two points on this. Erwin was building a UCF soccer program from pretty much from scratch, do you expect to have a winning record with a bunch of walk-ons, transfers and freshmen, your first year in a conference like CUSA with the likes of SMU, USC, Tulsa, Kentucky, Fla. Int'l, UAB, and Memphis?
As to McC, Vanderbilt was consistently going through rumors of disbanding the soccer program (and in fact the entire athletic program) which would not make it easy to recruit there, but despite that he had a winning season before they started shutting down the program. I believe they were in the MVC with SMU at the time.

[soccerobserver]

First, I have no axe to grind. I am simply a college soccer enthusiast. I reside in Texas and wish all teams nothing but success.

Here are my observations:
1. People seem to be in 1 of 2 polar opposite camps. Best friends and huge supporters of the coach in question, or hate his guts and wish he were not alive.
2. The conversations seem based on very personal and emotional arguements, in which neither side is really open, or able to be open to the converse.

Facts:
1. First he did not leave UCF because they disbanded their Men's Soccer Team. The internet is fairly easy to use. Check your facts first.
2. Changing from men's to women's soccer seems almost as complicated as changing from field hockey to lacrosse. Different contacts, different ways to motivate, different game really.

UCF Men's Soccer before and after-
4 years prior to BE the record was 45-28-8
His 2 years at UCF where13-17-3

SMU Women's Soccer before and after-
4 years of JC
64-17-8
NCAA tourney 4 of 4 years
Won CUSA in 06 and 05 and the WAC in 04 and 03
He played 12 Nationally Ranked teams including Notre Dame, UNC, Stanford, Texas A&M, Cal, UCLA
16-2 in CUSA

4 years of Van Linder
59-21-6
NCAA 3 of 4 years
WAC 3 straigh years.
He played 8 Nationally Ranked Teams including A&M, UF, Santa Clara, UNC, and Clemson

2 years of BE
15-2-2
CUSA record of 8-12
CUSA tourney 07 (dnq)
CUSA tourney 08 8 seed

Observations-
1. He has taken over 2 successful (at least in terms of records programs, and been unable in the short term to replicate the success. The graduates of both programs in the year her got there, in reference to the national norm are nothing to note.)
2. He has played a tough non-conference schedule, but nothing out of the norm for SMU in the last 10 years.


I do not think that the posters have an axe grind. From the outside they seem passionate about the program and wish it success and simply do not beleive this coach is the one to take them where they beleive they can go. That is normal in college athletics for passionate fans. Posting incessantly about their axe seems little more than deflection.

Can he be sucecssful. Possibly. It is a big jump from men's to women or the other way around. He seems to bring in quality recruits, (based on accolades as I have not seen them play personally.) Getting them to play together seems to be a question for him at this point.

Saying they are not his kids seems irrelevant.
Van Linders 1st year with someone elses kids 17-6-1
JC's 1st year with someone elses kids 17-3-2

If nothing else, the trends show that a coaches first year can be his best with an infuson of new ideas and a voice.

I do not know any of the coaches, so observations are merely based on facts. I do not wish any of the coaches ill-will. I am sure they are at this level for a reason. However the facts seem to support the naysayers, who think an AD who hired an unsuccessful and unproven men's coach to coach a historically successful women's program has been a failed experiment, up till now.

[redpony]

soccerobserver-
Good astute observations. I understand that all of us want these programs to be successful. Some of us don't accept the failure of a previously successful program easily.
There is no hate for any of the coaches on my part. I do not know and have never met either of them. My dislike is the failure of these programs to continue their prior success and progress.

I suspect, if the truth be known, that both of these coaches were hired based on economics and budgetary constraints in the athletic department rather than their capabilities. Probably funds were reallocated from these programs to revenue producing sports in order to help them become successful first. Just an opinion and feeling that I have.

GO PONIES!!!

[pony717]

The graduates... in the year he got there, ... are nothing to note.

Saying they are not his kids seems irrelevant.
Van Linders 1st year with someone else's kids 17-6-1
JC's 1st year with someone else's kids 17-3-2

Facts are facts but observations are not. From my data gathering, I think some of your "observations" are totally inaccurate. Let's get back to facts:

What this team lacked the past two years was a heavy-hitting goal scorer. In Cossaboon's last year of 2006, the team took 354 shots and scored 47 goals. 44% of the shots taken and 57% of the goals came from 3 heavy hitting forwards... senior Olivia O'Rear, junior Kimber Bailey, and junior Krystal Bailey. Cossaboon inherited all three of these heavy hitters from Van Linder.

Then came 2007 under Erwin. Olivia O'Rear graduated before Erwin ever took the field. That's 53 shots and 13 goals gone to graduation. Krystal Bailey was injured in 2007 and hardly played her senior year. Her production went from 43 shots and 5 goals her junior year to 3 shots and 0 goals her senior year. Kimber Bailey's production went from 58 shots and 9 goals her junior year to 33 shots and 3 goals her senior year. And now Krystal and Kimber Bailey graduate after the 2007 season leaving Erwin with a severely depleted stable of strikers. That's a loss of 118 shots and 24 goals which is an enormous amount of offensive production to replace. And while Cossaboon left Erwin with some solid young defenders and midfielders, he recruited no young attackers in his two years to replace the likes of O'Rear, Bailey, and Bailey. He pretty much left that up to Erwin.

In today's system of "verbal commitments" many of today's top players are spoken for early in their junior year of high school, and most coaches respect the verbal commits of another coach. This means that Erwin, hired in early 2007, got a very late start with his 2007 and 2008 recruiting classes. These are the facts.

[redpony]

Pony717- not sure that I agree with all of your information.
Erwin had to be aware when he came here that he needed some strong players who could score. I do not believe they have that capability yet even after his third season. Fact: the totals of all games played this year are: goals against-23, goals for-6.
You state that most coaches will honor verbals and no longer recruit that person. Perhaps you should talk with some of the fb coaches. They have many verbals and must continue to recruit those people because many other schools are pursuing or will be pursuing those players as they finish their hs. careers.
You seem to be blaming JC for not recruiting good players. I doubt that he quit recruiting good players since it seemed like a last minute decision to leave us. Erwin was hired about 30 days after JC left so there should not have a big drop in recruiting nor a big drop out of players that had already committed to us.

Fact is that Erwin has not been successful in continuing the past successes of this program. Good coaches are able to overcome obstacles and find a way to win (or at least be highly competitive).

GO PONIES!!!

[pony717]

Pony717- not sure that I agree with all of your information.
Erwin had to be aware when he came here that he needed some strong players who could score. I do not believe they have that capability yet even after his third season. Fact: the totals of all games played this year are: goals against-23, goals for-6.
You state that most coaches will honor verbals and no longer recruit that person. Perhaps you should talk with some of the fb coaches. They have many verbals and must continue to recruit those people because many other schools are pursuing or will be pursuing those players as they finish their hs. careers.
You seem to be blaming JC for not recruiting good players. I doubt that he quit recruiting good players since it seemed like a last minute decision to leave us. Erwin was hired about 30 days after JC left so there should not have a big drop in recruiting nor a big drop out of players that had already committed to us.

Fact is that Erwin has not been successful in continuing the past successes of this program. Good coaches are able to overcome obstacles and find a way to win (or at least be highly competitive).

GO PONIES!!!

lunatic

[August]

In today's system of "verbal commitments" many of today's top players are spoken for early in their junior year of high school, and most coaches respect the verbal commits of another coach.

You're correct, most do. However, since you brought it up, Erwin's first recruiting class (2008) featured two de-commits (that I know of) - one from OU and one from Alabama.

means that Erwin, hired in early 2007, got a very late start with his 2007 and 2008 recruiting classes.

He was hired one week before signing day in 2007. Except for the goalie who has since left the team, the class he signed for 2007 were Cossaboon's commits. In his 2008 class, there were one or two Cossaboon early commits.

Other than that, as you say, he was a few months behind for 2008 recruiting since those players were then in second semester of their junior year.

[soccerobserver]

"Facts are facts but observations are not." I have no idea what this means. Observations are not what? Facts? Or Observations?

You have obviously made up your mind, and that is fine. I just find it very interesting that those that support this coach, do so vehemently without any proven success. It is an interesting dynamic which leads me to beleive that those of you who do, are very close to the coach personally, or know him well enough to beleive in him, despite the facts. The facts do not support you though, is all I am saying.

Let's talk more facts since "facts are facts."

The four top teams in the conference in 06 were SMU, UCF, Memphis and UTEP, threfore we will discuss those 4 programs side by side.

All 3 1st All-Conference Forwards graduated in 06. Each of those players (O'Rear-SMU, Mikami-Memphis, and Pelarigo-UCF) led their teams in goals scored.

A look at who graduated....
SMU- 4 Seniors, 15 goals, 29% of goals scored,
UCF- 6 Seniors, 11 goals, 31% of goals scored, 117 shots
Memphis- 5 Seniors, 23 goals scored, 47% of goals scored, 166 shots
UTEP- 5 Seniors, 11 goals, 21% of goals scored, 69 shots

So SMU was 4th out of 4 in players graduated, 3rd out of 4 in % of goals returning.
UCF, Memphis and UTEP fininshed 1st, 2nd and 3rd. SMU fininshed 9th.

To include the Bailey girls in this conversation is misleading. 1 of them played. 1 of them was hurt (from what I have read on here.) Injuries happen. I can not speak intelligently about the girl who underperformed. The coach has to take some responsibility for that. It is their job to get the most out of the players.

Now to recruiting. The facts do seem to support the claim that recruiting dropped under JC from a rankings standpoint in reference to past years. However they do not support the sub .500 record.

Rankings- from 04 thru 08 according to Soccerbuzz (it is safe to say that the 04-06 classes were JC, the 07 was a mixture, and the 08 was BE.)
SMU- 27, 70, NR, 64, 75
Memphis- NR, 27, 95, 83, 65
UCF- 74, 44, 24, 67, 39
UTEP- NR, 96, NR, 96, NR

The rankings are very consistent with other CUSA members. If you give the "Not Rateds" a score of 100. The averge National Rankings for the 5 years discussed are:
UCF- 49.6
SMU 67.2
Memphis- 74
UTEP 98.4

Compare that with finish in CUSA from 05-08
SMU- 1st, 1st, 9th, 8th
UCF- 1st, 2nd, 1st, 3rd
Memphis- 5th, 3rd, 1st, 1st
UTEP- 4th, 4th, 3rd, 4th

The facts don't support your claim that the cupboard was completely bare. They do support your claim that he should not be beating Portland. Facts are SMU lost to Oral Roberts (1st time in program history), Tulsa (1st time in program history,) and Southern Miss (1st time in program history.) under BE. Those 3 programs had a combined 0 Nationally Ranked Recruiting classes in the 5 years discussed.

As stated, he seems to be getting very good players to commit. You know him personally obviously, and what the facts do not attest to are his charisma, intelligence, soccer mind etc. I am just very intrigued about the faction of extrememly loyal supporters, despite his 2 different stints of sub .500 soccer at traditionally successful soccer programs. His program seems mired in transfers, players quitting, players loss of form (Bailey, Gunter etc.) Losses. And yet the faithful remain. Kudos to you and I wish the coach, the kids and the program nothing but success.

[redpony]

Soccerobserver- good post and great facts. I am sure the 'rainbowers' will soon be weighing in on why your information is false, biased and totally inaccurate. Like you I only want this program to reach a level as high or higher than it was in the past (pre-BE).

GO PONIES!!!

[pony717]

Lots of facts, but many of them miss the point such as your analysis of recruiting using topdrawersoccer’s rankings. As was posted previously, this team’s biggest need the past two years was an impact forward. Cossaboon inherited three and left his successor with none. Also, the graduation of Bailey and Bailey, and their 101 shots and 14 goals in 2006, is very relevant. And finally, with the nature of recruiting in women’s soccer, to consider 2007 to be partially Erwin and 2008 to be entirely Erwin doesn't reflect reality.

[Oldkeeper]

Could the answer be as simple as Erwin is a men's coach who had never coached a women's program and doesn't know how? I believe his mantra is ..athletes are athletes and I'll treat them the same, whether men or women. But those that have coached know this is not true. Perhaps, even with the talent he has, he cannot motivate or lead the team. Just speculation, but if true the future is not bright unless there is a change in him or leadership.