2017 Soccer Schedule

[armchair]

The Vols released their 2017 soccer schedule today. See link below.

The non-conference schedule is weak. We play Belmont, Middle Tennessee, George Mason, College of Charleston, Navy, Bucknell, Wright State, East Tennessee and Wright State. Yikes. Not exactly a collection of bruisers. A couple of those games might be oriented toward recruiting as the Vols recruit pretty heavily in the northern Virginia/Maryland area and in Pennsylvania. The problem is that most of them will be low RPI opponents, and you don't get much RPI help for beating low RPI teams. And if you lose to a low-RPI team, you get hammered. So there's not a lot of upside and quite a lot of downside to a schedule like this. I mean, a weak out-of-conference schedule is almost always going to depress your RPI, and that's not a good thing when the time comes for a committee to pick NCAA teams.

The only decent non-conference game we have is against Virginia Tech, which is a good ACC team though not upper-tier ACC. That almost becomes a must-win, it seems to me. Last year we played a very good BYU team, and a decent Washington team, and lost both games. I'd rather we played some tougher competition, frankly.

The SEC schedule is, as usual, stout. We will have to have quite a good regular season and conference tournament to make the NCAA tourney, which we haven't been in for a while. Here's hoping for a strong team and a good year.

http://www.utsports.com/sports/w-soccer/sched/

 

[BigOrangeMojo]

The Vols released their 2017 soccer schedule today. See link below.

The non-conference schedule is weak. We play Belmont, Middle Tennessee, George Mason, College of Charleston, Navy, Bucknell, Wright State, East Tennessee and Wright State. Yikes. Not exactly a collection of bruisers. A couple of those games might be oriented toward recruiting as the Vols recruit pretty heavily in the northern Virginia/Maryland area and in Pennsylvania. The problem is that most of them will be low RPI opponents, and you don't get much RPI help for beating low RPI teams. And if you lose to a low-RPI team, you get hammered. So there's not a lot of upside and quite a lot of downside to a schedule like this. I mean, a weak out-of-conference schedule is almost always going to depress your RPI, and that's not a good thing when the time comes for a committee to pick NCAA teams.

The only decent non-conference game we have is against Virginia Tech, which is a good ACC team though not upper-tier ACC. That almost becomes a must-win, it seems to me. Last year we played a very good BYU team, and a decent Washington team, and lost both games. I'd rather we played some tougher competition, frankly.

The SEC schedule is, as usual, stout. We will have to have quite a good regular season and conference tournament to make the NCAA tourney, which we haven't been in for a while. Here's hoping for a strong team and a good year.

http://www.utsports.com/sports/w-soccer/sched/

Armchair,

I don't know the answer to this but how's the HS soccer in TN compared to other states. Are there a fair number of high end recruits in TN or is it pretty barren?

 

[armchair]

Armchair,

I don't know the answer to this but how's the HS soccer in TN compared to other states. Are there a fair number of high end recruits in TN or is it pretty barren?

in Tennessee is fair, not great. I think it's accurate to say there are other states with better high school/club talent--Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, Colorado and Pennsylvania, to name a few. The Tennessee Soccer Club, based in Brentwood, is the best in the state--it gets the best players from the Nashville/middle Tennessee area, but that's the only fairly good club in the state of which I'm aware of. Memphis may have a good club but can't say I've heard of one from there. We've got an incoming freshmen, Wrenne French, who played with the TSC and is thought to be a good player. She just participated in an Under 18 or Under 19 US National Team camp and I think played at least part of one game against Japan--which is very strong in youth soccer. TSC had a very highly rated defender with National Team experience but she is going to Duke.

 

[Vol67]

He has to do something to improve his record or the seat will become hot.

He was brought in as the savior of the program since UT wouldn't pay the previous coach

SEC Record: 24-24-9 in 5 seasons. Best season was his 1st with what Angela Kelly left him

Overall Record: 50-37-15 in 5 seasons. Best season also his first with the team Angela Kelly left him

Overall another UT unimpressive hire

His team's record vs this years ooc opponents 5-1-1
.

 

[armchair]

He has to do something to improve his record or the seat will become hot.

He was brought in as the savior of the program since UT wouldn't pay the previous coach

SEC Record: 24-24-9 in 5 seasons. Best season was his 1st with what Angela Kelly left him

Overall Record: 50-37-15 in 5 seasons. Best season also his first with the team Angela Kelly left him

Overall another UT unimpressive hire

His team's record vs this years ooc opponents 5-1-1
.

I agree with you--it is time to win more games. Pensky is a good recruiter, though some of his top recruits were overrated and others transferred out for one reason or another. But he has brought in talent. One problem is that he did not do enough to bolster our back four in his first four years--and you can't be a good team with a mediocre back four. We had some veteran players in the back; problem was, none of them was all that good, and they were not very good as a unit. It was only last year, when Pensky moved two attacking players to the defense after a disastrous game against bama, that our defense really became decent/solid--and so did the team. It also helped that Hannah Wilkinson, our star forward, was healthy for the first time in three years. But a bad early start to the season and no good RPI wins left us out of the NCAA.

Pensky's other problem is that he's made some bad personnel decisions. D. Marcano, the attacking player who helped our defense significantly when she moved to right back last year, played sparingly as a freshman when she should have played--somewhere--every minute of every game. Others have played far more than they should. We had a highly recruited player come in and help us in midfield as a freshman. But she got hurt late in the year, pretty badly, and she came back and pretty much played more than anybody on the team for the next two years despite the fact that she was not good--not influential. We've had the same issue with one of our forwards--athletic, hard-working, but not a real good soccer player and yet plays a lot.

The other issue is that we've not been a good possession team. I'm not sure Pensky is a possession coach--some aren't. Arkansas had a lot of success last year, and they were not a good possession team, but generally it is hard to beat solid/good opponents if you can't possess the ball. Counterattacking football is a nice way to play if you have the players and skill to do it, but we generally give the ball away too cheaply and, when we do win the ball, have not moved ahead with the precision and speed needed to be a good counterattacking team. We've got to be better in possession, no question.

This will be an interesting year. We have talent, but the SEC is competitive, as always. Wilkinson is gone and so we'll have to find ways to score goals--and the defense has to be strong from the get-go. We've got a transfer forward coming in who has played for the Jamaican national team. She's seems to have size and skill. We'll see if she can be integrated into our system and contribute. The program really needs to start to making a mark this year. We've only got one OOC game with the potential to help our RPI--so we'll have to make it happen in conference play.

One note: the one coach who gets mentioned a lot in the context of being on the hot seat is Kelly at texas. I think her team came in last in the conference last year--and yet she got an extension. She's not been good since taking over the longhorns.