We got a new soccer coach.

B

Bill in Sinton

5,000+ Posts
Hopefully she can get us into later rounds. Welcome to Austin Coach and good luck.
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I'm not a fan of the hire.

Her teams in 2009 and 2010 did not make the NCAA tourney. Her 2011 team lost in the 2nd round at home to Ohio State.

Yes, she has made 5 sweet sixteen appearances in 11 years, but obviously not in the last 3 seasons.

She's a native of Scotland; grew up in Canada; played collegiately at North Carolina; and has coached at Tennessee.

Absolutely no connections/ties to the state of Texas. One player from Texas on her 2011 roster.
 
She has her work cut out for her, but there isn't anything in the press release not to say she cannot do the job. Soccer recruiting is as dirty as basketball recruiting with the club coaches and their twisted sense of entitlement.

However she has got to at least slow down (if not stop) the wave of excellent players from going out of state. Help on this front from sand aggy, baylor and TCU would help.
 
According to the release Tennessee had never made a single NCAA tourney or won a SEC title before she arrived there. After she took the helm they won a combined 7 SEC reg season and tourney championships and made 9 NCAA post-season appearances, including those 5 Sweet 16's. Honestly, Petrucelli arrived having won an NCAA Championship, appearing in three consecutive NCAA title games, and having been named national coach of the year twice. Since most feel his tenure at Texas was underwhelming, I'm fine with bringing in a coach who still has something to prove. She seems highly regarded, and obviously knows how to turn a program around, so hopefully she will be the shot in the arm we need.
 
She did build the Lady Vol program from the ground up, but it doesn't seem like she was able to maintain what she built.

As I mentioned above, her teams did not make the NCAA tourneys in 2009 and 2010. In 2008, they were the #6 seed in the SEC tourney and ended up winning it and earning the SEC's automatic bid to the NCAA tourney; if not for that "upset", it would have marked 3 consecutive seasons with no NCAA tourney appearances.

If you think about, here's what we didn't hire:

1) A coach from a national top 10 program
2) A coach whose teams have been fixtures in the NCAA tourneys "recently"'
3) A coach who has had success recruiting the state of Texas

Here's an article that does not complement the hire:

The Link
 
While I don't disagree with your three points regarding who we didn't hire, isn't it true that Texas did accomplish all of those things when they hired Petrucelli, and we see how that worked out. Not only did we hire someone with recent success, we hired the best coach in the country not named Dorrance. In fact it was Petrucelli who broke Anson's run of nine straight NCAA championships, and made three consecutive NCAA title games in the process. If they had gone out and hired the same caliber of coach again, who's to say the results would have been any different than what they got with Petrucelli. I think the article you posted is a fair assessment, and presents the potential pluses and minuses of the hire. The comments following the article are also interesting, including the one about Mack Brown. While Kelly certainly isn't the biggest name they could have brought in, and only time will tell if it was the right move, she has had considerable success at Tennessee. And since most seem to think a change needed to be made, I'm willing to give her a chance to show what she can do.
 
This hire is absolutely terrible.

She doesn't recruit well. She has alienated quite a bit of people locally here in East Tennessee. (You'll be hard pressed to find anyone around here even remotely upset that she's gone.) She hasn't won a regular season title since 2005. By the way, her team got knocked out of the tourney in the first round this year; not the second.

I don't understand why a school like The University of Texas isn't hiring the most qualified, bad assed candidate in the country.
 
I don't know why Petrucelli couldn't have consistent success at Texas. Some say it's because he had no relationships to the high school and/or club coaches in Texas, and that hurt recruiting. Kely doesn't solve that problem, if in fact it was the main issue.

The best women's soccer programs in the country reside in the ACC and Pac 12. A few programs like Notre Dame, Santa Clara, and Portland are the exceptions. Why we didn't go that route is beyond me; perhaps we tried, and they wouldn't come.

Yes, we have no choice but to give her a chance as the hire has been made; giving her a 5.5 year contract seems very risky.
 
It is hard to understand why it never happened for Petrucelli at Texas, given his incredible resume and record of success. I don't think it had to do with in-state recruiting though. Yes, some good talent went out-of-state, and some went to other programs, but he consistently brought in some of Texas' best HS players, including many Parade All-Americans and National team members. And I guess it isn't fair to say he wasn't successful as he won a number of conference championships and tournaments, but his sqauds always fell short in post-season play. Hopefully that will change in the future, but only time will tell.
 
Great. So we fired a coach that could recruit but had average results for a coach that can't recruit and had average results. Nice job Plonsky.
 
Unfortunately, no. I know (and play soccer with) several ex players. Additionally, as a local club coach, I know and hear the general sentiment about her from them.

Her results on the field are average as is her recruiting.
 
I too don't know why Coach Petrucelli didn't have more success than he did. We have good facilities and a great school. Also he must have been paid well to come here since he was no doubt well wait at ND and had won a big NC there.
 
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