Fellow blogger Jim Dietz, after a long career coaching at the 2-year college level, made a move to NCAA Division II. He shared his observations following that first season. Having coached in D2, as well as in D1 and D3, plus at the 2-year level (though nowhere near as long or at the same level as Jim), I was curious to read his thoughts.
I’m not going to reply to everything Jim said. Instead, I’ll pick out a few things where maybe I can contribute a bit. So here we go!
Skill quality
Jim said he used to believe that the majority of D1/D2 NJCAA (JUCO/2-year colleges) players could come in to NCAA D2 rosters and compete. He changed his mind on that, which doesn’t surprise me.
I did a post a while back looking at relative levels across the NCAA divisions. The main observation is that there’s a lot of overlap, and NJCAA certainly overlaps as well. There are some VERY good teams and players in the NJCAA. Many go on to play in the NCAA, but I don’t think most NJCAA players do. I don’t actually have any numbers to back that up. If they did, though, you’d see a lot more of them listed on NCAA rosters than you do.
This is not either Jim or myself denigrating the 2-year route, by the way. If you’re a good JUCO player who really wants to go on to play at a 4-year school, there will be options for you. That’s why I made sure to talk about that path in The College Volleyball Recruiting Playbook.
I should add here that I agree with the things Jim says in the post about the skills of individual players, not being able to rely on just one great attacker, and the lesser influence of serving. My view is that, generally speaking, D2 players are often just as skillful as D1 players (potentially even more so), but are less physical.
Coaches as GMs
Jim comments “D2 volleyball is about spreadsheet management” and “D2 sports are about salary caps!!” He’s specifically talking about only having a limited number of full scholarship equivalent that you need to share around. At this writing (no telling when the NCAA might change it), the D2 limit is 8. Most programs spread that over more than 8 players, so not many end up on a full ride.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s the same in most of D1 as well. As I wrote in the recruiting book, there aren’t as many fully-funded (maximum full scholarships allowed) as most people think. So there too you have coaches playing General Manager. Same with the NAIA.
Spread in team strength
Jim makes the observation, “The difference between #20 and #120 in the country is not that far.” I’m going to disagree with him here.
When I was at Midwestern State (D2 in the Lonestar Conference) we were that team around 100-120. We played teams in that 20-30 ranking (and higher) every year. We were never close. Yes, we could scrape a set off the ones in our conference, who we obviously knew well, but that was about it. You might not see much difference just looking at the height of the athletes (though they do get big once you’re in the top 10!), but the quality difference shows in the outcomes.
Really, it’s the same in D1. Team #100 might not look much different than Team #20, but there’s a reason why those teams are ranked where they are.
Can’t respond to every email
Jim notes that as a JUCO coach he answered every recruit email that came in. As a D2 coach he simply gets too many to be able to do that. Anyone who’s coached D1 or D2 – and probably a lot of D3s – can relate!
You can get DOZENS of emails a day during the heavier parts of the year for recruiting. There’s just no way to answer them all manually. And some you can’t answer because of the NCAA rules.
Emphasis differences between D1 and D2
This is another area where I’m inclined to disagree with Jim, at least from a certain perspective. Jim describes D2 as, “It’s a unique mix of high-level athletics without compromising an athlete’s time as a regular college student.” From a season perspective, there’s not a lot of difference between the two. The D2 season is slightly shorter, but that’s it. They both have pretty comparable off-seasons.
The big difference can be in the area of travel. You don’t see conference spanning practically the whole country in D2 as you see in D1 (D2 is regionalized by design). You don’t often have teams playing midweek matches more than a couple hours away. Yes, I definitely experienced some 10 and 12 hour bus rides for Lonestar Conference matches, but big travel in conference is less often the case in D2 than D1.
I should note that D3 is where you get real student-athlete balance. The regular season is the shortest and mandatory off-season work is extremely limited.
Thoughts?
If you’ve coached at multiple levels of the college game, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the difference. Leave a comment below.
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One Response
Thanks for putting the link to this on my blog, sir! I still stand by the #20 close to #100 comment. It isn’t to say they are equal, but, I suppose, that if the #20 team doesn’t bring their A-game, they can easily lose.