Quinnipiac’s Clarke sees changes in recruiting

HAMDEN — Recruiting through the COVID-19 pandemic for Dave Clarke, head coach of the Quinnipiac women’s soccer team, has opened avenues that weren’t previously available.

“It’s slowed it down, which isn’t a bad thing,” Clarke said. “Women’s soccer has an accelerated recruiting calendar, which is why you see these early commitments from freshmen and sophomores. I see why players at that level make commitments to the Stanfords and UCLAs, Carolinas.”

But Clarke, who guided Quinnipiac to the MAAC semifinal round of the Northeast Conference playoffs in 2019 with one of the youngest teams in program history, sees an upside to players taking a measured decision.

“The top players are still deciding to go early. But the majority of recruits, let’s say the mid-majors and the lower-level Division I, they are now starting to do more research.”

That means that more players, unable to visit campuses or play at clinics, are recruiting schools.

“I’ve seen it in our numbers,” Clarke said. “We are getting calls and emails from players on the West Coast, from players in the upper Midwest, down South, from places we’ve never heard from previously.”

Still, Clarke has no answer to what the next few seasons will yield in terms of victories.

“I have a Class of 2021 that hasn’t played yet, I have a Class of 2020 that hasn’t played a game at Quinnipiac yet. So by the time we start in the fall I’ll have two classes who’ve never kicked the ball and by what will be their junior year will have only one year of soccer behind them,” Clarke said.

Players that had committed before the pandemic struck, because they were seen or attended a clinic with the schools they wanted to go to, had a step up.

Clarke said: “For a player that you know from high school, who you know through club and got to see play, they had an advantage.

If she was 2022, it would be a little bit difficult. I wouldn’t be able to see her live, I wouldn’t be able to meet with her, I wouldn’t be able to do the follow-up. Everything would be by Zoom and video and that’s not ideal.”

Clarke supports anything that keeps his athletes safe.

“We’re teaching young women, trying to educate them in the ways of the world. It is a life skill,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic. I’m trying to be a little bit more pragmatic about it. Yes, it’s frustrating. The job is paused, recruiting’s paused, training, all of that. In the bigger picture, it’s not the end of the world.

“For us, recruiting for 2022 we are waiting until after the April 15, 2021, period to see if we can go talk to players, meet with players, watch players. It is about being patient. We will lose some good players here and there, but in the long run it will be better to see what happens.”