BYU men's soccer just won a 4th-straight club national title. Are changes coming to the program?
Head coach Brandon Gilliam joined the podcast to discuss the Cougars' run to a fifth national title in six years, a 73-match unbeaten streak, and what's next for the collegiate club world.
PROVO, Utah — These days, Brandon Gilliam doesn’t get the same question he used to when he first took over as head coach of the BYU men’s soccer team: BYU has a men’s soccer team?
Yes, it’s true; the Utah university with one of the top women’s programs in the Western United States also fields a men’s team — just not in the NCAA.
The collegiate club world is just fine for the Cougars, at least for now.
BYU won its fourth consecutive National Intramural-Sports Recreational Association (NIRSA) men’s soccer championship over the weekend, capping an incredible run to the program’s fifth title in six years with its 73rd-straight match without a loss, an eye-popping 67 goals scored and just five conceded (with three of them coming from the penalty spot) and zeros goals-allowed during a national tournament that featured wins over club teams from UConn, Georgia Tech, UCLA and Virginia Tech.
Anchored by a back line that included Cameron Pennock and Nathan Mumford, and with the heartbeat of longtime captain Ben Gonzalez as well as outside backs-turned-wingbacks in a 3-5-2 in Asher Franks and Tyler Ashby, the Cougars grinded out six-straight shutouts in Round Rock, Texas to lift the trophy overhead like dozens of teammates before them.
“For me, this national championship took a lot more from all of us, including the coaching staff,” Gilliam said. “We started off the season a little slow, but we always want to peak in November. Each game builds on itself until we get to November. But this year, we never found a full footing and just kept looking at different tweaks. There were a lot of nagging injuries … and we weren’t always scoring goals. So we knew we had to be sharp in other areas.
“Going into the tournament, there was a lot of big-picture looks from me. That’s when we started talking about our other options. In the first game, Cam Pennock took a pretty bad dad leg and Isaiah got a red card that put us down a man and out two center backs going into Game 2. It took a lot more thought and a lot of things that weren’t smooth sailing. We didn’t allow a goal all the way through, but it wasn’t clean and easy.”
No sooner had Gilliam arrived home from Texas than he was met with a new challenge: his wife asked him how he wanted to celebrate. But the veteran coach along the Wasatch Front was already moving on to the next project: How can the Cougars win a fifth-straight title?
More importantly, how do you keep your players motivated when success has come as often — though certainly not as easily — as the past decade, since BYU left its home for 15-straight summers in the Premier Development League (now USL League Two) six years ago and returned to fall competition with over 1,000 students watching at South Field.
“That’s the conversation that we have the most; we constantly are adjusting what it look like to continue to push,” Gilliam said. “It’s easy to get complacent, and in this world, even though we go into most games as the better team anyone can knock you off if you drop too much. We saw that in our first game of regionals against Weber State, a good team but we finished 0-0. The conversation had to be had in those moments; anything below 95% of what you are capable of means any team can knock you off. So I don’t know if there’s a single recipe, other than: be constantly worried about the drop-off.”
For Gilliam, that also involves pushing the collegiate club scene forward. While the NIRSA has been good to the Cougars, competing in an organization of more than 4,500 members with championships ranging from flag football to ultimate frisbee to racquetball — in addition to traditional sports like men’s and women’s soccer at universities across the country — has also had its challenges.
One example: while the organization has done a lot to promote the game, it didn’t hand out a trophy in Round Rock, with BYU players cloistering together to lift a plaque with their photo overhead after receiving their championship medals.
“The collegiate club world continues to grow; there are 450 men’s teams and 350 women’s club teams, and seeing it grow would help us — and a lot of other kids,” Gilliam said. “We just don’t have a lot of men’s sanctioned programs, and I’m hoping that we can see some shifts next year or so in the model to push the organization to a new standard.”