The shifting powers of college sports have moved Syracuse and Pittsburgh from one powerhouse conference in men’s soccer to another. 

In the fall of 2013, Syracuse and Pittsburgh leave the Big East and head to the Atlantic Coast Conference, the home of four of the last five National Champions. 

“When the news broke, there were a lot of text messages from coaches sending their condolences,” Syracuse head coach Ian McIntyre jokingly told TopDrawerSoccer.com. 

Nico Wrobel

McIntyre said he was at a tournament in Akron with his team when he first heard about the move to the ACC. 

“The news was quickly on ESPN, and there was excitement from the staff and players,” he said. “It is an exciting transformation for our program.”

The Pittsburgh Panthers are also thrilled about the prospect of facing some new opponents in league play. 

“We are looking forward to it,” Pittsburgh head coach Joe Luxbacher told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “The ACC is a really good league, and it is a good time for us to make a move.”

Both coaches cited young squads last year, as neither fared well in the tough Big East conference with multiple first year starters. But with plenty of returners for next year and beyond, there is optimism about building strong programs in the ACC. 

“You have to play at that level, and recruit at that level,” Luxbacher said about joining the ACC. 

“The challenges are similar,” McIntyre added. “We have the opportunity to go out and take on some slightly different opponents.” 

In terms of recruiting, neither said much has changed with the news. 

“I don’t know if it is any different from the past,” Luxbacher said. “We try to recruit from everywhere. We just try to recruit good players.” 

For most soccer coaches, there is a frank realization that much of this movement between conferences is made without consideration for the non-revenue generating sports. McIntyre saw the benefit in his case from the basketball-motivated move through the ‘trickle down’ effect. 

“As a fan of college sports, we have watched in interest the movement of different schools to different conferences and the trickle down effect,” he said. “It is an exciting move. From our perspective, we continue to evolve as a program. We believe ACC will be very proud to be the home for our program.”

McIntyre also gave credit to Syracuse Director of Athletics Daryl Gross for “getting ahead of this” realignment shift, and “doing what is in the best interest of the program.”

Luxbacher saw the benefit of Super Conferences for the top teams in the nation with weekly competition, but did not disparage those in non-power conferences.  

“There is a lot of parity in Division-I soccer,” he said. “There are teams in every conference that can compete. You see that in the NCAA tournament – teams that are in the top 10 all season get knocked off in their first game.”

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