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ESPN article about possible visa difficulties for international players given new immigration policies. This could impact the Zips somewhat, but could crush teams like Marshall, West Virginia, Pitt, Seton Hall, Vermont, and many others that have heavy non US rosters.

Most NCAA Division 1 soccer teams will start their regular season on Thursday night August 21. I am sure that the zips will play 2 or 3 exhibition games Detroit Mercy has announced their full schedule and they will play an exhibition game at Akron on Friday August 15. https://detroittitans.com/sports/mens-soccer/schedule/2025 announced exhibition games: Friday, August 15: vs. Detroit Mercy Titans REgular season announced games: Friday, September 5: @ Ohio State Tuesday, September 9: vs. Western Michigan Friday, September 19: vs. Connecticut * Tuesday, September 23: vs. St Louis Saturday, September 27: @ Butler* Friday, October 3: vs. St John’s* Tuesday, October 7: @ Cornell Friday, October 17 : at Seton Hall* Saturday, October 25: at Xavier* Saturday, November 1: vs. Marquette*

Having the bodies alone should be enough to get us over the hump in some of those close games we didn’t have the depth to pull out last season. Let’s hope the squad has a solid summer to gel as we go into year 3 of the Gensler era. Feel like this will be a very telling season on the direction of the program.

Not academically eligible sounds more like our football team's recruiting strategy.

A lot of this sounds good. I am afraid that a lot may be difficult to put into operation. When we talk about 'needs based financial support' for athletes. I am wondering where that money is going to come from. With the current political environments in Washington and Columbus the politicians running the show right now aren't allocating more money to higher education. If anything its generally getting reduced. Where do you get the additional financial aid that would be necessary? Athletes allowed 'to earn a living'. What are the parameters? How much can they work to earn a living? They still have to attend classes, do school work and practice and play their sport. I worked part time jobs while in school. I didn't play sports. I couldn't work enough to 'earn a living'. I would love to see the P4 schools go away. I would love to see the NFL have to do what baseball and hockey do. Develop high school athletes who can't or don't want to attend college in a minor league system. The NFL has gotten a free ride on this. Start spending some of those billions of $$$ developing your own players. That would help eliminate some of the BS that is going on at the college level. How do schools like Akron really expect to consistently compete the way the system is currently set up? Frustrating. Great discussion.