What Can We Learn from UW’s National Championship Run?

On December 15, 2025, the University of Washington men’s soccer team clinched its first-ever NCAA Division I national championship, defeating North Carolina State 3-2 in dramatic overtime fashion at the College Cup Final in Cary, North Carolina. After building a 2-0 lead, surrendering a late equalizer, and ultimately winning on a golden goal just minutes into extra time, the Huskies wrote a new chapter in UW athletics history. NCAA.com

Their journey wasn’t just about goals and results — it was a lesson in grit, culture, leadership, and execution under pressure. Here’s what we can all learn from their championship run.

1. Local Boys

This shouldn’t be overlooked. In today’s Division 1 landscape, coaches are chasing international kids like it’s their job. They are skipping local talent, kids that know each other and have played together… for international talent that doesn’t even speak the same language. Am I anti-international? No, I am from England living in the US. But, the way coaches are picking teams is short-sided, and they can’t build the type of team unity that you can easily identify at University of Washingon. 

2. “Best Friends”

If you listened to any of the players talk, or the coaches for that matter… what you would hear over and over again is the way they talk about each other. They have a camaraderie that you can’t build with kids that don’t know each other. 

The average D1 team is turning over about half of their roster every year. Of 28 kids, it isn’t unusual to see 10-15 kids get cut or graduate, as they make room for the next batch. This results in a very fractured, dog-eat-dog environment where each boy is an island. They are individuals competing for themselves, not their “best friends”. 

UW had this sense of bonding and affection for one another that I haven’t seen in other programs this year. Here are a few advantages to playing with your best friends:

• You know where your friends are on the field. You can have a sixth sense on where they are, what they will do, where they will go, etc. 
• You trust them, they trust you. 
• They will go die on the field to support each other, make runs for each other, defend, encourage and demand greatness. 
• No greed. This is big. I see a lot of teams where each individual is fighting for their own stats to ultimately keep their job, to not lose a scholarship, and potentially use the stats to level up to the next best program the following year. If they have a chance for a tough shot or easy assist, they take the shot. 

3. A Culture that is more than a season, more than a 4-5 year career

Coach Jamie Clark has built a culture around UW soccer. The kids start as freshmen, often redshirt… and stay for 4 to 5 years building a bond and an alumni that is loyal and true. 

In contrast, most D1 programs have dead alumni groups because they trade on transition, not loyalty. They have players come and go each year, often from different parts of the world that couldn’t care less about the school or the community. 

At UW, with mostly all local players, they bleed purple. These kids will be DAWGS for life, and they have created a network that is undeniable. 

A strong alumni means more emotional support, more financial support, career networking, internship opportunities and an emotional connection that is unending. 

4. Depth Matters — Not Just Superstars

Everyone on Washington can play. No doubt. But they had zero superstars. The team is built on solid kids that will play a system, clean passing, great runs and an unselfishness that is at odds with the average ranked team. 

If you could read the tea leaves, you would see that they are choosing kids that are smart, likeable and will play well in the sand box. Where as many coaches are recruiting for talent alone. It’s much easier to find talent when talent is all you care about, but I think UW has done a great job of skipping over the pursuit of a purely talent base and looking for a composite value of talent and character. Its’s a team sport, and 1 talented kid, or 11 talented individuals that don’t play nice, can’t compete against a team full of solid players that play well together. UW proved this. 

5. Clean passing

If you watch much D1 soccer this year, you probably noticed that it is mostly hectic, chaotic and out of control. This starts from the back line all the way forward. 

UW put the ball on the grass, made a lot of very simple passes and kept the ball. This is at odds with the normal system. NC State in many ways is the opposite, granted they do it very well. But they recruit almost entirely for speed and strength and the result is a much lesser quality of soccer. Over the top, boot and run, crashing tackles, super stars jamming their way through,  etc. 

I do think this starts with the back line at UW. Those boys do a great job of making it simple. They play quickly, ball on the ground, to the front foot, easy to receive, rolling straight. It’s the basics. 

Contrast that with most teams, the backline is hammering the ball forward, low quality of passing, hard to receive, mis-timed, spinning, bouncing too hard or soft and they begin the progression with chaos. 

From the backline forward, UW’s passing is clean and efficient and they looked better than every team they competed against. They do simple well. 

6. Locked in

This is big. The UW team was locked in for the full 90+ minutes. I didn’t see stretches of time where the kids lost focus, lost determination, or lost the grind. For the full game, they were fully locked in. 

• Defensive Free Kicks, they treat every defensive free kick like the building is on fire, and it’s a make-or-break play. I’ve seen too many teams get complacent or rest during free kicks. UW was locked in. 
• Offensive Free Kicks, they got pumped and planned to score. Almost every free kick was very dangerous. Corner kicks were reliably good, free kicks were solid. They really treated these like a gift and a huge opportunity to score. 
• Game play, it was just 90 minutes of opportunity making and opportunity taking. They were looking to score for the entire game. They didn’t sit back and create a rhythm, or sit back and build. Each player, if they had the ball they were trying to get to the goal. Locked into scoring. 

In contrast, most college players have a lot of mental breaks in each game. You can see it in their demeanour. They take free kicks off, they aren’t locked in for their own defensive free kicks, and they aren’t trying to score on their own free kicks, and they just check out mentally throughout the game. 

This results in a ton of free-kick goals, lots of missed opportunities, and a style of play that isn’t nearly as efficient as it should be.

7. BIG and FAST

Have you noticed that D1 schools seem to be obsessed with big and fast? 

Now look, all things being equal, bigger and faster is better. 

If you could score all of the attributes of a kid it might look something like this

• Passing 10/10
• Dribbling 10/10
• Shooting 10/10
• IQ 10/10
• Soccer IQ 10/10
• Coachability 10/10
• Vision 10/10
• Teamate 10/10
• Speed/Athleticsm 10/10
• Size/Strength 10/10
• etc… 

If the kid scored 10/10 on each of these attributes, and you could add in a 10/10 for big and fast… It’s a no-brainer. You would have a superhuman. 

But that’s not how it works in reality. No one is ranking 10/10 on every attribute so coaches are, or could be, creating a composite score that includes Big/Fast, but doesn’t focus on Big Fast above all else. 

If you focus on big and fast, but give up soccer IQ, vision, or passing, or teammate… you’ve got a problem. 

UW has done a great job of recruiting based on a composite score of their players. Their kids are fast, but not that fast. They are strong, but I wouldn’t say they focus on size. They are mostly average builds, no giants… But the composite score of each player was quite overwhelming against teams that are BIG/FAST focused. 

Here is an example:

When coaches are primarily focused on speed, size and athleticsm… their kids’ average score could look like this:

• Passing 6/10
• Dribbling 4/10
• Shooting 4/10
• IQ 3/10
• Soccer IQ 5/10
• Coachability 10/10
• Vision 5/10
• Teamate 5/10
• Speed/Athleticsm 10/10
• Size/Strength 10/10
• etc… 

Total score of 62. 

This makes for a pretty chaotic environment, where the play is constantly broken up, and saved again with a hero tackle from a big strong kid. Gross. But coaches often think, if I have Big/Fast, I can coach the rest. 

I think the UW’s average player score look something like this:

• Passing 9/10
• Dribbling 8/10
• Shooting 8/10
• IQ 9/10
• Soccer IQ 9/10
• Coachability 10/10
• Vision 9/10
• Teamate 10/10
• Speed/Athleticsm 7/10
• Size/Strength 5/10
• etc… 

Total score of 84. 

To build an elite college team, it starts with the fundamentals, which aren’t big/fast. UW has proven that players of average size/speed can make up a heck of a championship team. They looked elite during this playoff run, and I don’t think there was a person on the planet who would’ve said, great pass, just wish that kid was bigger. Great defending, too bad he isn’t huge. 

If I were a college coach and wanted to build an amazing PROGRAM (not just a 1 year team) I would 100% replicate the formula that UW has perfected this year. 

1. I would recruit nice kids who will actually like each other. I’d try to recruit for friendships… pick kids that I’d want to be friends with, and that would bond like brothers. 
2. I would skip the international chase, except for maybe a couple of players on extenuating circumstances. Choose kids who could eventually be part of an alumni culture. 
3. I would find smart, self-controlled kids who will learn a system and execute. generally this would be good athletes, good students, high IQ, smart, thoughtful and disciplined. 
4. Find kids who can be locked in for 90 minutes.

Cheers to UW, it was a lot of fun watching that run!