United Athletic Conference

The fall 2021 season begins this weekend with matches from coast-to-coast. UIW will be the first WAC school to kick off, taking on Florida Atlantic at the HBU Invitational on Thursday. Host Houston Baptist will take on DI-newcomer St. Thomas (Minn.) as well, with HBU and UIW switching opponents on Sunday. Utah Valley heads to upstate New York to take on Canisius and Niagara in a pair of non-conference tilts and Chicago State plays host to Northwestern on Thursday and Detroit Mercy on Sunday. UT Rio Grande Valley hits the road to Central Arkansas and Oral Roberts while Dixie State is home against UC San Diego and California Baptist. San José State travels to former WAC foe CSU Bakersfield while UNLV will be in the Pacific Northwest to take on Gonzaga before returning to Las Vegas to host UC San Diego on Sunday. Seattle U welcomes a pair of California opponents with Cal State Fullerton coming to town on Thursday and UC Davis visiting on Saturday. Grand Canyon opens with a pair at home, welcoming UIC on Thursday and CSU Bakersfield on Sunday. Finally, Air Force will be in Oregon for a pair, opening with Portland on Friday and playing at Oregon State on Sunday.

 

Grand Canyon is the preseason favorite to win the 2021 Western Athletic Conference men's soccer title in a vote of the league's 12 head coaches, who could not vote for their own team.

 

The Lopes received six of 12 first-place votes to finish with 110 points for the preseason nod. Seattle U was just two points back, picking up four first-place votes to tally 108 points. San José State grabbed the final two first place votes to finish third with 94 points. Air Force was fourth with 89 points, followed closely by UT Rio Grande Valley in fifth with 86 points. California Baptist was sixth with 76 points, UNLV was seventh with 68 points and Utah Valley was eighth with 55 points. UIW was ninth, followed by Dixie State and Houston Baptist in a tie for 10th and Chicago State rounding out the poll in 12th. 

 

Grand Canyon's Justin Rasmussen and Esai Easley were selected as the WAC Preseason Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year respectively in a vote of the league's 12 head coaches, who could not vote for their own team or players.

 

Rasmussen and Easley were joined on the Preseason All-WAC squad by teammate Maximilian Moeller. San José State also had three honored with Willy Miranda, Max Allen and Carlos Gomez Zavala earning recognition. Seattle U was represented by Noe Meza and Akili Kasim. Also earning recognition were Air Force's London Aghedo, California Baptist's Thomas Beecham and UT Rio Grande Valley's Reshaun Walkes.

 

After winning the WAC regular season title and earning an at-large selection to the NCAA Tournament, Grand Canyon is represented in the national polls, coming in at 22nd in the United Soccer Coaches Top 25 and 24th in the College Soccer News Top 30.

 

The WAC will have some strong competition in the non-conference portion of the schedule with seven matches scheduled against participants from last spring's NCAA Tournament. Grand Canyon and Seattle U have two each with both the Lopes and Redhawks scheduled to play both Washington and Oregon State. Air Force is also scheduled to take on Oregon State while Utah Valley will host Washington. Finally, San José State will take on nearby-rival Stanford.

 

Utah Valley has announced former US National Team member Kyle Beckerman as its next head coach. Beckerman retired after a monumentally successful 21-year professional and international career in December. He spent 14 of those seasons in Utah with Real Salt Lake, where he was a captain and led the team to a 2009 MLS Cup. He also had 58 caps as a member of the U.S. National Team, including starting appearances in the 2014 World Cup. In 2020, he was named one of Major League Soccer's 25 Greatest Players of all-time.

 

Former MLS SuperDraft Pick and All-American defender at UCLA Leonard Griffin will take over as head coach at Grand Canyon, replacing the retiring Schellas Hyndman. Griffin heads to Phoenix after two seasons as the head coach at San Francisco. He also served as an assistant at Saint Mary's, California and UCLA and he began his coaching career as an assistant at Cal State San Bernadino. 

 

Current Seattle Sounders FC and former Seattle U defender Alex Roldan was voted by fans as an MLS All-Star game and will join his brother Cristian on Aug. 25 as the best of the MLS take on the best of Liga MX at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles.

 

The 2021 WAC Men's Soccer Tournament will feature the top six teams on November 10, 12, 14 at GCU Stadium in Phoenix. The top two teams in the regular-season standings will receive byes straight to the semifinals.