How would you describe the United States Men’s National Soccer Team? Is it a historic underachiever? How about a sleeping giant? Is it an afterthought? Or maybe a bandwagon worth jumping on?
No matter what you think about the USMNT’s chances ahead of its World Cup Round of 32 game against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, there’s a good historical college football comparison for it.
So who is the USMNT of college football? Eight of The Athletic’s college football writers weigh in below. (Let us know your pick in the comments!)
Texas A&M
Christopher Kamrani: I will only earn enemies in Aggieland with this take, but I’m afraid it’s correct and needs to be deployed. I came to this conclusion based on the following criteria: unrealistic expectations, wealth of resources and the general belief that the arrival of the team as an established elite isn’t inevitable — it’s guaranteed.
For decades now, USMNT fans have believed there will be a historic breakthrough on the largest stage. It hasn’t come, at least not yet. Does that sound somewhat familiar to folks in College Station? American soccer has over 340 million people to choose from but has yet to figure out a way to tap into the various sociodemographics necessary to build a diverse winning culture despite billions spent on youth sports annually in this country.
Texas A&M has a booster base as well-heeled as any in college football. The Aggies have routinely turned in top-flight recruiting classes in the NIL era. It wasn’t until 2025 that the program finally arrived in the College Football Playoff mix — and the Aggies managed a measly 3 points in a home loss to Miami.
A USMNT comp to this potential turn of the tides is maybe making a run to the quarterfinals of this summer’s World Cup, something the team has done only once in its history in 2002. The only guarantee in this world is coming across some USMNT supporters who will fan flames feeding the faith that whatever version of the team can beat a France or a Germany or Argentina when it matters most. Sound familiar, college football followers?
North Carolina
Chris Vannini: A program that would seem to have all the right natural geographic resources, but it historically has not cared enough about the most popular sport. The best athletes in America typically don’t play soccer, and UNC will always be first and foremost a basketball school. There have been signs, however, that the level of investment is changing.
Both the USMNT and UNC hired an accomplished coach in late 2024, hoping to take a step into something greater. One of those has his team playing better in the World Cup than it has in a long time, while the other has made more headlines for his girlfriend and recruiting struggles than on-field success since taking over.
UNC made a high-profile hire in Bill Belichick, but the Tar Heels stumbled to 4-8 in his first season. (Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
Illinois
Scott Dochterman: College football’s true sleeping giant resides two hours south of Chicago, two hours west of Indianapolis and three hours northeast of St. Louis. Illinois is a microcosm of the entire country: North and (Upper) South, agrarian and urban, diverse in ethnicity and political affiliation. Yet there’s only one Power 4 public institution in the nation’s sixth most-populated state, and it’s void of football consistency; only once from 1990 until 2023 did Illinois post back-to-back winning seasons.
The USMNT — regarded by many as the world’s sleeping giant — has a similar run of maddening inconsistency. But life is looking up for the Illini and the Americans. Bret Bielema’s orange-and-blue crew has 19 wins the past two seasons, which is the most over a two-year run in school history. The U.S. won its first two group stage games for the first time in World Cup annals. Football (both versions) isn’t the most popular sport at Illinois, just as soccer isn’t in the U.S., but it’s gaining ground. Another step forward could change that for both teams.
Ole Miss
Grace Raynor: Neither Ole Miss nor the USMNT has won much of real significance, but both have spent the past year building their programs behind two rising stars. Ole Miss made a splash in the College Football Playoff last year behind quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, and the USMNT has had some promising early returns in the World Cup, starting with the electric Christian Pulisic against Paraguay. Both teams have also had some coaching controversies and off-field drama. For Ole Miss, it was the Lane Kiffin saga and, most recently, the tampering allegations against Pete Golding. For the USMNT, it was the drama between the Berhalter and Reyna families.
Still, with Chambliss returning for his sixth (and presumably last) year of college football in 2026 and Pulisic getting healthy and ready to roll for the knockout-round stages, both teams finally have plenty to look forward to. Funds are also not a problem for either team.
UCLA
Pete Sampson: Often interesting, inconsistently good and usually lost in a crowded sports landscape, UCLA football shares plenty of markers with U.S. men’s soccer. Although the USMNT actually plays at SoFi Stadium, while UCLA only wants to. The last time the Bruins looked legitimately good was the mid ’90s, winning back-to-back Pac-10 titles with one Cotton Bowl win. That’s roughly the last time the Stars & Stripes hosted the World Cup and captured national attention like this.
UCLA feels like a program that should be better but can’t quite figure out how to get there, dogged by questions of mismanagement and poor development. Sound familiar? Oh, and the best program on campus is actually the national champion women’s hoops squad. The USMNT has been overshadowed by the women’s team for years.
Penn State
Manny Navarro: So, maybe it’s not a perfect comparison because Penn State actually won national championships way back in 1982 and 1986. Still, if we’re talking about a strong fan base waiting for what feels like forever for a meaningful breakthrough with big wins against top-tier opponents, I think the Nittany Lions and the USMNT team are on the same page.
From a talent perspective, both have world-class players but not the biggest stars in the sport. Yes, Penn State recently had a small breakthrough and reached the CFP semifinal before losing a close game to Notre Dame. But the reality is the 2024 Nittany Lions benefited from favorable matchups, defeating ACC runner-up SMU and Mountain West champion Boise State to get that far. It sure feels like the United States has a favorable bracket in this World Cup, maybe enough to get to the quarterfinals.
Also, Penn State, like the USMNT, is hoping for better results with new coach Matt Campbell after a dreadful 2025 season. Similarly, USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino is supposed to deliver different results in this World Cup because his approach is different from his predecessors. Either way, it feels inevitable both Penn State and the USMNT are simply going to run into better football teams who are going to prevent them from reaching the promised land.
Virginia
Matt Baker: On paper, Virginia could look like a championship program. The Cavaliers are in the talent-rich DMV recruiting area and nationally competitive in most other sports (No. 5 in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings in 2025-26). But they also have a couple of fatal flaws — limited interest and a lack of historical success — that have kept their ceiling at “pretty good.”
It’s the same with the USMNT. Given America’s population and success in the Olympics, you’d think the U.S. could find enough great soccer players to field an elite team. Nope. The country doesn’t care enough because, in part, the USMNT has only had a couple of flashes to captivate us.
Both Virginia and the USMNT have improved since essentially opting out for three decades starting around 1950. If you want to be optimistic, the Cavaliers won 11 games last year, and the USMNT seems to be breaking through this time. But unless the enthusiasm builds and somehow sustains itself in a way I’m not envisioning, “pretty good” still feels like the ceiling for both.
Indiana
Cameron Teague Robinson: Hear me out on this one. Indiana made an unexpected run to the Playoff in 2024 and lost to Notre Dame. It entered the 2025 season with high expectations but doubt that it could repeat its underdog success or go much further.
The USMNT flamed out of the 2022 World Cup with a team that really wasn’t good enough to make a deep run in the knockout stage, but it came into this summer with a better team and higher expectations. The loss to Turkey doesn’t change this comparison either, because the Hoosiers were a team that everybody doubted last season until they beat Ohio State in the Big Ten title game. The same can be said for this USMNT: It will be doubted until it gets over the big game hump. Similar to Indiana, nobody knows if it can do it until proven otherwise.
So why not this year? I’ve been watching the USMNT religiously since the 2010 World Cup, and this feels like the most exciting, talented and together team U.S. men’s soccer has had since then. Playing on home soil, why can’t this be the year?
I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to predict the USMNT to win the World Cup, but I wasn’t ready to say Indiana could win a national championship in football until it beat Ohio State last December. Maybe the Cinderella stories will continue.
