When Carlos Somoano’s North Carolina Tar Heels lifted the national championship trophy last December in Birmingham, was it the start of an era or just another chapter in the rapidly-changing competitive landscape of men’s college soccer?

North Carolina was hit heavy by graduation and the MLS Draft, but Somoano and his staff has been recruiting well for several years now, and there’s no shortage of talent arriving at the Chapel Hill campus this fall.

But that’s just the beginning of the competitive story in men’s college soccer this season. Top programs like UCLA, Akron, Louisville, Connecticut, UC Santa Barbara, Creighton, Maryland, Duke, Virginia and Indiana will all be coming back to the table, looking for large quantities of wins and national success.

The extremely physical nature of the men’s college game also provides a ripe environment for upstart programs like Charlotte and St. Mary’s(m) to run deep in the postseason tournament schedule.

At TopDrawerSoccer.com we are preparing preview articles on every DI conference, touching every program in each one. Our coverage this season will include the releases on matches from every program, the highly-popular NSCAA scoreboard, and complete schedules and standings of all the teams and leagues.

Additionally, we’ll be highlighting top performers each week and featuring exclusive articles on coaches, players and teams throughout the season. Our Tournament 64 national ranking will continue as a weekly tracking of which teams will be qualifying for the postseason tournament, and our Players To Watch rankings will highlight the top national and conference players in the country, along with a ranking of the top rookie players nationally as the season progresses.

So keep checking back as we bring all the men’s college news, and join with us in discovering which programs excel, which disappoint, and who in the end rises to the top of the mountain to rule over the entire college soccer landscape.