Nate Lie wants to tilt the field.
“We want to be one of the best pressing teams in the country,” said Lie, the first-year Kansas soccer coach.
And therein enters the soccer statistic known as field tilt — what proportion of time does a given team spend in the attacking third, as compared to its opponents? In short, who is getting the majority of offensive opportunities?
“We talk about this concept of field tilt quite a bit,” he said, “in that let’s make it an objective, a stated objective that we play as much of the game towards the opponents’ goal as possible and as little towards ours.”
Lie acknowledges that dominating this particular statistic will require his team to adopt a “high-pressure, relentless approach to defending,” and that partly in service of playing with a certain tempo and pressure, his squad will probably rotate through 18 to 20 players instead of 15 to 17.
“If we are defending deep for large stretches of the game, we’re not having success in that phase of the game that we were intending,” he said. “That’s hard to do. It probably fights a lot of the tendencies that a majority of this group have been accustomed to, but we’re going to try to do that starting game one.”
Lie’s Jayhawks now have one game under their belt, at South Dakota State on Thursday, and will be on the road at Drake on Sunday. These are the first tentative steps into a new era under Lie, who replaced the 25-year head coach Mark Francis.
Lie comes from Xavier, where he won the Big East three times and reached the NCAA Tournament on four occasions. As he attempts to bring success to KU, he’ll be doing it with a roster that is half Francis-era holdovers and half newcomers.
“I think we’re all starting from scratch at the same time, figuratively starting at the same starting line,” he said, “and I think it gives everyone sort of an equal shot to succeed and to earn their place on the team and on the field.”
It’ll be a gradual process as they find their way toward the type of soccer Lie hopes to play.
“This style of play only works if everyone’s doing it together at the same time,” he said. “It takes a huge amount of trust that if I do my job, the people behind me will be doing theirs, the people in front of me will be doing theirs, and that if we all do it it’s going to work. And that is easier said than done, both in terms of just that sense of belief deep in your heart, and also the execution, being able to maintain your concentration in the heat and fatigue, and the amount of energy it takes physically to perform.”
A few players have their positions on the team firmly secured. Returning midfielders Hallie Klanke and Avery Smith and Ohio State transfer defender Brooke Otto are the Jayhawks’ three captains. Smith was an easy pick for Lie because she had served in a leadership role on past teams. Lie said of newcomer Otto, who was in Lawrence in the spring, that she “carries herself with a sense of gratitude, professionalism and she’s very mindful of others, and I think she is a natural relationship builder.”
For Klanke, Lie said, it’s an asset to have been in a previous program, North Carolina, that competes during training in the manner he hopes KU will.
“I think from day one to the end of spring, I think Hallie was as consistent as anyone on the team in her approach, in her performance, in her behaviors as a teammate,” he said, “and that extended from the training field even into the scrimmages, whether that was communicating on the field or if a player made a mistake, she was the one that you saw just naturally go over to them and give them a pat on the back.”
Klanke comes in as KU’s returning point leader, with the most goals (four) and assists (five) of any Jayhawk in 2023. That season featured an offensive dry spell for KU as it scored just five times in 10 league games, only getting about 4.3 shots on goal per game. Smith, Raena Knust (formerly Childers) and Lexi Watts are the only other returning Jayhawks who scored multiple goals last season.
Lie said that in the portal he was looking to build depth while also acquiring players who could have an immediate impact. He ended up with Otto as well as midfielders Emika Kawagishi (NC State), Makayla Merlo (UCCS) and Emily Tobin (IU Indianapolis), while also picking up some late-arriving freshmen in forward Ebba Cronholm, defender Jordan Fjelstad and forward Shea Ryan. Fjelstad and Ryan were previously signed to Oregon State before the Beavers’ coaching change.
Those three join five Francis signees and three winter additions (including some previous commitments to Lie’s staff at Xavier).
With so many freshmen, Lie will have to hope for a much smaller group of seniors (Mackenzie Boeve, Knust and captains Klanke and Smith) to provide leadership.
“As much as that they can be an extension of the coaching staff would be a huge advantage for a program,” he said.
Goalkeeper Sophie Dawe, who didn’t play as a freshman, staked her claim for the net with a strong and diligent showing in the spring. Hayven Harrison has some experience in goal and Addison Tauscher is coming in for her first season.
Lie has acknowledged that it will be a process to fit these disparate pieces together. At the beginning, he said, the play style will not “look anywhere near our peak.”
“I’ve told recruits this: I’m like ‘Feel free to judge us to some extent on games one through five, but I have a sneaking suspicion, and I’ll make a strong bet that we’re much, much, much better in games 10 to 20,'” he said.
One key baseline objective is to make the Big 12 tournament, which will take place at the KC Current’s CPKC Stadium. That means being one of the top 12 teams in the new-look 16-team Big 12, after KU finished 13th of 14 last year.
“I think that’s a fair goal,” he said. “Not an ultimate goal, that doesn’t define a successful season, but I do think I’d be disappointed personally if we didn’t make that Big 12 tournament.”
Less concretely, he said, he wants to see his team “dictate games more and more as the season goes along.”
KU is at home for the first time against Tulsa on Thursday and opens Big 12 play at Rock Chalk Park against Iowa State on Sept. 12.
Kansas sophomore Emily Tobin lines up a kick during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
Kansas goalkeeper Sophie Dawe secures the ball during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
Kansas forward Ebba Cronholm crosses the ball during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
Kansas forward Mikayla Coore-Pascal pursues the ball during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
Kansas midfielder Kate Langfelder aims for the ball during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
Kansas midfielder Jillian Gregorski jockeys for position during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
Kansas’ Siera Herbert takes a corner kick during the exhibition against Arkansas on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, in Fayetteville, Ark.
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