Santa Clara women’s soccer has as strong a legacy as any program in the NCAA. Behind two national titles and a plethora of household-name-type talent across the sport, the Broncos regularly have high expectations.
Managing that isn’t simple, but head coach Jerry Smith has a blueprint.
“We talk about controlling the controllables,” said Smith, who is entering his 34th season at the helm. “We talk about staying in the moment. I’ve said to the team several times, ‘You’re in a really tough spot because you’re recently a national champion, just played in the College Cup, you’re ranked No. 5, but you’re not very good.’”
The Broncos won their second national title in 2020 amid a college sports world disrupted by the pandemic, then last season were eliminated in the College Cup semifinals by eventual champion BYU in penalty kicks, with the Cougars converting on all three.
They returned to campus two weeks ago on a mission to return to that spot and go even further. It all starts with a short memory.
“We’ve done nothing,” Smith said. Past championships “represent our past teams. We have to go out there and prove it. If you don’t, things start to go sideways.”
Santa Clara defeated San Jose State on Thursday night to start its season in the W column. Senior midfielder Izzy D’Aquila scored in the 65th minute to give the Broncos the win, which was the 524th of Smith’s career as a coach.
The rest of the Broncos’ non-conference schedule is littered with challenges. They deal with TCU, who went 19-2 a season ago, No. 14 Penn State, no. 21 Stanford and no. 13 UCLA.
That’s all on purpose, as are the growing pains Smith expects for the Broncos.
“We take longer (to figure out what we have) than any team in the country,” he said. “Normally, it takes us to the beginning of October. This year, it’s going to take longer because we lost eight seniors.”
The Broncos have nine new players — eight freshmen and one grad transfer — and Smith said “six or seven” have a chance at seeing significant time, compared to usually two or three. On Thursday, one freshman started, forward Holly Furphy, and two others — Leah O’Brien and Farrah Walters — also got into the game.
Santa Clara already has decisions looming. Goalkeeper Marlee Nicolos missed the majority of last season after tearing her ACL for the second time. She is expected to be back early this season, although Smith stressed that they were not rushing her. Her backup, junior Kylie Foutch, started the rest of the season en route to the College Cup and was voted MVP by her teammates.
Then there’s Sally Menti, who tore her ACL ahead of the U20 World Cup, and was replaced by Santa Clara freshman Annie Karich, who will return to the team shortly, after the USWNT was eliminated earlier this week. Menti was the WCC Freshman of the Year last season, and will miss the entirety of this year.
Smith said early season rotations and lineups will differ greatly, so by the time the national tournament comes around, they don’t have to experiment any longer.
In their past four postseasons, the Broncos have gone 12-1-2 in elimination games.
One of the Broncos’ losses to graduation is Kelsey Turnbow, who scored the penalty kick game-winner in the 2020 College Cup and was a MAC Hermann Trophy finalist last season before joining the San Diego Wave of the NWSL.
As the Broncos get further removed from the national championship squad, the urgency increases to forge their own identity.
“We’re still getting used to it,” D’Aquila said. “We do have a lot of great talent that came in, so it’s just about getting them game experience and getting comfortable. When you’re new you have the jitters and nerves, but it’s really just excitement.”
The Broncos host UC Davis on Sunday in their first home game before getting into the toughest part of their schedule until the postseason. Their lineup will likely look different than it did in San Jose. And it will again after that.
So don’t get used to what you’re seeing from Santa Clara. The real team should reveal itself later in the fall, and it expects to find itself in the College Cup.
“You don’t want to play us in November,” Smith said. “We’re really good in November.”
Marisa Ingemi is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected]