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How Iowa Western Women’s Soccer Upholds a DI Standard

Sep 23, 2026

5 min Read

By Ben Beecham

Iowa Western soccer coach Bruce Erickson left DI expecting to leave his tools behind. Instead, he found a JUCO program with better tools than he’s ever had.

After coaching at the Division I level for many years, Bruce Erickson expected to give up the tools he’d used for so long when he moved to the JUCO level. However, the former Creighton and Northern Iowa coach quickly found out that Iowa Western had a much different benchmark.

"When I walked into the environment here, it was a national championship standard for all the programs,” Erickson said.

That standard doesn’t just apply to a few programs at Iowa Western. Athletic Director Shane Larson installs it in every program. He gives them access to the tools to live up to that standard.

From Day One

At many small colleges, getting access to the tools they need means a coach writing emails, making calls, and finding the money themselves. Erickson knows that firsthand. At his last stop, he fundraised himself just to get Wyscout, the world’s biggest library of soccer video and data.

At Iowa Western, he walked in and it was already there. Athletic Director Shane Larson invests in each sport with the tools specific to that sport, and keeps building on it. This season, the women's soccer program added athlete performance tracking with Titan GPS devices, alongside the scouting software, automated game film capture, and AI-powered video tagging already in place.

"I really felt like I was walking into a Division I program,” Erickson said.

Above: Iowa Western's Hudl Assist breakdown paired with Titan GPS physical data directly alongside video.".

The 5% Philosophy

During his time at Creighton, legendary Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne talked to Erickson’s squad about what helped Osborne lead the Huskers to three titles.

He posed a question to Erickson and his team: What are two areas you can use to your advantage to be 5% better? One thing quickly stuck out to him.

“The immediate one was everything that goes into video — editing, scouting — basically what Hudl provides," Erickson said.

Since then, Erickson has applied that philosophy at every stop he has made. And no matter where he goes, film and analytics are core tenets of his program.

"Film does not lie,” Erickson said. “When you can go in and reinforce coaching points, they can go see for themselves.”

"We found that using Hudl is massive. We haven't even scratched the surface with our team at using it to its fullest extent. But we have made some inroads."

Film as a Universal Language

Erickson has 35 players on his roster. Nearly half of them are from outside of the U.S., with players hailing from different corners of the globe such as Japan, Spain and Denmark. No matter where they’re from, for many of his players, English is their second language. However, Hudl has helped bridge that gap for Erickson and his team.

“Video and data can sometimes be a little bit more of a universal language," Erickson said.

"We've taught virtually all of our international kids how to clip so that they can go in and create clips of themselves," Erickson said. "Hudl is so user-friendly to them that they pick up on it very quickly."

Along with helping him communicate with his players, Hudl also allows Erickson to personalize each player’s film review – and their development. Instead of having his players do large-group film review, he has them self-tag their own clips.

"We give our players homework,” Erickson said. “The homework might be: go in, find five clips — a few positive, a few constructive — and give us feedback on what you think you see when you clip yourself."

Hudl also helps Erickson make sure his players actually did their homework. Erickson can look at the login data to see which players are putting in the work and which ones are falling behind on their assignments.

“You have an idea of who's invested in your group and maybe who needs some prodding,” Erickson said.

How Erickson’s Players Stand Out

At the end of the day, one of the most important parts of playing at the JUCO level will always be getting recruited – and Erickson’s players are in the best position possible to go to the next level. The numbers prove it. Iowa Western sent seven players to the DI level this fall.

"We have the tools here that we can prove to them: here's your roadmap to that next level through access to these tools,” Erickson said. “It's not 'we hope we can get you there.”

Tools like Wyscout allow his players to clip their own film and give coaches all over the world access to it. But it does more than that. It also shows that they have experience using the same tools as the world’s top programs to develop their game.

"They're going to see players that have taken the initiative to learn the game better by what Hudl provides,” Erickson said. “There's just an extra layer of experience they have with that."

One Department. One Standard

Many things stand out about Iowa Western’s athletic department. To Erickson, the most impressive part was that every team had what they needed – no program was left out. It wasn’t just football or basketball that had access to Hudl, but every single sport, no matter the size, had the option.

"I've never been to a department where the whole department had access to something like Hudl," Erickson said.

See how the whole department runs on one system.

That’s the value the Athletic Department Package can provide for any college in the country. The ability to give each program the tools it deserves.