I think that is the way to get US soccer to a top tier level though.
Anyone who has played their way around youth soccer in the US understands the segmentation of it all. My Youth team were national champions. Playing at the highest level of youth soccer possible. And then...high school. I went to my local high school where our soccer coach's claim to fame was one time he made it to state cup semi finals one time. He really didn't know a lot about the game "kick it in the corner and we will chase it" (i kid you not). So 4 years of bad coaching and bad play. Our high school team was terrible. Kids who had played soccer for the first time in their lives trying out for the team.
needless to say if you can get consistent high level of coaching from the youth through an academy and keep playing levels high i think you can get more home grown talent. But it will take a dynamic shift in structure. Go to college and get an education sports is second....nope go to the academy try to make it pro....education will come. High school and college sports should be done away with in a sense.
Saying I 100% agree with this is an understatement
I don't watch college sports anymore and I could write a dissertation about my hatred for what college sports has become and certain college sports "fans". The amount of money being made of the college athletes backs, the racist undertones of the whole thing when I talk to certain people about college sports and their BS excuses and reasoning
.
I would love nothing more than college sports to be done away with but I know that won't happen. At the very least they could stop pretending they care about these peoples education and just separate the sports from the school altogether, for example You have the University of Miami (for education) and then you have the University of Miami Sports Academy completely separate from the school and education (and the NCAA). Thats the only potential solution I see.
I don't know why you guys would want to do away with college sports. Makes no sense to me. The revenue is miniscule so the money argument really doesn't apply to college soccer.
I think most people agree that the college route shouldnt be the the primary developmental path for players in the 18-20 age range. Luckily with NASL and USL growing and stabilizing it soon won't be. That said, college soccer will always have its place and serve a purpose.
90% of Academy kids won't ever be good enough or have the desire to play at any level of professional soccer. That goes for the entire world, not just the U.S.
There's also a small group who won't be ready at 18, but will be ready at 22 (Dempsey, Stuart Holden, Geoff Cameron, Zardes). Those late bloomers would likely fall through the cracks without college soccer.
Then there's the fact that some college environments are pretty damn good at the latter stages of development. In the past 7-8 years, Grimes at UC Berkeley and Porter during his time at Akron have had more success developing 18-21 year old talent and have done a better job preparing kids for the pro game than FC Dallas or any other MLS Academy. And that's working with those players on a part time basis.
College soccer absolutely has a place in the U.S. development landscape. Doesn't mean there's not room for improvement or changes that will be made but it has its place.
As for that FC Dallas article, they kind of completely leave out the fact that even though Dallas has been admired for its vision and unrivaled success at the youth level for many years now, they had zero success transitioning elite youth talent to the pros up until Acosta just a season or two ago. Many, many "elite" youth prospects have fallen have off the face of the earth after graduating from the FC Dallas Academy.
As someone else mentioned, they're really not doing anything different than the other handful of MLS academies who've spearheaded the youth movement the past half decade. They just happen to operate in one of the largest metro areas in the world with little competition, and benefit from a number of cultural and geographical advantages. Like I said earlier many have critized Dallas over the years arguing that they're under achieving. For the longest time they've been missing the biggest part of the developmental puzzle; developing actual productive professionals. All while MLS clubs with far less in resources have done better putting homegrown pro talent on the field.
I'm still around. I pop into the thread every now and again to check what's popping. Between crazy amounts of work and summer time, I'm just not on NT as much anymore. 
