NIRSA National Soccer Championships

The NIRSA National Soccer Championships is an annual collegiate club competition organized by the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA), deciding the competition winners through a round robin group stage to qualify for a single-elimination knockout format.

Due to collegiate clubs receiving little to no funding from the university they represent, their ability to travel is limited and why the tournament takes place over a single weekend; typically in late November to early December.

NCSA began falling apart and eventually was dismantled in 1999, with the 1998 national championship being its last held tournament.

[6][7] The fall of the NCSA meant that now NIRSA, unarguably, had the highest competition level of any national collegiate club soccer tournament.

This fall also meant that teams no longer had to chose which tournament they believed was better to join, which further contributed to the growth of the league.

This run also included a 28-game national championship tournament win streak from 1996–2000, which is still the longest of any team across all four divisions.

The streak was ended in the 2000 championships by eventual champions, Penn State, via a penalty shootout in the semifinals which was their first non-win since they began playing in the tournament.

[11] After this loss, BYU left NIRSA after establishing a franchise in the Premier Development League (later renamed to USL League Two), leaving the national tournament without its most successful team and opening up the tournament to other competitors.

Despite this fact, no team had gone back-to-back until the 2004 championships which saw rain cancelling the semi-finals, and subsequently naming four co-champions, one of which being defending champion Colorado.

[1] Three years after being named co-champion in the 2004 tournament, in 2007, UC Santa Barbara's women's team won its first outright championship tournament over reigning champions San Diego State in a penalty shoot-out while the men's team also won their first championship title.

The streak was ended in the finals of the 2012 championships in extra time to eventual champions Michigan State.

[3][18] In 2007, the first penalty shootout was used to determine the men's national championship when UC Santa Barbara defeated Texas Tech 4–1 following a 0–0 game in regulation and overtime.

[20] In 2017, BYU's men's soccer club left the PDL after 15 years to rejoin NIRSA.

In 2022, BYU would retake sole possession of honor of having the most total titles for a single team across all four divisions with its ninth championship, overtaking UC Santa Barbara's women's team who had 8 championship titles.

[13] During this time, the women's championship would see, for only its second team, a back-to-back champion in Ohio State who won in 2018 and 2019.

[8] The women's championship division, like its male counterparts, began from humble beginnings with eight and twelve teams in its first two years respectively.

[23] This was the case until 2004 when both open divisions expanded to have 20 teams divided into five groups of four advancing to an 8-team knockout-round.

[26] Notes: Prior to the 2014 tournament, the open division was decided on a first come, first serve basis.

However, due to the growing popularity, the open division has utilized a lottery system to select it's participating teams since 2014.

The six group winners, six runners-up, and the four best third placed teams advance to the round of 16 which becomes a knockout competition.

In the event of a tie, two periods of extra time are used to decide the winner, with penalty shootouts being the final tie-breaker if one is still needed.