What will happen to college soccer? That was the question when MLS launched in 1996 and created Project-40.

Project-40 would offer players the pro opportunity and provide funds for college tuition. So far, it has signed 46 players, only 13 of whom never attended college. That is the otherwise successful program's biggest flaw. That it hasn't found, or taken a chance, on more talent outside the traditional source - the college-bound suburban kids who we know from ODP.

MLS has an excuse for not having a more ambitious development program. Its investors are preoccupied with the immediate challenges. Among them, increasing attendance, building stadiums and fighting a players' lawsuit that costs them a reported $50,000 a day.

Few college programs have lost players to Project-40, and they're quickly replaced because pointing to players who have moved up has become a selling point to recruits.

MLS coaches and scouts will flock to the NCAA playoffs. Teams are apt to replace veterans with youngsters to make salary-cap room. The majority of the youth national team talent is in college soccer, and it is capable of stepping in.

The trend, clearly, is that college soccer will serve America's best players for one to three years before they go pro.

Off the field, college soccer remains where it was five years ago. A crowd of 1,000 is considered huge. There are few scholarships, but enough to accommodate the players who have pro potential.

The NCAA restrictions - ridiculously short season; a ban on offseason play - remain, but the youth national team players get plenty of offseason action.

Most importantly - and college coaches can't thank them enough - are the youth clubs around the nation. They are producing players at a rate that makes it easy for the colleges to replace the players who leave early.