USL Primer, 2025: Data Projections, Previews, Coverage Plans

Statistical projections for the USL Championship and League One years, plus preview links and 2025 coverage details

In case you’ve missed it, I’ve had a busy few weeks previewing the 2025 USL Championship and USL League One seasons. With kick-off arriving tomorrow, I wanted to baseline my statistical models for the year and provide some links to all that good preview content.

Without further ado…

Coverage in 2025

I’ll keep this brief, but I wanted to lay out the gameplan for my weekly posting tempo once the regular season kicks off. This is what I’ll be offering up at a bare minimum:

1. Sunday: USL Championship Power Rankings on Backheeled

2. Tuesday: Substack column covering various USL Championship and USL League One topics

3. Tuesday: The USL Show’s live broadcast at 9:00 PM Eastern

4. Tuesday/Wednesday: This League!, a brand-new USL Championship show on YouTube (and live-streamed on Twitter)

5. Thursday: A brand-new weekly column on Backheeled

As always, there’ll be more to come between guest appearances on other podcasts,¹ breaking news analysis, and longer-form projects. I’ll still be covering the Open Cup on Backheeled, and I’ve got some fun Jagermeister Cup plans in the works.

There will not be game analysis threads on Twitter. Sorry! But also not! It’s a ton of work that I’m doing better in my power rankings, and that website is actively terrible for my mental health.

Season Preview Hub

We’ll start with my USL League One preview, which is more than 10,000 words covering all 14 teams across the division. It’s been updated since first publication to address major signings like Isidro Martinez to Omaha and Shavon John-Brown to Spokane, so check out the edits even if you’ve already gone deep.

On Backheeled, I went even further with 40,000 words of dedicated articles for each of the 24 clubs in the USL Championship. From major transfer moves to best- and worst-case 2025 outcomes and everything in between, it’s all there. This was a ton of work, but I think it’s the best place to start if you want to get up to speed about the Championship.

More of a visual or aural learner? There’s plenty more. On The USL Show, we devoted separate preview episodes to the Championship’s Eastern and Western Conferences as well as USL League One, with former Northern Colorado manager (and Indy Eleven legend) Eamon Zayed joining as a guest!

Backheeled also debuted a new show – This League! – with a three-part season preview premiere. It features myself, USL play-by-play commentator and graphics guru Peyton Gallaher, and Phoenix Rising radio play-by-play announcer Ryan Sykora. It’s a super exciting project that we can’t wait to develop throughout 2025. The strength of The USL Show is the breadth; we cover everything. This League! is hyper-focused on the Championship and will go deeper in a tactical sense than any other USL content on offer.

Check it out!

The league’s official preseason guides are essential, and I’m proud to have contributed for a third consecutive year. Nicholas Murray’s work on the Eastern Conference and Western Conference can be found at the links, and I provided lineup projections and straight-to-the-point tactical capsules. Ethan Triebsch killed the game with his USL League One preview, and I helped out in a similar manner on that piece.

Projection Models

I’ve grown less and less interested in throwing out wanton numbers during the offseason, but longtime readers will remember that I maintain USL Championship and League One odds throughout the year on the site. Given that it’s opening week, it’s time to level-set for 2025.

We’ll start in the East, where the top three is eminently predictable…

…and then slide on over to the West, where the middle of the conference is an absolute muddle…

…before finishing with USL League One, where One Knox is a surprise contender and the expansion clubs (barring juggernaut Westchester) look like dark horses.

At some point in October, someone who lacks reading comprehension skills will point to this article and say “John, you’re a fool! Those predictions were wrong!”

This is a data model. It’s supposed to be objective, while my subjective predictions are embedded into the Backheeled articles and my League One preview. If you’re gonna dunk on me, at least dunk with the correct basketball.

Stray Thoughts

It’s been a minute since I got to post dumb endnotes on a newsletter, so…

• My friend and yours Luke Martin has a very good preview of a fascinating Tormenta team, featuring ample insight from coach Ian Cameron.

• I guested on the Spokane Soccer Show to preview all things Velocity. Benji Wade, the wonderful host, was kind enough to make the first 10 or so minutes of the podcast an explainer of, well, me! Check that out for some bio if you’re new around these parts, and stay for the Spokane deep dive.

• It’s been a quiet few weeks on the signings front, but Viggo Ortiz inking a multi-year extension in Charleston is a big one. Ortiz is a regular for the Mexican youth international teams, and he’s going to demand a handsome transfer fee in the not-too-distant future. Adding years onto his deal will only make that fee all the richer for the Battery.

• Any club that announced a player re-signing this week is rude.

• I woke up at like 4:00 in the morning earlier this week and, like the normal person I am, decided to re-watch the new Nosferatu. Let me tell you something: that’s how the movie was supposed to be seen. Eating breakfast, watching Bill Skarsgard do a weird Transylvanian accent, leaning into all the gothically romantic vibes. What could be better?

See you soon!

1. Fun fact: I’ve either co-hosted or guested on 15 distinct podcast episodes in the 22 days. That is…uh…far too many.