St. Edward’s men’s soccer was reinstated by the St. Edward’s athletic department and rehired Brian Young, who has been head coach since 2004, and his assistant coach Corey Miller. In just two seasons they have revived the program from its ashes to now conference contenders.
Iowa native Miller played for Simpson College, where he was team captain for three years, showing an early drive for leadership. After college, he joined Iowa Central Community College as an assistant coach and would later take a graduate assistant position (GA) at Hastings College, where he earned his Master of Arts in physical education and teaching. During his tenure, he helped the Hasting Broncos reach the 2011 national finals and earn multiple conference championships. Miller recalls this position as a crucial aspect to his coaching experience.
“I think that time it had only lost like nine games in two years, so that was kind of a big step for me,” Miller said. “And the coach that I worked for at the time, coach Cranks, was a big mentor of mine and I learned a lot from him.”
He would eventually make his way to Austin in 2013 when he joined Concordia University, an NCAA Division III school in dire need of success. As head coach, he flipped the men’s soccer program around with back to back semi-final appearances in 2015 and 2016 and developed several All-American players.
“I think I was their third or fourth ever head coach,” Miller said. “When I started, I think we only won three games my first year, and by the time we left, we were winning 12, 13 games every year, held numerous awards and broke a bunch of records.”
Miller has been a vital part of the men’s soccer program since joining in 2017 through head coach Young.
“Once I moved to Austin, I met coach Young through camps and through different recruiting events,” Miller said. “And then when his position opened up, he gave me a call in 2017 and asked if I’d be interested, and we kind of just talked it out and figured out how it would work and it made a lot of sense to step over to St. Edwards.”
In his first seasons as assistant coach he helped the Hilltoppers earn a spot in the 2017 NCAA Division II tournament and reach multiple conference finals, while also developing three All-American and eight All-Region players.
St. Edward’s men’s soccer was discontinued following the COVID-19 pandemic, putting an end to a successful program. Three years later in 2023, Young and Miller were tasked with rebuilding the program from the ground up.
“To be honest it was really fulfilling and exciting because I’ve always thought college coaching has been my passion,” Miller said. “It was a different situation because I stepped into a program in 2017 that was going to the national tournament, winning 18, 19 games a year and doing really well, to restarting in 2023, it was going to be a whole new challenge. It’s going to be starting from scratch.”
After the team’s second season back, Miller was promoted to associate head coach ahead of the 2025 season.
“There’s not a whole lot of change for us because of how collaborative we already run the program, I’m super grateful for the opportunity to just be able to say I’m an associate head coach now,” Miller said. “I’m very fortunate that (Young) gives me massive input in training; how we train, in recruiting and things like that. But the promotion to associate, I think, hopefully is just a reflection of the hard work that I’ve put in.”
During their first season back, Miller and Young focused on scouting, training and building chemistry with a team made up of mostly talented freshman players. Despite an underwhelming first season, it propelled the Hilltoppers for a successful season the following year.
Alongside Young, they spearheaded a successful season for the Hilltoppers that saw them boast a 5-0 win over No 12. nationally ranked Midwestern State University (MSU) during the regular season and a 5-2-3 conference record that propelled them to the Lone Star Conference (LSC) semi finals. The team ended up losing to MSU in a LSC semi finals rematch, bringing their redemption season to an end but demonstrating immense growth compared to their first season. Yet, Miller believes that the Hilltoppers still have more fight left in them and are just beginning to heat up the LSC with high hopes for the following seasons.
“Looking at what happened in the conference tournament and where we were at the end of the year, I think there was a little bit left on the bone for us,” Miller said. “I think we could have gone a little bit further, so I’m super proud of the year. Now it even gave me more of an itch because it’s like, ‘this team can be really good even sooner than we thought it was gonna be, right?’ And I think a lot of that has to go to the players.”
Now as associate head coach, Miller plans to help head coach Young develop the players and program rise to the level it achieved once before.
“I think overall, the biggest plan is to get back to where we were prior to the program being cut. Looking at being in the national tournament again, and guys being all Americans and guys being pros and cause that’s where we were before,” Miller said. “I think St Edward’s is a destination college because it’s in Austin, Texas, and having soccer in Texas, in Austin, is really important. So we want to be that kind of destination top division two program for kids to come to.”
