Wisconsin Soccer Central

After a tremendous junior season, both individually and team-wise, University of Wisconsin center back AJ Cochran was hoping to get the opportunity to make the jump to Major League Soccer.

"In the back of my head and in talking to my parents, I wanted to leave after my junior year," he said. "We were so fortunate to have such a great year and everything just happened – I started getting awards, everything started to fall into place perfectly."

Last Wednesday, MLS announced Cochran as one of the seven members of this year's Generation adidas class. The St. Louis native is the first UW player to be part of the program, a partnership between the league and U.S. Soccer that allows players to enter the MLS SuperDraft earlier than usual and not count against the salary cap.

"This really all happened in the last seven days," Cochran said before heading to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for the MLS combine, which started Thursday and concludes Tuesday. "It's been phenomenal, a little surreal, to be honest. It's crazy. The best word for me to use is unbelievable. ... Like I said, it was almost surreal, it was so cool, just to know that the last 14 years of your life came down to seven days."

Cochran was a mainstay on the UW backline the past three years, starting all 58 matches and playing 94 percent of the total minutes. He finished his college career with five goals and five assists, including three goals (two game-winners) last fall.

The 20-year-old Cochran closed out his Badger career in phenomenal fashion: He was the first UW player named the Big Ten Conference Defensive Player of the Year, then made the first team of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America All-American team – goalkeeper Tim Deck (1993) and defender Scott Lamphear (1995) are the only other players in program history to earn that honor.

While UW coach John Trask now has to find a new center back in addition to replacing the 13 seniors who helped the Badgers earn their first NCAA berth since 1995, he couldn't be happier to see Cochran – his first recruit at UW – turn pro.

"It's all positive. It's not bittersweet at all for me," said Trask, who is 34-34-12 in four years with the Badgers. "One thing you know about college sports  is you're only going to work with them a maximum of four years, or five, I guess, if you count a redshirt in there. The one thing about college soccer, or college coaching in general, is change."

And while it has been rare for the Badgers to have a player leave early for the pros, it's fairly common for the nation's top programs. From that standpoint, Cochran's departure is a statement about where the UW program is – and wants to be.

"If we're going to get to where we want to get to consistently with the soccer program here, not every year, but we'd better have kids that the pros are identifying in their careers and saying 'We're interested in that kid leaving school,' " said Trask, who spent five years in MLS as an assistant with the Miami Fusion, D.C. United and FC Dallas.

"If you're not dealing with this ever, then you know you don't have elite players. For us to be successful in the Big Ten, we better damn well have some elite players ... and knowing that – like the hockey guys – sometimes they stay and sometimes they go. It's OK. This is nothing but a positive for the program."

Cochran's calling card has been his play in the air. Listed at 6-foot-3 and 195 pounds, he rarely was beaten on headers on either end of the field for the Badgers.

"That's pretty much been a big trait of mine on the field, going back to when I was young," said Cochran, who had stints with the U.S. Under-18 and Under-20 national teams. "Everyone said that you need one thing that just puts you into kind of the elite level and I just kind of always thought of that as the one thing: That I would always beat whoever I came up against. It's kind of one of those mentality things that I never wanted anyone to be better than me in the air."

Trask added: "I think there's no question, everybody I talk to, what separates him is his aerial play, his physical dominance."

Ahead of Thursday's MLS SuperDraft in Philadelphia, the league website posted biographies for many draft prospects, including quotes from anonymous coaches. Among the comments about Cochran are: 

• "Beast in the air: Best I've seen all year."
• "... you don't see many 6-4 left-footed center backs in this country."
• "Individual defending has gotten better, but he can still be exposed on the turn"
• Read the full bio and comments on MLSSoccer.com

Asked about that last point, Trask went back to his MLS coaching days.

"Any time you have a player that's close to 6-foot-4, the question is him on the turn," he said. "But you know, we had the same questions when I went to D.C. United with Ryan Nelsen and it turned out pretty well for him – played 10 years in the Premier League and a couple World Cups under his belt. A lot of that's positioning."

As for what players Cochran reminds him of, Trask mentioned three well-respected American center backs from the past decade:

• Chad Marshall, who spent 10 years with the Columbus Crew before being traded to the Seattle Sounders last month
• Danny Califf, who played 14 pro seasons before retiring last year
• Carlos Bocanegra, the former U.S. national team captain who returned to MLS last year after nine years in Europe. He played with Fulham in the Premier League, Rennes and Saint-Étienne in France's Ligue 1 and Scottish power Rangers.

"Some of his qualities are like a Chad Marshall, who was so dominant in the air until he got some of these concussions. Or Dan Califf," Trask said. "Or in the air, like a Bocanegra-type – there's another left-footed central defender who went on to do some great things. I'm not saying that he's the second coming of Bocanegra, but he's of that ilk."

While Cochran is the first UW player in the Generation adidas program, four state players have been part of it or its predecessor, Nike Project-40: Goalkeeper Andy Kirk (Milwaukee Marquette) in 1998, midfielder Miguel Saavedra (Milwaukee Tech) in 2001, defender Tim Ward (Waukesha) in 2005 and keeper Josh Lambo (Middleton) in 2008.

On Twitter: @Alec_Cochran

UW-Milwaukee coach Kris Kelderman (Neenah) is one of four college coaches leading teams at the MLS Combine. Kelderman played in the league's first four seasons and spent four years as an assistant coach for two MLS teams.