PHILADELPHIA—In a move that could serve as a shot across Major League Soccer’s bow, an upstart USL Pro team has signed a pair of college underclassmen, including Michael Ambrose, who is both a U.S. youth national team player and a product of an MLS academy.

But rather than beginning his pro career with FC Dallas, the highly-regarded junior left back from the University of Maryland, is joining the Austin Aztex, a team that is moving up this year from the amateur Premier Development League run by the USL to the third division.

Ambrose played for the Aztex at the PDL level and will be joined this season by a former Aztex teammate goalkeeper Devin Cook-Perales, a red-shirt junior from Coastal Carolina who is also giving up his final season of collegiate eligibility to begin his pro career in Austin.

“We’re an expansion team and we need to make a splash with our roster and this is one way to do that,” said Aztex coach Paul Dalglish, the former Scotland youth international and Houston Dynamo player. “Signing top young players like this not only helps us on the field, it sends a message to our fans that our ownership group is committed to building the product and putting a first class team on the field.”

In addition to a salary Austin will provide both players with a stipend to finish college, an arrangement similar MLS’ Generation Adidas program. “This isn’t something for every player,” he said. “For 99 percent of the players in college soccer, that’s the right level for them. But for that one percent, they need to be in a pro environment. We can’t afford to do this for more than two or three players a year, but for the players that commit to us to leave school we want to return that level of commitment by helping them finish school.”

Dallas coach Oscar Pareja said they were interested in Ambrose but he opted for Austin. “We didn’t get to the point where we made an offer but we we’re talking with him,” he told American Soccer Now at the MLS combine in Ft. Lauderdale. “But he decided to go a different way to start his career and there’s nothing we could do.”

In three years as a youth player with the FC Dallas academy, Ambrose played for Pareja and captained their U-18 team to a national title. He was also part of the U.S. youth national teams at the U-17, -18 and -20 levels. In short, he's a model candidate for a homegrown contract.

As news of this spread around the MLS combine in Florida and here at the NSCAA Convention, which is hosting tomorrow’s MLS SuperaDraft, several interested parties saw this as a direct challenge to MLS. “This could be a game-changer,” said one agent, who represents several young players. “For most players who want to go pro early and stay in this country, it’s been MLS or nothing, take-it or leave-it. This gives players another option and could be seen as a challenge to the league”

But Dalglish disagrees. “I see it as helping MLS,” he said. “We’re a developmental league in USL Pro. Our job is to help prepare players for a higher level and if we take two or three kids a year early and develop them, they’re most likely going to eventually end up in MLS and they’ll be better players because they spent time with us.”

Dalglish was blunt when asked what the return on investment was. “We plan on selling them in a couple of years,” he said. “Whether that’s to MLS or to a foreign team, who knows? But the idea is to have a vested interest in their development because we want to get something out of our commitment to them and that’s by selling them. This is how it works around the world and how it should work here.”

Traditionally, MLS has been reluctant to pay substantial transfer fees to lower division teams in the U.S. Often they compensate the USL Pro team that provides a player by having an MLS team play a friendly at the lower division team in question and have the team keep the gate receipts from that game.

Not every USL Pro coach is convinced this is the start of a league-wide trend. “Not every team has the ownership group willing to make that kind of investment on underclassmen,” said Charlotte Independence coach Mike Jeffries, a former MLS head and assistant coach. “This is USL Pro. That kind of spending just isn’t in the budget.”

In Ambrose and Cook-Perales, Dalglish thinks he has a pair of players who can be groomed into marketable products. “In my opinion, he’s the best left back in college soccer,” Dalglish said of the young defender. “Very good going forward and sound defensively. He’s a youth international for this country and our job is to help him be a senior international.”

In three seasons at Maryland, Ambrose started 69 of 71 games he played, with one goal and 15 assists, helping the Terrapins to a pair of College Cup appearances and conference tournament championships in both the Atlantic Coast and Big Ten conferences. He was twice second-team All ACC and was All Big Ten last fall.

“If he was in the draft he’d be a first round pick,” said one MLS coach who has scouted Maryland several times.

Cook-Perales began his college career at Southern Methodist but played sparingly and transferred to Coastal Carolina, where he became a two-time All Big South goalkeeper, starting 46 games and posting a 0.80 goals-against-average. In the summer of 2013 he led the Aztex to a PDL national title and was a finalist for the league’s goalkeeper of the year and U-21 player of the year awards.

“We think he can be a good pro for a lot of years,” said Dalglish. “We wouldn’t have signed him to what we signed him for if we believed otherwise.”

Brooke Tunstall is a veteran journalist who has covered Major League Soccer since its first player dispersal draft. Follow him on Twitter.