Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse season is almost upon us! While we reversed-engineered the schedule and more-or-less knew what to expect, we are nonetheless excited for it to be official. Kudos to the Irish sports information team for their creative and motivating presentation. Each game was announced on twitter with a video of a noteworthy Notre Dame goal or play from their series with that opponent. Ryder Garnsey OT dead fish celly, Conor Kelly last-second save versus Syracuse, John Sexton tormenting the Virginia midfield, etc.
Let’s get it#GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/nHzaG1IZtJ
— Notre Dame Lacrosse (@NDlacrosse) January 25, 2023
Let’s get this part out of the way
Notre Dame is largely repeating their 2022 schedule. A lot of fans are expressing their anxiety with comparisons to the tournament snub of last May. We get it, the wounds haven’t healed for us, either. But make no mistake, this is a schedule built to give the Irish the opportunity to build the best possible resume. We are glad the University did not back down and soften up the schedule.
Four games against the preseason top-3 in the country (three on the road), plus the 7th, 11th and 17th (twice) ranked teams. The remaining four games on the schedule are against pretty good teams, too. The boys haven’t feared a challenge in the past, why start now?
What’s missing
The most noteworthy omission is that the Western Rivalry appears to be dead. The annual game with western rival, Denver, ended with the pandemic break. This is unfortunate, and the Irish will miss being part of the Coach Tierney farewell tour.
Some fans hoped we’d see the addition of an Ivy League team or two to establish a comparison with their resurgent conference. As fans of lacrosse, these games would be fun to watch, but the team does not need those games to bolster its resume. The schedule gives them plenty of opportunity.
FWIW I had @NDlacrosse as my #1. After last year’s snub, they’re going to go scorched earth on teams. Two Kavanaghs, an elite goalie… and championship pedigree imported from Yale… get ready for the revenge tour.
… and @UMichLacrosse is making the NCAA Tournament this year.
— Anish Shroff (@AnishESPN) January 24, 2023
There is only one game against a mid-major conference. Again, as fans we want there to be a million games to watch, but we understand the laser focus on a championship.
Beautiful structure
As fans we initially looked at the schedule with misplaced focus on the ghosts of 2022 and the absence of changes. We nearly missed seeing how the season is designed with singular focus on preparation and maximizing opportunities for success.
Notre Dame’s one mid-week game is the season opener in its Thunderdome fortress, and their only short turnaround is at home against their only mid-major opponent. Every other game is preceded by a full allotment of rest and practice. No exceptions. No midweek games staring into the afternoon sun at Arlotta, no midweek bus trips that shortchange preparation time for the next opponent. It is a consistent, rhythmic pace of 5 days of practice, game, rest, repeat.
A lot of coaches like to play their way into form with lots of midweek games. It works well if you are closer to the eastern hotbeds, but not so much if you have to travel back to the periphery of the sport.
And let’s make no mistake: the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are a graduate student and upperclassman-heavy team with a wealth of experience. This is the team that stuck together during the Covid-19 hiatus, with members who played in the off season with the USA Under-23s, and with transfers who know what it is like to win national championships. A Wednesday night game would be for our amusement, not their benefit, and we’d rather see them play on Memorial Day then on a random weekday.
Objectives
There’s not a lot to add. The tournament formula is very simple: top-5 and top-10 wins matter. You have them and your seat at the table will not be in doubt.
#GoIrish
P.S. We encourage fans to also follow the writing of Drew Brennan at OneFootDown and superfan Dave Brogan on twitter. Both love this team and bring great perspective.
all i know is last year maryland fans were really annoying when the ACC got screwed with the tournament so i hope ND turns them into paste
Getting them early in the season before they integrate an entirely new set of offensive players and ssdms makes the game a great opportunity, but they’ve historically had a hard time at MD, and their back line is going to be really good.
Thanks for another super intro to a ND lacrosse season. The sport was really not big, like invisible, a million years ago when I was there. I was exposed to it some when I was a history professor at West Point — but I confess I don’t have a good feel for the nuances. Is there a spectator’s guide around? If I’m gonna be blessed with your reportage, and I devoutly hope by a super successful season for the Irish squad, I should make an effort (did it for fencing when a couple of French kids whom I knew got scholarships on our squad).
We’ll find a lax 101 for you, but the unique-ish rules to lacrosse that puzzle viewers tend to be:
-ball going out of bounds is the same as basketball or soccer EXCEPT when taking a shot, where the team closest to ball when it goes out of bounds gets the ball. Teams are generally careful to always position a player between the goal and out of bounds to retain possession if a shot is missed.
-offsides, team must keep 4 players on the defensive end of field and 3 on offensive end filed at all times.
-substitution and service of penalties is basically the same as hockey
-lacrosse now has a shot clock like basketball
-faceoffs are pretty unique, but they tends to be self-explanatory.
As for the rest, bring your knowledge from whatever sports you follow, and at least part of the game will make sense. Basketball fans have told us lacrosse offense and defensive responsibilities make sense to them, hockey fans, stick skills, game flow and substitution, soccer, spacing and defense working as a unit, football, defensive angles, footwork and communication. Across the board, terminology is different which throws people off, but without the labels, most will be familiar to sports fans.
As to ND specifically, it helps to embrace the college lacrosse folklore that permeates every broadcast, and ND is a big part of it. The sport is centuries old, and up until recently had few teams, so there is lots of legend. For ND, it’s its otherworldly goalies (which we have this year), great defense (box checked again), 10-man ride (which is equivalent of full court press), historically heroic individual offensive efforts, and of course, the Kavanaghs (we currently have two). You’ll fill a bingo card pretty quickly with those.
#GoIrish
With your West Point connection, it will help that the service academies are all excellent and are deeply part of the lacrosse folklore themselves. In fact, most of the end of season awards for best players are named for lacrosse soldiers and sailors.
Hey, thanks sooo much for taking the time and trouble. This is a super big help. Besides the service academy links, I guess I should take some comfort in the fact that the name itself is French ! Alors, merci beaucoup !
Last question, I am now psyched to try to watch some games. I don’t think over here I have a prayer of finding anything live, but are any of our games available later in some kind of replay, even extended highlights? You Tune seems to work, but some US stuff over here does not (NBC and the SB Tribune for example!)