The #8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team has released their schedule. The relatively short 10 game slate still ranks as the 5th most difficult in the country according to our friends at LacrosseReference.com.
The schedule is notable for its incredible conference slate. The Irish’s four ACC opponents for its 6-game conference schedule are currently ranked #1, #2, #3 and #10, with all receiving first place votes at some point so far in the season. You read that correctly. The 2021 ACC is a conference of generationally good superteams.
The Irish will play 7 of 10 games at home, and won’t leave South Bend until the April 4 game against Syracuse.
Out of Conference Schedule
Notre Dame will be starting their official games relatively late as compared to the rest of Division 1. As such, the early non-conference opponents will arrive on campus with a lot of game experience. There will be no gimmees.
What will be noticeable to fans is the absence of Denver and the traditional Big 10 opponents. We do not have information on the reasoning for the hiatus in the Western Rivalry, but the Big 10 is playing a conference-only schedule.
Robert Morris: Saturday, Feb. 27
The Colonials will visit for their second all-time game against the Irish. 2014 saw the Irish beat Robert Morris 15-5.
“Bobby Mo” opened their 2021 season with a 12-16 loss to Irish ACC counterpart, Duke. The Colonials notably jumped up 5-1 on the Blue Devils before being worn down. Last weekend saw them fall 15-21 to High Point, where their defense struggled to keep track of High Point star Asher Nolting. Most recently they won a shootout at Colgate, 17-14. Note, in all games Robert Morris had no trouble scoring.
The Irish will need to play a disciplined defensive game against this Canadian-heavy roster with its effective offense. Robert Morris will have plenty of game experience while the Irish will still be working our their early season jitters. We do see this as an opportunity for Notre Dame to develop its chemistry on offense.
*Last night Notre Dame announced this game will be moved outdoors to Arlotta Stadium and that it will start at 2:00 pm, ACCNX.
Bellarmine: Saturday, March 6
The Knights prepare for their sixth all-time contest against the Irish. 2016 saw the Irish beat Bellarmine 11-6, bringing their record to 5-0 against this SoCon team.
Bellarmine opened with a win against Mercer 9-7, followed by losses to Utah, 7-12, and Jacksonville, 8-19. The Knights are now on a 2-week Covid-19 related pause. So far they have seriously struggled at faceoff and are hampered by the possession imbalance that this causes.
This is an opportunity for the Irish faceoff unit to take authority. The Knights will be coming off a two-week hiatus, so the game experience deficit should be muted.
Marquette: Wednesday, March 17
Wednesday is for the hunter. The Golden Eagles (0-8 all-time vs. Irish) will be looking to finally pull off an upset against Notre Dame. The Irish won their 2019 meeting 13-6, but 3 of the previous 4 were 1-goal near upsets. Mid-week afternoon games at Arlotta Stadium are difficult. As the football team noticed in December, the low afternoon sun is something to be reckoned with.
Marquette’s season opener versus Cleveland State was cancelled for Covid-19 issues with the Vikings. This past weekend they suffered a close 9-10 loss to Denver.
The Golden Eagles were 3-4 in the shortened 2020 season, the first for new coach Andrew Stimmel. Coach Stimmel was the offensive coordinator for recent Yale national championship team, and took over Marquette’s very successful western lacrosse program from Joe Amplo.
Cleveland State: Saturday, March 20
The Vikings come back to South Bend after the 7-17 loss to Notre Dame in their first meeting last year. Cleveland State will have a limited schedule in this Covid-19 year, the last it will play as an independent before joining the ASun.
As noted above, their season is already impacted by coronavirus cancellations. As it stands, their first game will be February 28 against Mercer.
No game played on short rest should be taken lightly, particularly against his Viking teams that has toppled a ranked Air Force, and which has bedeviled Ohio State and Michigan. This will be a test of Notre Dame’s focus as they head into ACC play. The hope is that the Irish play well enough from the opening whistle to integrate new personnel into the game plan. ACC play will be nearly impossible with a short roster.
The Most Challenging Conference of All Time
There’s a perfectly good argument to make that this year’s ACC may be the most difficult and competitive series in decades, if not ever. The accumulation of talent onto these teams through transfer, grad student retention, and recruiting is simply incredible. The Big 10 has Maryland, and the Big East has Denver and perhaps Georgetown, but the ACC it is every team.
Schedule
The Irish open ACC play March 27 at home against Virginia, followed by their first road game on April 3 at Syracuse. Notre Dame returns home to play Duke on April 10.
What follows is a tremendously difficult road trip. A Thursday, April 22 game against Duke, followed by a Sunday, April 25 game against North Carolina. Covid-19 in many ways necessitates this sort of combined road trip, but it is a weekend sequence that did not work out well for Denver last week (10-12 vs. Duke, followed by 13-24 vs. UNC, ouch.).
Irish return home and face Syracuse a second time on May 1.
The Challenges
We won’t belabor the point with in-depth roster discussion, all the teams are stacked. But each presents a particularly difficult challenge to the Irish.
Virginia and North Carolina both are using their depth to deploy incredibly effective rides, which lead to transition and early offense scoring. It’s rare for teams to be this good at the ride this early in the season, and it’s scary to think how good they will get. The problem for the Irish is obvious in that it has the potential of neutralizing Notre Dame’s core strength in settled defense. These teams can attack the cage while the defense is spread out and before it can get organized. It also places tremendous and unrelenting stress on Boyer, Cheng, Cassidy, Hallenbeck and Entenmann to take care of the ball.
Syracuse has arguably the best midfield in the country, and certainly the one with the most proven track record. They also return the top goalie in the country. Again, this pressures the Irish to defend scoring options outside their core strength, and shot quality has to be good. Volume won’t do it.
The addition of Michael Sowers, Princeton’s all-time leading scorer (and perhaps soon to be NCAA record holder), and the highly anticipated Brennan O’Neil, has already elevated Duke with potent new scoring option to go along with their existing attack and midfield strengths. They are equipped to go toe-to-toe with the Irish defense, and they have unmatched depth that will grind even the best teams on the occasions when they get off to a bad start. All their scoring threats can’t be eliminated, Notre Dame will have to decide which they can live with.
The Opportunities
Six games against the best rosters assembled in recent memory is not an enviable task, but every ACC team has the same problem.
The Irish hope to have an advantage at faceoff over all the teams with the possible exception of Virginia. They have depth at midfield and quick defenders comfortable handling the ball to weather the more aggressive rides, and with the offensive horses to take advantage of the space you get when you beat a ride. Goaltending is more secure than any team outside of Syracuse. And Notre Dame is physically a very big team. They won’t get pushed around.
We also know these teams aren’t invincible. 2020 season ending #1 Syracuse already dropped a game to Army. Everyone can be beaten.
We also suggest that the Irish have the fewest flaws. The don’t have questions at faceoff, or goaltending, or in any of the defensive positions, or in midfield depth. Perhaps they don’t have the best unit among the five teams in every facet of the game, but they aren’t near the bottom in any of them, either. That’s not a bad place to be when the goal is to make it to the tournament.
Outlook
Obviously, we like how the Irish roster looks. It’s stacked, deep and well balanced across all aspects of the game. But we have to acknowledge the whole conference is stacked. It would come as a shock to no one if the NCAA semi-finals were comprised entirely of ACC teams.
But how do we know if the Irish are one of them? Finishing the out-of-conference slate 4-0 is critical, and but any ACC team winning two conference games has a great case to get into the tournament. We get the sense the improvements Notre Dame made in the offseason are being overlooked in the nati0nal media. Great things should be expected from this team.
The Irish will open the season this Saturday versus Robert Morris, our 18 Stripes preview will be out that morning. Please check out our player preview.
#GoIrish
