University policy requires that the Irish not release their official schedule until next month, but a bit of reverse-engineering of the rest of the nation’s schedules has identified what is without question the most difficult schedule in lacrosse. Notre Dame Men’s Lacrosse will be taking on the best and only the best in 2018. The Fighting Irish will open the season at #6 in the nation, but within a few weeks it will be clear if they can regain the #1 ranking.
The opposition
What we know so far:
@ #1 Duke: The Irish will play the preseason top team at least once during the season.
@ #4 Maryland: The early March game in College Park against the defending national champions will set the tone for the whole season.
# 5 Denver: March 10 at Arlotta Stadium. This game more than any other on the schedule will tell us what the team is made of.
@ # 8 Ohio State: The Irish will take their decade-long win streak to Big Horseshoe against last year’s national runner up.
@ # 9 Syracuse: A trip to the Carrier Dome where they have had some recent success.
#10 North Carolina: Against the 2016 champs who have always caused them a lot of trouble.
@ #15 Marquette: A trip to Milwaukee in this great Midwestern rivalry.
#16 Virginia: The Cavaliers will come to South Bend looking to avenge last year’s overtime loss.
#17 Army: The next installment of the Irish’s traditional last regular season game.
#20 Richmond: The SoCon champs are added to the schedule for a game between the two best defenses in lacrosse.
#30 Michigan: The Wolverines proved this past year they are a legitimate lacrosse program.
#54 Detroit: The season will open in February against this much improved regional rival.
ACC Tournament facing off the #1, #6, #9, #10, and #16 teams.
NCAA Tournament
Obvious challenges
10 of 12 games will be against a top-20 opponents before even considering the ACC Tournament. This is even more intense than their incredible 2017 schedule.
Notre Dame is riding long winning streaks against Maryland, Ohio State, Virginia, and Marquette. Statisticians tell us previous outcomes have no bearing on future events, but eventually something has to give!
Lots of very difficult road games. Durham, College Park, Columbus, Syracuse, and Milwaukee are all very challenging venues.
Why schedule such difficulty?
NCAA Tournament selection has a huge RPI component, and this means that only wins against quality opponents matter. Absent rivalry considerations, if a team has championship aspirations, there is no incentive to schedule developing programs. Further, this is also the natural result of the evolution of western lacrosse. Notre Dame, Denver, Marquette and Ohio State are no longer distant outposts.
We’ll keep our reverse-engineering operation in working order until the official schedule is released. Even if the above list is complete, 2018 will be a very exciting year of lacrosse for the Fighting Irish.
A special thanks goes out to CollegeCrosse.com and the lacrosse twitter community for their help in compiling this information.
#GoIrish
The game at Ohio State is Sunday March 25th at noon. I know ND will release the actual schedule soon so we’ll have access to all dates and times in one place, but figured I’d throw that one out there. The game at the Shoe a couple years ago drew a pretty large crowd and we won, it was a good time.
That’s the date we have for it, too. We think ND will draw a big # there, as well as at College Park (where they haven’t played in a long time), and at the Carrier Dome, of course. ND has seen some big attendance numbers on the road recently, including 12,000+ last year at West Point
Too many miles traveled, IMO.
From the Twitter photos, it seems the players travel in style, and it’s not quite as taxing as football travel next November for sure.