Defending our Championship: Notre Dame Men’s Lacrosse Season Loading…

The first scrimmage of the season is right around the corner for the 2025 Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team

Welcome back everyone, it’s been a lacrosse 60-second shot clock reset since the last time we talked, but excited to be back here for another season of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse.

The last time I was typing this column for One Foot Down, it was August and we were catching up on Notre Dame men’s lacrosse and all that had taken place over the summer. That article followed my writing from Memorial Day weekend where our Irish dominated and finished the season as the 2024 back to back national champions. What a finish it was!

I had hopes and dreams of doing a lot of ND lacrosse writing over the last few months, but life gets busy and this thing called Notre Dame football has pre-occupied not only my time, but every big Notre Dame fan’s time over the last few months.

Speaking of the football team, what an amazing season for our squad. Coach Marcus Freeman has done an incredible job of building and leading this team and the boys have never wavered one bit. Probably the best and most exciting season of Notre Dame football in over 30 years and now there is one more game left with the chance to end the season as National Champions. Let’s take our Notre Dame lacrosse mantra and replicate it to our football team as you know what time it is: “Time to be Great. Time to be Champions.”

And if you listen to my Exit 77 podcasts (a Notre Dame football AND lacrosse podcast), you know how big of a fan I am of CMF. He is everything we want in a leader and the absolute best person to be in charge of our ND football team. We are very lucky he is our head coach and I have full faith and trust that Coach will be leading us to a victory on Monday night.

“History is written by conquerors. We hold the pen.” – CMF at halftime of the Penn State game.

Okay, so while this has been a dream season for the football team, everyone reading this is here for the Notre Dame lacrosse team….and I am all for it.

The start of the 2025 season is upon us and looking forward to all that is ahead as we shoot for a three-peat. In the coming weeks I will be looking to get out a season preview (similar to the 2023 preview and 2024 preview) with some recaps on the upcoming first two scrimmages (Air Force this Saturday the 18th and Detroit Mercy on Sunday the 26th) and get the podcasts started again with my partner and friend and the biggest Notre Dame lacrosse fan in the world, Mr. David Brogan.

For those of you who missed it back in October, we recorded an “Exit 77” podcast episode (here it is on Spotify and here it is on Apple podcasts) where we looked at Notre Dame’s fall scrimmage against Harvard and all that we saw from the team that day. I also had the chance to do the write up for Inside Lacrosse highlighting all that took place in Chicago on that fall Saturday afternoon.

Similar to last year, David and I will plan to record podcasts at some point after each game and I will be doing my writing after each game here on One Foot Down. David will be at both the Air Force and Detroit scrimmages and I plan to be at the Detroit one so we will make sure we get a podcast up following those two games to talk about what we saw.

We are still waiting for the full Notre Dame schedule to be released, but once that is out I will update everyone, along with the TV schedule and when and where you can watch our Irish.

This is a stellar run that Notre Dame lacrosse is on

I talked about this in my last article, but it bears repeating…

“Do you want to know how dominant Notre Dame Lacrosse has been over the last two and a half years?

36 Wins

3 Losses

Every team ranked in the Top 10 in the final media poll of 2024 had at least FOUR losses. Saying that again, the best teams in college in 2024 had at LEAST four losses.

Notre Dame has three losses over the last two and a half years; over that time we have only lost to two teams: Virginia (twice) and Georgetown (in OT).

It’s been absolutely dominating over the last 39 games.

What an awesome time to be a fan of this lacrosse program. We are on an epic run and Coach Corrigan and his coaching staff have built a team and culture that has the ability to keep this going for years to come.

Latest News on Notre Dame lacrosse

In some wonderful news, and similar to Chris Conlin last year, Notre Dame got the word in the fall that Devon McLane decided to come back for one more year. Devon had a season left if he wanted, but after graduating from Notre Dame last year he decided to take a job in NYC and start his working career. There was always the possibility that he could come back and the team got the good news in November that he would be suiting up again to make one more run with the Irish. It is a huge bonus for Notre Dame to get one more year with #29 as he was a massive part of our title defense last year. He is a great goal scorer, he knows exactly where to be on the field, he is a leader and he will once again be one of our best players on the team.

InsideLacrosse came out with their Top 50 players for 2025 and it was littered with Notre Dame student athletes. Here is a breakdown of where our Irish landed:

Will Lynch at #49

Greg Campisi at #45

Jordan Faison at #31

Jake Taylor at #18

Will Donovan at #17

Ben Ramsey at #13

Shawn Lyght at #3

Chris Kavanagh at #2

It’s impressive that Notre Dame has eight players in the top 50 and even more impressive when you think about the # of players who left the Irish after this past year.

Here is an excellent piece on former Notre Dame lacrosse player, Steve Clagett. Really neat to see what a difference one can make with the life they choose to live. What an unreal representative for our university and country:

This is an excellent read on Chris Kavanagh and the Kavanagh family as a whole. It’s really neat to see the bond and relationship he has with his siblings, especially brothers Matt and Pat. Some awesome quotes in here as well that show how Chris worked tirelessly to make himself into one of the best players in college lacrosse.

Notre Dame football and lacrosse crossover

Notre Dame lacrosse will start the scrimmage season with three big pieces of our team not in the Loftus Center on this Saturday. That’s because Jordan Faison, Tyler Buchner and Matt Jeffery will all be in Atlanta gearing up to win a championship. All three of these players have played an important role for the Notre Dame football team and will be a huge part of our lacrosse team this spring. So cool to see these three succeed on multiple levels. And not sure about you, but I just have the feeling that Jordan Faison will not let either of his teams (football and lacrosse) lose. He brings an undeniable swagger to the table that permeates both teams.

The Three-Peat season is upon us and loading

It is here folks, can’t believe we are about to get underway the defense of our back-to-back national championships. We have waited all summer and fall for this and there is so much excitement around this team and what is expected of them this year. Last season as things got underway, I talked about a great line from the movie “The Gentlemen:” “There’s only one rule in the jungle: when the lion’s hungry, he eats.” Last year was the first time when the Irish started the season as the king of the jungle. Everyone else wanted their shot at the Irish and all we did was have one of the best seasons in college lacrosse history and defend our title by going 16-1. The same holds true this year, everyone will be looking to get their shot at Notre Dame and be the team to dethrone the king. The mindset for our Irish remains the same. It’s unwavering. We will rely on our leadership, we will rely on our Community, our Culture and our Character and we will rely on the teammate we are lining up next to day in and day out. It’s what separates champions and Notre Dame is not ready to relinquish our place as the king of the jungle.

Let’s Go Irish!