Between massive life changes and a never ending stream of news, this post has been delayed a while. But now it is time to get after it. And boy, do we have a TON of stuff to sift through.
First, let's go to women's lacrosse. As we all saw, there's a new lady in charge, as Amanda Moore settles in to become the next head coach. Moore brought one of her former assistants with her, but also hired a big time player and coach in Ally Kennedy. Kennedy is a current professional, but cut her teeth at Stony Brook and Virginia. That's really, really good. I have lots of optimism about the future of the women's program. Probably not this year. But in the future, things are looking up.
Next, we have the biggest news. Gene Smith, the boss of Nick Myers' boss, is retiring. There's plenty of news about it, but it's going to affect the men's program significantly come next year. It could very well mean at least one more year of the Myers regime, as the new AD might not be well versed in lacrosse, and hesitant to make waves. Conversely, if the new boss wants to make a statement, canning the highest paid coach in the game who hasn't won even a conference title could be that. Which outcome occurs likely depends on how the team performs next spring. Early returns are not great.
In addition to the massive turnover in the athletic department, the men's team is currently trying a Deion-esque reset of the roster. There are, as of this morning, 10(!) new transfer players coming in for 2024. That's in addition to 12 or so freshmen. With Myers never having more than 48 players on a roster, we know for certain that more new guys than old faces will take the field this fall. At LEAST 27 players will be newcomers. Talk about a reset. In 6 months, this team will need to learn a new system, learn new verbiage, learn to play together, and then go compete against the strongest Big Ten field the conference has ever seen.
In addition to the new personnel, we have another new offensive coordinator on the sidelines. Justin Tuma, former Buckeye assistant, comes from High Point where he served as defensive coordinator. I don't know what else there is to say. High Point has shown incremental improvement in some metrics, but really has never been a shutdown team. The Panthers always win with high scoring. Which Tuma didn't coordinate. Tuma has some success at the DIII level as an OC. But will that translate to the Big Ten? He has a year to prove himself.
As if this wasn't challenging enough, the Buckeyes are going to start the year off not with getting on the field to get acclimated, but by traveling to Italy. I am completely stunned at this decision. It's completely nonsensical as anything other than a vacation on donors' money. The only solace is that it will end before the 2025 recruiting year begins. Otherwise, this is absurd. This isn't a close group that will forge deeper bonds in a foreign country. This is a group of strangers that is a hair's breadth away from being torn asunder by a completely unsympathetic lacrosse meat grinder. I can't fathom this decision.
As far as the fall schedule goes, the month of September will be taken up by recruiting and fallball. There's another alumni weekend October 6-8, where the Buckeyes will scrimmage Marquette and probably Robert Morris. There will likely be another scrimmage against stiffer competition later. After last year, I am hoping it's a Duke or UVA. This team needs to be challenged early and often.
As for recruiting, we will likely see a bit of a slow start, as I think there will be a lot of recruits watching this year's roster construction. Myers has done a hail mary in terms of personnel on the team and the staff. I can't imagine many players will want to have so much instability on the team they're hoping to join for four years or more. It's a shame, because Ohio is LOADED. And there's a top 5 player in the country playing 90 minutes south in Cincinnati. The next 10 months are going to be a wild ride.
Finally, with all the conference realignment, we are much, much closer to massive lacrosse super conferences. Oregon is Phil Knight's playground, and if ever a West Coast team was to start a lacrosse program at the power 3 level, the Ducks are in prime position. Portland is an absolute gold mine of talent, as is California. USC is probably another likely candidate to join the ranks, now that they're Big Ten bound.
Plus, the ACC is slowly crumbling, which could leave Duke, UVA, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and UNC scrambling for a new home. That's likely a little ways off, but the football dominoes are teetering enough to make the blue bloods nervous. The Big Ten could turn into an absolute juggernaut for lacrosse, depending on where the ACC schools end up.
Man. Talk about interesting times. We have all this, and I still haven't seen the 2023-2024 roster drop yet. If that goes the way I think ot might, there's going to be another scathing commentary coming from me after I set up the 2025 recruiting landscape. Stay tuned. There's so much going on, you're going to miss a mountain of activity if you tune out.
Go Bucks!
