There's ways to deal with it.

There's ways to deal with it.
by goirish43 (2017-03-12 19:38:38)
Edited on 2017-03-12 19:39:30

In reply to: Question about face-offs for people who know lacrosse posted by mikeybates

you could ask this same question about any sport with skilled positions like football even. Think of it as special teams. The fact of the matter is Notre Dame should adjust and be recruiting aggressively face off specialists and practicing face offs constantly. The recent rule changes have actually made it harder for faceoff guys to be even more dominant by penalizing early play and the cheating that is and was such a big part of the face off game. Today, corrigan should have adjusted more aggressively and put two poles on the wing as he did; considered putting in a large midfielder like Sergio to jam on baptists hands or arms and just slow him down or hurt him; or deal with losing face offs in the second half and focus on everyone getting back to the hole to play good team defense. Additionally, he could have extended the offensive possessions in the second half to burn time and deal with losing so many face offs Nd needs to adjust if they are going to find more success and win a championship. Lacrosse is a game of possession.

True, but basketball had jump ball after every basket

Until 1937. This is a better analogy as teams with a Ralph Sampson or Patrick Ewing would have a much more unfair advantage then they already had in alternating possession. Yes, we should recruit better, should have used different strategies (what we were doing wasn't working)

I'm OK with keeping the rule the way it is - makes for a different game - but I don't think there are many that would advocate basketball going back to jump balls

I was making more of a general point

Although of course my interest in this issue is based on seeing how many games face-off play has cost ND. Certainly, we need a top face-off guy.

The special teams comparison is fair enough, but face-off play in lacrosse determines possession, while special teams play in football does not, and between different teams face-off play seems to vary to a much greater extent than special teams play.

I still think that the important of face-offs in lacrosse is anomalous, given how possession is relatively fixed.

this is spot on ...

Can't do anything about it this year, but FO recruiting has to be at the top of the needs list. I think it's an overly-important part of the game, but it is what it is, so we'll have to deal with it. We don't necessarily need to best FO guy in the country (that would be nice, however), but we need more than 20% against the best FO guy in the country. That shouldn't be too much to ask for.