A few suggestions

for the Corrigan/Byrne team:

- The Biggest: Hire an Offensive Coordinator to run the x's & o's. Best of my knowledge is that Corrigan might be the only major D1 coach that is his own OC. And quite candidly, I think we need to shake it up. Without the brilliance of some attackmen and singularly talented middies, we really don't have a "system" per se. Not only might be we get some new looks, it would allow Corrigan to:

- Stay on top of the entire team and make sure that there is uniform individual growth and team progression as the season moves on. Please see my comments on John Danowski below. He is singularly the best at this.

- Schedule in a few games that are not NCAA-playoff caliber games early on. No, not trying to shirk the tough schedule bit but reinforce the 1st and 2nd points. I think teams need to get their acts together and playing a game or two more against out-of-conference opponents not named Denver is not such bad idea. I'm not so concerned with the Mikey Wynnes and Sergio's of the world, but the 2nd line middies and man-up attacks.

- Readjust the handle on this team off the field. Corrigan used to pride himself on community service, field trips and keeping his guys humble. He still might but virtually every kid from our town who attends ND right now(a solid mix of girls and guys, current jocks and ex-jocks, non-sociable kids and Thursday night regulars) all tell me the guy's lacrosse team is the one that is most impressed with itself and parties hard through the season. Not so much worried about the ethos of the lax guys (having been a player into college), but focus and discipline are paramount. To answer your question: most admired team for this -- Men's soccer.

Good points:

- Byrne. Byrne. Byrne. Still the best. Not only with the kids/teams he puts out but the ones he produces everywhere with the sharing of his defensive lesson plans. If Corrigan had ever gone back to UVA, Moving Gerry up the ladder with the caveat of getting a top-notch OC would not have been the end of the world.

- Love his use of two-way middies. Not so much old-school as taking advantage of great athletes. Odd that this feature is his offensive twist in a strange way, but hey....it works. Expand it.