College Lacrosse Expansion: Just a Boy and a Dream
Yes, no one cares about college lacrosse. No, I don't care that no one cares - more teams means more fun for me.
While not on the radar for most sports fans, this time of year marks the beginning of one of my favorite leagues in the world: NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse. Now, I’m sure that may be met with eyerolls, or complete disinterest - which is completely understandable. It’s a niche, often inaccessible sport with little widespread engagement that’s most commonly recognized for the bro culture and the 2006 Duke scandal (and if you’re not sure what that is, check out ESPN’s 30 for 30 about it). However, it’s also a quick, strategically complex game with deep North American roots, constant physicality, and some pretty kick-ass aesthetics - all of which are reasons why I fell in love with the game as a wee boy of fourteen. And thus, I am deeply invested in collegiate lacrosse. I have a spreadsheet for team statistics (this year I’m looking at how assist rates predict success over the course of the season), I listen to a weekly podcast made by one of the other six folks who follow it, and I recently started playing Inside Lacrosse’s fantasy game. This is a passion of mine, clearly. As with all passions for all people, I love to look forward to the future of the league and the sport, and today, I’d like to ask a simple question: what programs might add men’s lacrosse programs next?

At present, there are 78 DI men’s lacrosse teams across the United States, grouped into 11 conferences (some of which are quite frankly Frankenstein collections of schools whose primary conference doesn’t sponsor the sport). While that’s not a small number of teams, especially compared to the 8 teams that comprise the professional ranks, it pales in comparison to the 263 DI college football teams at both the FBS and FCS levels. And hell, why not spread the love a bit? I’ve got some recommendations, and have grouped them into two tiers: the Shoo-ins (schools that are primed for relatively quick success) and the Dreamers (schools that almost certainly won’t add men’s lacrosse in the near future, but it would totally kick ass if they did).
The Shoo-ins
Boston College
The Boston College Eagles is easily the first and foremost institution that comes to mind when this question is posed. First off, they’re poised to jump right into arguably the most “blue-blood” lacrosse conference in the ACC, currently home to the #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, the #2 Syracuse Orange, the #6 Virginia Cavaliers, the #7 Duke Blue Devils, and the #16 North Carolina Tar Heels. In fact, current ACC teams have won 28 of the national championships of the 53 tournaments held in the modern era for a whopping 53% success rate. Think of it as the SEC equivalent of college lacrosse, but on steroids. Now if that caliber of competition wasn’t enough, it’s worth noting that those five teams are the whole conference. Current NCAA bylaws dictate that a men’s lacrosse conference needs a minimum of six teams to be awarded an automatic qualifier bid to the national tournament, meaning that - you guessed it - the ACC would almost certainly love to have Boston College step up. It hasn’t been an issue getting a tournament berth up to this point but hey, who would say no to an AQ? Sure, it would be an adjustment to compete right from the get-go but ultimately it would be a huge recruiting boon.
On the topic of recruiting, BC is located smack dab in the middle of the lacrosse-heavy Northeast, placing it in position to hit the ground running when gathering new talent. With 10 of the recruits in Inside Lacrosse’s Class of 2025 Top 100 list hailing from Massachusetts, and an additional 16 coming from neighboring Connecticut, it’s not like the Eagles would have to search far and wide to find high quality firepower. Sure, they’d have to compete with established programs (and lord knows the lacrosse world loves bumper sticker-able schools), but they have a home-field advantage here and I anticipate the program would be able to stock up fairly quickly. After all, ACC programs hold commitments from 43 of those same 100 players, and control over 63% of the top 30 recruits with 19 commitments. It’s no secret the best of the best want to play with the big boys.
Lastly, the Eagles are no strangers to lacrosse success, with their women’s program having appeared in every national championship game held since 2017, winning the title in both 2021 and 2024. Producing players the likes of Charlotte North and Sam Apuzzo, there’s clearly a blueprint here for individual player development and team success. Men’s and women’s lacrosse are admittedly very different from one another, but the point remains: lacrosse can thrive in Chestnut Hill.

University of Connecticut
Alright, so we already know that I’m biased here. But using some of the same logic applied to my previously mentioned former Big East-foe, UConn fits the bill for another school that would see success on the field and contribute to a richer college lacrosse landscape. While they’re not stepping into the limelight in that same way that Boston College would to the ACC, their membership in the Big East might enable them to gain important conference wins early in the program’s life, while at the same time scheduling annual big-time match-ups to recruit off of. On one end of the spectrum you’ve got Marquette and St. John’s: historically mid-range programs that would provide the perfect proving ground for the first primordial Husky squads. On the other end of you’ve got the likes of Denver and Georgetown: perennially ranked teams that go toe-to-toe with the big boys and oftentimes come away victorious - like the 2015 Denver squad that won the whole thing. And right in the middle? Villanova and Providence: traditional Big East rivalry match-ups that reek of basketball lore and smash-mouth lacrosse. Where Boston College gets the glitz and glamour right off the bat, UConn would get an in-conference ladder to climb with a juicer bit of history on the side.
And recruiting? A similar deal, with a couple of notable caveats. As mentioned previously, Connecticut lays claim to 16 of the Top 100 recruits in the Class of 2025. However, many of the schools these guys are coming from - Fairfield County public schools (New Canaan, Staples) and private prep schools (Salisbury, Avon Old Farms) - are well-known in the state for their disdain for sending students to UConn, so it would likely be a bit of an uphill battle at first. Plus, unlike the ACC, the Big East only hauled in 7 players from that same pool, so historically not a ton of help from that side of the equation. Ultimately, it would be a harder push, but not one that’s impossible.
In total fairness, the sixteen year old that still lives in my brain is salivating at the thought of some 6’4”, 215 lb monstrosity painting the top left corner low-to-high at Morrone Stadium with a big blue “C” on the side of his helmet, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Columbia University
My last pick for a program that should absolutely exist and is well positioned to be competitive within a few years is Columbia University, located in the Big Apple itself. Currently the only school in the Ivy League to lack a men’s program, they would - like Boston College - immediately be stepping into a whirlwind of top-notch competition, with five of the league’s seven teams residing in the top 20 nationally (#3 Cornell, #5 Princeton, #9 Yale, #11 Penn, and #18 Harvard). As we’ve discussed, that’s a huge recruiting chip right there, not to mention the stellar academic reputation of the institution, a factor which often carries significantly more weight in the college lacrosse landscape than that of other sports - as demonstrated by its control of 22% of the top ranked recruits in 2025.
And yet again, it resides in a lacrosse-centric state, with New York producing 14 of the Top 100 recruits in the Class of 2025 - many of which come from well-known neighboring Long Island powerhouse programs like Chaminade and St. Anthony’s. If you’ve been paying attention, it doesn’t take much math to realize that by expanding our scope to the two states previously discussed, Connecticut and Massachusetts, we capture 30% of the entire Top 100 class. Add in New Jersey, and it bumps up to 40%. I’m not saying that Columbia sits right in the center of arguably the greatest concentration of up and coming lacrosse talent in the nation (because that would start a fight with our friends in the Maryland area), but it’s damn near if it’s not. It’s worth admitting that yes, most the Ivy League and pretty much every major power are in the same area so it’s not clear that Columbia would have a leg up - but it certainly wouldn't be at a disadvantage, which is a win in the arms race of college recruiting.
It’s also important to note the financial considerations surrounding adding a program, which immediately directs the conversation towards Title IX and its complications on the men’s side of the equation with the inclusion of football. Given that the collegiate interpretation of Title IX requires equal spending on men’s and women’s sports, and a juggernaut like college football simply doesn’t exist on the women’s side of equation, there simply isn’t money to add men’s lacrosse at many of the schools who otherwise would be prime real estate. In fact, all three of these schools mentioned all field women’s lacrosse programs, pointing to the visibility of this hurdle. While this problem doesn’t go away when considering Columbia, it does exist at a smaller scale as it operates its football program at the FCS level, meaning less funding, resources, and attention - making a fund redirection or addition to add lacrosse more feasible. In this vein, UConn and BC are less optimal, both with FBS programs, though neither have seen major success in the last twenty five years.

The Dreamers
By definition these picks are way more of a long shot than our Shoo-in list, hence the term “The Dreamers”. All of these schools value football above all else, enjoy national prominence or reside in the top conferences, and exist outside of the traditional lacrosse hotbeds of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. In fact, all but one of these potential programs lie west of the Mississippi River, and thus would be joining a whopping three existing teams in that neck of the woods (University of Denver, the United States Air Force Academy, and the University of Utah) - a statistic that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in their birth. Regardless, it’s fun to dream, so why not?
University of Oregon
Currently sitting at #6 nationally in the club ranks, the Oregon Ducks would be a fantastic addition to the college lacrosse world. Though I will forever bemoan the demise of the PAC-12 (may it rest in peace), having the Ducks break into the BIG10 and go head-to-head with current powers in Maryland and Penn State would be must-see action. It’s no secret in the lacrosse community that there’s also significant talent that’s beginning to rear its head in the Beaver State, with high profile Oregon products like Tucker Dordevic (Georgetown ‘23), Ajax Zappitello (Maryland ‘24), and Sam Handley (Penn ‘23) all joining the professional ranks within the last three years. Besides, with the financial backing of Phil Knight and the Nike empire, 1) who’s to say that the money’s not really there, and 2) they’d have an early shot at being the most kitted team in college lacrosse.
University of Colorado
Staying west, we next travel to Boulder, where the Buffaloes would be another great pick-up for the sport. Sure, they currently lack a conference affiliation for lacrosse, as the Big 12 doesn’t sponsor it, but I’ll address that problem in the next section - just you wait. To my western friends, it may come as a surprise - but Colorado holds a certain allure to kids on the East Coast on the college hunt (after all, it was one of those schools I looked at longingly as I pressed submit on my common application), and I have a hunch that they’d have no problem pulling recruits away from the Atlantic and up into the Rockies. They’re flashy, they’ve got the whole Coach Prime thing giving them oodles of national attention, and they’ve seen success at the club level, currently ranked 3rd preseason in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference.

Stanford University
We head back to the Pacific with this next pick, where Stanford University sits ominously as a formidable academic adversary to the old guard of the Ivy League. As such, I think it would be a top-flight place to get to work building a men’s lacrosse power, given that academic prowess also has accompanied on-field success (if that wasn’t obvious by the existing powerhouses mentioned previously). Stanford already has a well-established women’s program, which has made the NCAA tournament three of the last five years, and certainly would hold a solid draw for recruits across the country. Conference-wise, it could jump into its new, nonsensical home in the ACC, or - and this is where my plan comes into play - we see the birth of a new, western-focused DI men’s lacrosse conference to cut down on travel costs and build regional interest in the sport. With the existing teams of Denver, Utah, and Air Force, adding Oregon, Colorado, and Stanford to the IMLC (the Intermountain Lacrosse Conference, let me know what you think), the conference would hit the six team mark, and viola! An automatic qualifying bid awaits in the national tournament. I’m licking my metaphorical chops.

Vanderbilt University
I have one final school on my list, which sits apart from the rest of the dreamers in that it falls more in line with the old school blue-blood programs: Vanderbilt. While lacrosse isn’t huge in Tennessee, its proximity to the East Coast lends this option a sense of greater legitimacy than my other dreamer picks, and like Stanford, its academic reputation sets it up for immediate potential. Of course, it would have to figure out a conference solution, as the SEC certainly isn’t going to touch lacrosse anytime soon, the newly formed IMLC isn’t going to want to touch it. The women’s program currently lives in the AAC, but that doesn’t exist for the men’s side just yet so back to the drawing board. My more cautious instinct tells me that the Atlantic 10 may be interested as it already holds a southern footprint in Richmond and High Point, but honestly I could also see the ACC as willing to take the Commodores on as an associate member. Remember, this is just for the lacrosse program - there’s no way in hell Vandy would leave the SEC barring a forcible removal by Greg Sankey and the powers that be. If you have qualms about affiliate memberships and creative solutions, maybe lacrosse isn’t for you - Johns Hopkins, for example, is DIII in everything but lacrosse, where it plays in the BIG10. Wrap your head around that.
Do I think any of these will happen? Not really. There was some interest in seeding a program at UConn back in 2017 floated by a major donor, but seeing as that was eight years ago and there’s been zero movement since, I’m not holding my breath. Still, a man can dream. If this in any way sparked your curiosity about college lacrosse, please let me know - I’m desperate to talk to anyone else besides the six other people who watch.