Notre Dame coach feels improbability of the championship moment

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse squad will play for a repeat National Championship on Memorial Day. On the road to that game against Maryland, the Golden Domers looked like both an immovable object and an unstoppable force.

However, there was a time when head coach Kevin Corrigan thought his team was going to fall well short. He believed that it was rather improbable that his Notre Dame squad was going to repeat. It wasn't because of a lack of talent but more about drive. Drive to do something they just did last year. That's why repeat champions are so rare.

“I talked to a lot of coaches this year and said, ‘What do I do? How do I avoid the kind of letdown of what happens after you win a championship?’” Corrigan told the media after Notre Dame's win against Denver on Saturday. 

Notre Dame Fighting Irish had to overcome complacency before anything else

“And the short answer that every single one of them gave me is, ‘You don’t. You can’t. It’s human nature. You’re not going to outrun that one or outsmart that one. You’ve just got to go through it."

“So that’s what we talked to our guys about." Corrigan added. "We’ve got to go through it. And we had a terrible fall — terrible in terms of results. Not terrible in terms of the amount of work we got done. I think that’s helping us now. But terrible in terms of our performance. We just got our butts kicked."

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse team also suffered an early season loss. And then they didn't lose again. They finished the season with a better record than in their 2023 championship season. And then they went on a postseason run that has them on the cusp of repeating.

In the process, the Notre Dame head coach learned quite a bit about his team. That's why he's confident they can retake the title.