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2014 LACROSSE SEASON PREVIEW 6. Keeping Face Next: Coming Back for More

Keeping Face

35 years after a 1-year break from the faceoff, the value of the X is still debated

The year was 1978. Johns Hopkins had just won the national championship after Ned Radebaugh controlled 20-of-22 faceoffs, and officials knew a change needed to be made.

By 1979, the faceoff was eliminated from the college game. Instead, the opposing team took over at midfield following a goal. But that didn’t bode well with college coaches.

The very next year, the rules were switched back to the way they were before, and that’s the way it’s been ever since.

At a meeting this year, Syracuse head coach John Desko and other coaches discussed the status of the faceoff position going forward. Desko has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with the current system and the use of FOGOs (faceoff, get off).

His opinion on the matter has remained steady over the years. And last May, his team lost to Duke in the national championship game 16-10 after corralling just 9-of-30 faceoffs.



“We looked at the faceoff, and I don’t mean it as a knock,” Desko said, “but you probably have the team’s worst lacrosse player being the most important on the field and that’s the faceoff.”

Spencer Bodian | Staff Photographer

But coaches and players around the Atlantic Coast Conference don’t necessarily agree with Desko’s stance on the divisive issue.

Virginia head coach Dom Starsia was an assistant coach at Brown in 1979, which is the year faceoffs didn’t exist. After nearly every restart at the midline, one of his players would scurry all the way downfield and try to score.

It wasn’t the game he was used to. Something so dramatic requires time, Starsia said. The entire dynamic of the sport couldn’t shift that much in one year without some dissatisfaction.

“It was just so dramatically different for everybody,” Starsia said, “that lacrosse fans everywhere kind of freaked out and there was an uproar and so it got changed right back.”

Starsia says he can’t see anything similar taking place nowadays in college lacrosse. For Duke coach John Danowski, the faceoff is all he’s known since he started playing the game in seventh grade.

“It’s the only thing I’m familiar with,” Danowski said.

Desko’s championship teams in 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2009 all won more than 50 percent of their faceoffs, so the 35-year head coach has had many teams thrive at the X.

But last year, Syracuse won just 42.8 percent of its faceoffs. JoJo Marasco, Brian Megill and Co. carried the Orange to the championship game, but that’s when the problem finally came back to bite the Orange.

The FOGO has become a trend in college lacrosse. Bryant’s Kevin Massa torched Syracuse in the NCAA tournament, nearly guiding the Bulldogs to what would have been a stunning upset in the opening round.

Massa won 22 faceoffs. Syracuse won just one.

Now you have a guy who doesn't play offense or doesn't play defense, but might have the most effect on the outcome of the game.
John Desko, SU head coach

In the championship game, that player was Brendan Fowler, who served as Duke’s FOGO. Whenever Duke scored, they’d get the ball right back more often than not. Desko said Syracuse was handcuffed and had to watch Duke play offense most of the game.

Fowler and UVA faceoff man Mick Parks, who come from the other end of the faceoff spectrum, are in favor of keeping the system as is. Fowler said it helped Duke get back in games. Parks said it brings out the toughness in a team.

“I obviously like taking faceoffs,” Fowler said. “It’s what I do.”

But Chris Daddio, Cal Paduda and the rest of Desko’s attempts couldn’t generate any success against Fowler or Parks.

Faceoffs were the reason Syracuse didn’t win the national championship.

However, a recent study by LaxPower.com found that success at the faceoff X does not necessarily correlate to success overall. The study said good faceoff teams garner 4.4 more possessions per game than the bad teams, which averages out to a one-goal difference.

X Marks the Spot: SU made the NCAA tournament despite finishing with a faceoff percentage of 42.

Teams with really good faceoff units contribute about one win per year, and teams with bad units lead to one loss, according to the study.

In fact, Duke won the first five faceoffs against Syracuse, but still trailed 5-0 early on before staging a comeback.

Starsia believes that’s not nearly enough of an effect to change the entire landscape of lacrosse. He doesn’t see the committee altering the rules like it did in 1978. There was too much negative feedback then and he could never see it happening now.

It’s all college lacrosse has ever known except the one year, and Starsia said the key is to work with what you have, even though some years are better than others.

“We’ve won championships when we’ve been very good facing off,” Starsia said. “We’ve won championships when we’ve been only OK facing off. You do the best with what you’ve got.”

  1. When Maimone and Radebaugh, playing for Hopkins in the mid 70’s, so
    thoroughly dominated faceoffs that they effectively tilted the field in
    Hopkins favor, the NCAA coaches voted to eliminate the face off for the
    1979 season. The arguments are the same now as they were then. A
    non-player, someone who does not play offense or defense, was having a
    disproportionate effect on the game. The coaches thought that the ball
    would be put in play with the goalie or a defenseman, so the scored-on
    team would have to clear the ball. That, I think, would have made
    sense. The NCAA made a last-minute decision to put the ball in play at
    the midfield instead, effectively getting the defense and goalie off the
    hook. It was very weird (I was still playing then), and nobody liked it.

    The same
    situation exists today. We have players who can’t do anything except
    this one skill, having a significant effect on the game. If somebody
    proposed that before every inning of a baseball game, two
    thumb-wrestling specialists come out to home plate, and the winning team
    got 4 outs the next inning, people would howl. But that is exactly
    what is happening in lacrosse now. If your faceoff specialist does not
    match up with the other team’s faceoff specialist, you are at a
    disadvantage….sometimes (e.g. see the NCAA championship game) a huge
    disadvantage.

    Time to once again get rid of the faceoff, giving
    the ball to the scored on team’s goalie, perhaps immediately after he
    pulls the ball out of the goal with no stoppage of play. That would certainly end post-goal
    celebrations, and perhaps get the ball moving up the field a little
    faster.

    Or, at the very least, make a rule that the faceoff has to be taken by somebody who was on the field when the goal was scored.