ELynah Forum

Yes- quite true. We lack size and speed in the midfield (both Offensive and Defensive Middies), that will come back to bite us in the future. Princeton and Harvard's middies are bigger and faster on both sides of the field, they are young and also have recruited quite well in the next few upcoming classes, as has Dartmouth and Brown. Once the current senior class leaves, we do not have much size backing them up on Attack and in the Midfield. The game has changed- you need big, athletic middies to get up and down the field who possess hard accurate shots. Looking at our roster, we don't have a lot of that, other than AJ, who is out this year w/ an ACL- don't know what he'll be able to do next year. We really need to step up the '27 recruiting!

The recruiting has not ben stellar for the '26 class, when compared to our Ivy brethren.  I am assuming it's a combination of NIL (financial aid packages), sub par facilities, and the type of kids CB wants in terms of culture and team first attitude. However, I'm quite concerned going forward without having a couple of "5*" caliber kids in the class, while losing so much talent in the next 2 years. Hopefully, the new indoor facility will help! I've ben harping on this in the other fanlax forum, but have been told repeatedly, to not be concerned- we have enough talent. I'm not so sure about that, even Dartmouth has out recruited us in the '26 class!

As for Kelleher, it's not just the scoring, but the attention he attracts as soon as he steps on the field. Everyone else gets open space, and the team flourishes!

Agreed: let them score as much as they can. They need the confidence. I've been down on this team, but this was a signature win. Great for Swanstrom!

That's not my take away – I am making an observation from this particular game with 3 to 4 different defensive alignments that are just not right.

Once again- Cornell shoots itself in the foot. Lost a touchdown on one drive with a holding penalty on the Oline, now holding on the defensive back, gave Yale another shot at a touchdown from 4 yards as opposed to a third and like 20, after a sack. Not sure what's gonna change for this team, the coaching staff is new, maybe it's just the lack of talent. Unfortunately, there is also not help much by the coaching staff. I've seen at least 3 to 4 defense alignments that are terrible, wide openings for Yale, who of course, recognizes these openings and takes advantage of them. If it wasn't for this quarterback, this team would have no points.

Well, we picked up one more recruit! A midfielder out of the Syracuse area. One poster on the fan lax forum says he has a lot of potential and speed! Hopefully we add a bunch more, 3 total recruits isn't going to cut it. Almost the entire top 100 recruits are already committed, none to the Red! As I've stated before, we are going to have a rough few years in '26-'28, unless we can pick this up or get some impact transfers. We lose a ton of talent in the next 2 years.

There is no doubt the system has something to do with it. However, all I am saying is that we don't have the number of recruits that we've had in the past years, in this particular recruiting cycle. At least they have not put it out there yet. For some reason, they haven't even announced the entering freshman class, that's usually done by now, on the Cornell athletic website, even on Instagram there's usually a picture of the incoming class. Nothing, crickets.  As I stated previously I'm not railing against our lack of higher star recruits (although that will come to bite us in the butt in a few years). I'm just stating, we have a lower number of actual recruits in this cycle than we usually have by now, and the other IVY's, our peers, have all seemingly out recruited us at this point.

Agree- let's hope it turns our way soon!

The drop off will not be seen this upcoming season, we have the horses! 2026-8, will be tough if the recruiting doesn't pick up to the level of our peers in the Ivy. It's no wonder that Coach Moran's teams in the 70's won as much as they did- he got all the top recruits on Long Island and brought in the Canadians. Top it off with the great coaching ( which we currently have), made for championship seasons!

Yes- this is a bit disconcerting. We are usually right up there with Princeton and Yale for recruiting, we are now behind, even lagging in back of Dartmouth. We usually don't keep up with the $$$ (ACC, Big 10)schools, but the other Ivy's?? Something seems a little askew up in Ithaca!

Harvard just landed their 2nd 5* recruit!
A lefty attack from Deerfield! Described as follows: "a taller Jeff Teat"-
Oh well- maybe I'm over reacting about the lack of recruiting for this '26 cycle???

I assume we still have CB and JS as our coaches and they're not checked out, or asleep at the wheel?  ( I say this with just a bit of sarcasm)!

I have been doing the same thing Bill- As I've mentioned above, something doesn't seem right with the '26 recruiting. Dartmouth, just today, announced a 5* attackman out of Loomis Chaffee, P-ton w/ another 4* pole out of Culver Academy. Folks have said "it's early, we will get ours:...etc. Previously, by this time in the past 3 years, we've had loaded classes! We lose a lot of talent in the next 2 years, now we're being out recruited by Dartmouth!!! I'm not buying the "excuses" of wait and see, and we get lower ranked players who rise up; we don't have anyone , or at least anyone that's come public other than 2 previously mentioned recruits (a goalie and FOGO). Cornell hasn't even listed the current  frosh recruits in the published roster on the Athletics website. Also, as per usual, we cannot compete w/ ND, Duke, UNC and UVA for the premier players, now we're losing them to Dartmouth. We can' get the kids from NY/LI to commit- that should be our bread and butter. The Meinig Fieldhouse will be just opened when these '26 recruits get on campus- the lack of an indoor facility should not be a deterrent.

I hope that the coaching staff is still intact and presenting a cohesive picture of what it means to be a Cornell lacrosse player. This all doesn't seem right???

Also, I wasn't complaining about the goalie and Fogo recruits only being 3* recruits; my point was that based on the 2 recruiting classes ahead of the '26's, we really don't need another goalie or FOGO- we need middies, d-middies and attackmen to replace what we're losing in the next 2 years. Preferably, some with size, speed and athleticism to match up with what the other Ivy's are bringing in!

Ditto! As a former player and supporter of Big Red athletics for over 40 yrs now, I have been embarrassed by the charade Andy Noel let happen for quite a long time, even before Archer took the helm. He and the admins have let the stadium crumble, really never upgraded the team facilities, and never really implemented a proper conditioning program. This all lead to multiple years of poor recruiting and not enough depth with a ton of injuries making matters worse. Now, Coach Swanstrom has to right the ship and he's just stating the facts. He knew this going in, but welcomed the challenge. He just might have not realized how much of a challenge it is, until he's been with the team for the past 6 months or so! I wish him all the luck in the world, it seems that the new AD has his back, and more importantly the team's back!!! These kids and parents did no deserve this over the years, but hey- it got them into Cornell and they graduated with pretty good job prospects for the most part. I'm not really sure why Cornell has these issues, but I have to believe it's top down w/$$ and cents. They want a world class educational experience, they should want the same for the athletics program. Hopefully turning a corner with our new AD!!

Hope so-we lose a lot of talent next year and the year after, really need to load up in the midfield. It seems like we loaded up on LSM and close D in the last two years, need much bigger faster, midfielders, as well as D middies now! We could also use some size at attack, the smaller attack get beat up very easily.

Has Coach Buczek pissed off the usual HS stud prospects we usually see commit to Cornell by now for the Class of '30 Lax recruits? I say this tongue in cheek, but we are getting smoked on the recruiting front by most of the Ivy teams! Something seems amiss in Ithaca??? We have 2 3* recruits, at positions we really don't need-Goal and FOGO. We are even losing NY state recruits, to our competitors, I hope this is just an early aberration in this recruiting cycle?