Every program in the country recruits in Texas. Starting in 2028, one of them will play there.
A week ago today, SMU confirmed months of rumors and announced it will launch an NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse program for the 2027-28 academic year. It will be the first in Texas and the sixth in the ACC.
The news wasn’t a secret. The timeline was the surprise.
“It’s a little surprising that they’re going to turn this thing around for spring of 2028,” Virginia coach Kevin Cassese said. “That seems quick, but I get the sense that if anybody can do it, SMU can do it.”
Moves like this don’t come along often. SMU will be the 78th Division I men’s program and the first school to add the sport since Iona began play in 2025. It’s the first Power Four school to do so since Utah in 2019, and only the fourth in more than 40 years, after Notre Dame (1981), Michigan (2012) and Utah.
“It’s needed because I think we’ve been a little bit stagnant in the growth of D-I,” North Carolina coach Joe Breschi said. “Not D-II or D-III, but certainly from a D-I standpoint, we’ve kind of been hovering around the mid-70s for quite some time. Obviously, they have terrific support from locals and donors to help kickstart it.”
That support starts at the top. University president Jay Hartzell, who left UT Austin to lead SMU in 2025, and athletic director Damon Evans, who came from Maryland last year, drove the effort. SMU has raised $15 million toward a $25 million goal, already has a lacrosse field and offers the academic reputation and resources to attract top players and a high-end coach.
“It adds one more AQ to the NCAA tournament structure,” said Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan, referring to the six-team minimum for conferences to receive an automatic qualifier. “I haven't done enough to research to see exactly what that will mean with where we are right now, but it is a second bite at the apple for somebody in the ACC.”
Texas has been on college coaches’ recruiting radar for years. Harvard and Michigan played a showcase game in Houston this year. Virginia and Towson played there in 2025. Corrigan Sports Enterprises is bringing an ACC vs. Ivy League weekend series to Dallas in March, with Cornell, Princeton, North Carolina and Syracuse competing in SMU’s football stadium.
“People love sports there,” said Jay Sothoron, who coached Episcopal School of Dallas for the last eight years. “And so that environment is going to be something that they've never experienced, even at a big lacrosse school, because it’s Texas. It’s no lie. They do everything bigger and they roll out the red carpet.”
SMU is located less than two miles from Highland Park, where former Duke and Bryant coach Mike Pressler has built a public high school powerhouse. Pressler advised SMU on the benefits of adding lacrosse.
“We haven’t had news like this in a long time,” he said. “We hit it for our sport on so many different levels and the next couple years are in particular going to be really, really exciting around here.”
Sothoron and Pressler both expect SMU’s addition to trickle down and boost high school participation in the state. Dallas, in particular, continues to see population growth, attracting qualified lacrosse coaches who have helped to build up the high school scene. Texas has produced increasingly more impact college players.
“You’ve got a huge network right in your backyard,” Pressler said. “The great teams from Houston, the great teams from Austin, and certainly you look at Highland Park and ESD and Jesuit, every year there's high-level Division I kids that would really consider staying at home if recruited.”
Greg Bice was an anomaly when he came out of the San Antonio area in 2000 to become an All-American at Ohio State. Chris Hipps was a part of Duke’s 2013 national championship team, then almost 10 years later Nakeie Montgomery starred for the Blue Devils. Maryland’s Dan Morris, Princeton’s Bear Goldstein, Virginia’s Cade Saustad and Navy’s Pat Skalniak all hailed from Texas. Virginia has four players from Texas on its 2027 roster. Stockton Steward is a highly regarded Class of 2027 attackman and Wayte McKnight is one of the best attackmen in the Class of 2028.
“Every program in the country recruits in the state of Texas,” Breschi said. “There's great talent down there and the opportunity for them to keep some homegrown talent is pretty cool.”
The top player in the women’s game, Dallas native Charlotte North, played at Episcopal before launching her college career. She sees Texas becoming a hotbed for the sport.
“The lacrosse community in Texas has grown tremendously over the past decade, and while we are still battling for it to become a sanctioned sport at the high school level, this is a huge opportunity for the sport and for the athletes in the state,” North said. “Young players will now be able to get a sense for what a high Division I ACC lacrosse program is like right in their backyard, at a school that has tremendous athletic resources and a really strong academic program, in one of the best cities that there is.”
North is excited that SMU has also considered adding women’s lacrosse. The ACC already has 13 women’s teams, and SMU would further stretch the conference’s geographic reach with teams up and down the East Coast along with California, Louisville, Notre Dame and Stanford.
“It would be a tremendous add to our conference,” Duke women’s lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel said. “Getting a Division I program in the state of Texas is a win for our conference as well as the sport. But as of right now, it looks like they're ready to move ahead with men and that maybe the women are going to follow down the road at some point.”
A report by Inside Lacrosse indicated SMU could add a women’s lacrosse team in 2031 or 2032.
“I hope that the women’s program is added shortly,” North said. “Because they would absolutely contribute to the success of the ACC and growth of the women’s game in Texas.”
Men’s lacrosse is the first new sport SMU has added since 2003, when it began women’s equestrian. SMU also has women’s cross country and track and field without accompanying men’s teams and does not have baseball. That gives SMU room to add a men’s sport and stay compliant with Title IX.
“Division I lacrosse has had a really hard time growing, particularly at the Power Four level for obvious reasons,” Corrigan said. “With gender equity and that equation being what it is, it’s been a hard slog for us. It’s great news for our sport and great news for our conference.”
Senior associate athletic director Ryan McCabe is charged with overseeing the program’s launch. SMU is trying to move faster than most recently added programs.
Utah announced in June 2017 it would start playing in the spring of 2019, and had its first head coach, Brian Holman, in place a month later.
Iona announced in August 2022 it was adding men’s lacrosse, hired Chad Surman that October and did not debut until 2025.
SMU had its sights set on Princeton head coach Matt Madalon, who led the Tigers to the NCAA championship this year. Madalon informed his team Saturday, however, that he decided to stay. Princeton issued a statement on his behalf.
“I appreciate the interest shown in me, but I have chosen to stay at Princeton,” Madalon said in the statement. “I told our team before we left for our trip to Italy that they were the ones who put me in this position and I ultimately made the decision to stay with the people in that room and continue to coach them and work with our amazing staff. Thank you to SMU, and I wish the Mustangs the best as they launch their team.”
If nothing else, going after Madalon demonstrated how serious SMU is about building a program that’s capable of winning ACC and national championships.
“We’re being thorough in our search because this hire sets the tone for everything that follows,” Evans said in an email to USA Lacrosse Magazine. “We want a coach who can recruit, develop and build a culture that wins in the ACC. We’re not there yet, but we’ll have more to share soon.”
SMU already has a designated lacrosse venue — Crum Lacrosse and Sports Field, which was built for its club teams in 2016. Part of the $25 million will go toward renovations. With the infrastructure in place and the search for a head coach expected to wrap up soon, the next step will be to build a roster.
“Now you have the potential of 48 new opportunities for kids to play the sport and get an education,” Duke men’s lacrosse coach John Danowski said. “You also have the opportunity perhaps for four more — I don’t know how many they’re going to have — coaching positions. So that's great opportunities for people. It'll be fascinating to watch, but my first impression is it's going to create more opportunities.”
Speculation about SMU’s ability to compete quickly is fueled in large part by a talent-rich transfer portal that could bring in a foundation of veterans. Already in the portal are a boatload of the best Ivy League players from last spring who will have a fifth year of NCAA eligibility under the NCAA’s new 5-in-5 rule but are still limited to four seasons by the Ivy League.
According to Inside Lacrosse’s Terry Foy, three Ivy League players had already committed to SMU by the end of last week — even in the absence of a head coach.
“Some of the other programs that have added lacrosse, obviously before the transfer portal era, it took a little bit longer because you have to do it through natural recruiting. That takes an extra couple years,” Cassese said. “When you can have the benefit of a healthy transfer portal, you can build out that roster pretty quickly. In the roster cap era, there's so many kids in the transfer portal, but there's actually very few spots available.”
With its academic profile and graduate programs such as the Cox School of Business, SMU is a natural landing spot for Ivy League players.
“For a program that doesn't necessarily have a roster at the moment — maybe a few club guys here or there — they have the ability to really kind of go hard after the portal,” Cassese said. “I think it helps them tremendously.”
Among Ivy League stars already who will play their final Ivy season this spring before using a fifth year elsewhere in 2027-28 are Tewaaraton Award finalists Willem Firth (Cornell) and Nate Kabiri (Princeton), first-team All-Americans Jack Stahl (Princeton) and Tucker Wade (Princeton), second-team All-American Cooper Mueller (Princeton) and all-conference players Ben Beacham (Penn), Cole Cashion (Yale), Will Cohen (Dartmouth), Ryan Goldstein (Cornell), Anthony McMullan (Penn), Luke Michalik (Yale), Peter Moynihan (Yale), Davis Provost (Penn), Jack Speidell (Harvard), Matthew Till (Penn) and Matthew Tully (Cornell).
Two notable non-Ivy League names in the portal are Georgetown defenseman Ty Banks and Villanova long-stick midfielder Jake Melchionni, both All-Americans.
Said Danowski: “I'm sure that it won't be long before SMU will be very competitive.”
