Inside Lacrosse Podcasts

The 2024 NCAA lacrosse season kicks off this weekend with 15 games on Saturday and three more on Sunday. D-Fly and Dixie are back to set the table on a pretty, pretty, pretty good opening weekend of action. With both guys still smarting from the Ravens loss, “Week Zero” is just the remedy.

Tom Abbott, the NCAA National Coordinator of Officials, joins Dan and Mark as our guest this week. Tom has officiated more than 25 NCAA Championship Weekends, and the legend shares his history in the sport and a few stories of some of his most memorable games. As two busy lacrosse dads and traveling officials, Mark and Tom commiserate over paying their dues as young referees, juggling spring and summer schedule demands and the toll officiating can take on aging body. 

Tom also provides great context in his explanation of the process of how rules changes come about in general and specific to this year’s new rules. The game continues to evolve for the better in ways that improve safety, game play and accuracy of calls.

Then it’s on to the game previews. Fifteen games on tap on this first Saturday of the season, including contests involving nine teams from the IL Media Top 20. Including these gems:

In a breakfast-inspired Give & Go, the guys enter a diner and select the ultimate morning meal from the menu.

In an age-old trope, IL's Terry Foy and Nick Ossello pick the over-under season win-total for each of the top 20 teams in IL's Preseason Media Poll. They also interview Notre Dame goalie Liam Entenmann, touching on topics like "fifth-year hips" and "Dublin Village."

1/26 D-Fly & Dixie: Let’s Get It!
As the official start of the 2024 NCAA lacrosse season nears, D-Fly and Dixie are back to set the table on another incredible year of wall-to-wall action. Next week (Feb 3-4) features so many good games worthy of your complete attention. So, the guys felt compelled to kick off the podcast season (in Week Negative 1?) with a season overview today.

In this show they touch on teams and players to watch as well as the new rules that will impact the upcoming season. D-Fly and Dixie comment on each team in the IL Media Top 20 and whether Notre Dame, Duke and Virginia have a stranglehold on the top three spots in 2024. Then Dixie puts on his official’s stripes to introduce the new rules about helmets, hits to the head and instant replay.

In a Ravens-inspired Give & Go, the guys choose their three all-time favorite Ravens ahead of the first AFC Championship Game in Baltimore since 1971. Also, will Taylor attend?!


About the D-Fly & Dixie Podcast
Featuring long-time friends Dan Flynn and Mark Dixon, the D-Fly & Dixie Podcast is a weekly show mostly about NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse. Attracting the biggest names and covering the biggest games, the podcast previews the upcoming weekend of action and drops every Friday morning during the college lacrosse season. But the show also weaves interviews with top-named guests in the sport, pop culture references, food and drink critiques, other sports talk and discussion of their lives as two old friends into every unique episode. The show is distributed through Inside Lacrosse, the premiere media company in the sport for the past 25 years.

About Dan and Mark
The two met as student-athletes at Johns Hopkins. Mark played attack and midfield for the Blue Jays, and has been a well-recognized voice in the sport for decades - most recently as the premiere TV analyst for the Big Ten Network. Mark’s knowledge and experience as a former player, coach, broadcaster, college-level official and father of two current Division I players allows him to bring an educated and well-rounded perspective as the featured personality on the show.

Despite growing up in a lacrosse “desert,” Dan is a highly-engaged, knowledgeable fan. Learning the sport on the hallowed Homewood grounds, he worked in college athletics for 15 years (all at lacrosse-priority schools) before moving on to a decade-long tenure at Inside Lacrosse as the director of business development and events. Dan’s insider knowledge of the sport’s culture and people, combined with his history with Mark and his love of the game as a pure fan, make him the perfect host and set-up man for Mark’s analysis. Dan also produces and edits the show.

In a special Christmas episode of the Tailgate Podcast, Terry Foy and Nick Ossello catch up on the news of the day (or more like the last month or so), including the recent sports program cuts at Lindenwood (including men's lacrosse), Dave Cottle's move to Navy and Mike Phipps' move to Maryland, and Tyler Buchner's transition from football to lacrosse at Notre Dame.

(2:16) Discussion on Lindenwood's Dropping Men's Lacrosse
(13:57) Dave Cottle's Move to Navy, Mike Phipps' to Maryland
(25:31) Tyler Buchner's Transition from Football to Lacrosse
(44:47) Banning the clamp on the face-off
(47:11) Congratulating Kevin Corrigan and Ryan Wellner for winning coach awards
(51:33) The White House endorsement of the Haudenosaunee in the Olympics
(55:10) Terry's observations from his fallball road trips
(1:04:09) Looking for a co-host for The Post Game Podcast
(1:17:23) Final thoughts and Christmas wishes

Goaliesmith's Andrew Gvozden joins IL's Dan Kaplan to discuss the depth and talent of the 2024 goalie class. Gvozden emphasizes the importance of being well-rounded and having strong fundamentals and provides advice for goalies navigating recruiting, including the value of film analysis. They discuss standouts like Tade Wynn, Graham Stevens and Ben Friedman, as well as other notable keepers like Timmy Piacentini, Grayson Manning, Carter Hagen, Buck Cunningham and Luke Arrighi. 

On the heels of Kevin Brown's Inside Lacrosse story on Friday that coaches at the IMLCA Convention discussed shortening the shot clock after a face-off win and outlawing the clamp, IL's Terry Foy talks to former Albany/Yale/Denver face-off specialist and former Rutgers face-off specialist Joe Nardella about the prospective changes, how big a deal outlawing the camp would be, what problem the coaches are trying to solve, whether FOGOs feel picked on and much more.

In the midst of counting down the Top 50 Men's College Lacrosse Players for 2024, IL's Matt Kinnear, Kevin Brown, Dan Kaplan and Patrick McEwen join Terry Foy to discuss their choices. Each submitted a ranking Nos. 1 to 50, then that was tallied to form the final list. As a result, they examine the players that each was particularly high or low on — though they start with a unanimous No. 1 and uniform Top 5.

As has become an annual tradition, IL CEO Terry Foy sits down with Premier Lacrosse League Co-Founder and President Paul Rabil to reflect on 2023 and look ahead to the league and the sport's future. They discuss the inaugural Championship Series, the World Lacrosse Championship and the :32-second shot clock before transitioning to the home city announcements. They expand the scope to the sport more broadly, including the Olympic news, Elevate 28, the state of college lacrosse, then conclude with a look down the road at the PLL's future.

IL's Matt Kinnear and Terry Foy discuss the news of the LA Hosting Committee recommending lacrosse for inclusion of the 2028 Games. They explain how the process got to this point and tackle the hot-button, including "Why Sixes?" and "What About the Haudenosaunee?" After working through the Olympic news, they discuss Florida State adding women's lacrosse, the fallout of the rule changes to women's lacrosse, the impending move of the 2026 NCAA Championship and the commitments of the No. 1 recruits in the 2025 class.

PLL Championship MVP Brett Dobson recaps his epic title-winning save and stresses the importance of being prepared for every shooter. The ultimate lax rat, Dobson also discusses his background from the Hill Academy and St. Bonaventure as well as the NLL's Georgia Swarm before divulging what he's learned from Dillon Ward's mentorship and what it's like being Mike Sisselberger's roommate on the road.