John Desko: 'Something Has To Be Done For The Sport Of Lacrosse'

Now that Syracuse has been eliminated from the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament, head coach John Desko has some free time on his hands. After watching Maryland get warned for stalling 10 times against the Orange in their 6-5 win last week, Desko's seen enough. Consider him the official champion of changing the rules of college lacrosse to make things better, faster, stronger...

"It’s hard for me to talk about the state of the game after losing to a team that played like they did," Desko said Wednesday. "But, you know, really something has to be done for the sport of lacrosse. It probably sounds like sour grapes from me, but all in all I don’t like the way teams are playing the game of lacrosse. It’s not great for the spectators, and it’s certainly not good for the game of lacrosse in general."

In his discussion with Dave Rahme, Desko sounds off on adding a shot clock in NCAA Lax. He also mentions that he would be in favor of getting rid of face-offs, or at least limiting them to the start of each quarter.

It's bold and there's merit to all of the ideas. The problem is, Desko couldn't have picked a worst time to jump on the bandwagon for both.

Syracuse isn't playing lacrosse right now because opponents stalled and held the ball as long as possible and they did so after besting the Orange's weak face-off specialists. So, if there's any two issues that Desko is going to come off sounding like a grump about, it's the need for a shot clock and the desire to cut down on face-offs.

If Desko really wanted to make people take note, he'd be calling as loudly as possible for those changes while the Orange are dominating them (and maybe he does do that). If there's no benefit in those rule changes for the Orange, it means that much more.

I'm not disagreeing with Desko, I think it's painfully obvious that NCAA Lacrosse needs a shot clock. I personally like the idea of face-offs after every goal, since that means in theory that you never have to give up possession if you're that good. But if they were limited, I wouldn't argue.

I just think he's going to be a more effective champion of these changes when they don't seem to favor him and his team so much.

Listen to Desko talk about it as well as other SU lax issues with Brent Axe. And by the way, while we're talking about changing things, can we go ahead and ban crap like those neon yellow sneakers?