Scoring seems to be way up this season. You can feel it. And I love it.
Brown, Syracuse, North Carolina, Duke, Princeton, Albany and Cornell are just some of the teams lighting up scoreboards.
Lacrosse is cyclical. The new movement is toward offense. Let's take a look at these prolific teams and discuss some scoring trends.
Brown is on fire, with an offense averaging 16.2 goals per game.
"We want to unleash our men and allow them to be aggressive," Bears coach Lars Tiffany said. "We are creating an environment that's absent of fear. Go at them in transition, use early offense while subbing and go right away in the half-field."
It's a style marking a convergence of ideology and talent.
"Assistant coach Sean Kirwan just arrived from Tufts, bringing years of experience with this fast pace of play," Tiffany said.
The Bears lead the country in ground balls per game with 43.6. They create transition opportunities and take advantage of them with attackmen Dylan Molloy, Kylor Bellistri and Henry Blynn.
The rewards outweigh the risks.
"Defensive fatigue can be a factor on those days, where our brief 15 seconds of possession are being countered by three minutes at the other end," Tiffany said. "So we need to be in better shape."
Albany led the country in scoring in 2013 and 2014 with 15.9 goals per game. They posted 26 against Canisius in a win Tuesday.
"My philosophy goes back to my high school days at Yorktown (N.Y.) under Jim Turnbull," coach Scott Marr said. "We played a free-flowing game that was built on pushing transition and loose balls off the ground."
What looks like chaos is actually organized mayhem.
"At Hopkins, I learned about the value and fundamentals of playing in a system," Marr said. "My thought process was to mix the two and develop a plan of playing freely within a structured system."
It's like old-school UNLV men's basketball.
"Lacrosse thrives on creativity and passion. It's not a football game, where every play is scripted," Marr said. "Lacrosse should be like hockey, where teams have a system but makes plays out of instinct and creativity."
Duke doesn't push transition like it once did, but its half-field sets power an offense averaging 16 goals per game.
"We try to establish a culture of all six players completely engaged," Duke assistant coach Ron Caputo said. "The one player counts on the other five, not the other five counting on the one."
Duke relies on sets, not plays. Players are taught to think on their own. They are given permission and options, not instructions. "With freedom comes responsibility," cautioned Caputo.
What also helps Duke is having the best players: previous stars like Matt Danowski, Ned Crotty and Jordan Wolf, and now Myles Jones, a once-in-a-decade-caliber midfielder.
Princeton averages 12.8 goals per game while shooting 36 percent.
"Offense is about movement and decision-making," coach Chris Bates said. "If you stand or are not crisp with movement, the offense stagnates.
"Bad passes or poor shot selection equals turnovers. We've worked hard to be better game managers."
Cornell shares that mindset — and scores 13.3 goals per game.
"Never allow the defense to set the pace of play," coach Matt Kerwick said. "We go where we want to go. We want to take 40, 55 shots a game, but not settle for shots outside our individual range."
North Carolina's wheelhouse is early offense: generating goal-scoring opportunities within the first 10 seconds of a possession. The Tar Heels average 16.2 goals per game.
"We attempt to put pressure on the opponents' defense before they can organize their schemes, slide packages and have their proper personnel on the field," coach Joe Breschi said.
It's an ambush. "There are so many well-coached teams out there, and it's difficult to score six-on-six," Breschi added.
This high-risk strategy works when the decision makers are savvy.
"We have two experienced attackman in Joey Sankey and Jimmy Bitter, who understand game management," Breschi said. Sankey and Bitter are unique matchups. North Carolina's style changes the momentum of a game suddenly, as it did in a win over Denver.
Scoring is up for a variety of reasons.
One coach asked me, "Where are the great goalies?" I haven't seen one yet this year. Just three had a save percentage above .600 in 2014. The vast majority (35) sat between .500 and .550, a number that would have had you benched in the 1990s. Goalies are looking like Swiss cheese.
Stick technology is responsible. Ball retention never has been easier. Shooting accuracy and power are lethal in all weather conditions.
The influx of Canadian and native American indoor players also has improved shooting percentages.
An unintended consequences of the new faceoff rule has been an increase in scrambles for loose balls, ending with big hits from the wings on a vulnerable faceoff specialist. This leads to nonreleasable fouls, then goals. I saw that happen Saturday in the Carrier Dome.
Look at the ranked teams — there are more stars on offense and not as many charismatic defenders. Can you name one shutdown defender?
The new over-and-back rule is a game changer. Once or twice a game, it can lead to a transition opportunity and a goal.
Referees and players continue to get better at restarts and getting the ball in play quickly without downtime. That has led to an increase in scoring chances.
One more element: Blame the weather.
"I think scoring is up because so many games have been played in snow," said Harvard (4-3) coach Chris Wojcik, whose Crimson score 13.7 times per game. "Goalies have not been able to see the ball."
Can the scoring trend last? Conference play offers a soothing component to the math. Players grip their sticks tighter in big games. Coaches yank on the reins.
It all makes sense until you analyze the data.
"Scoring is up from 10.08 goals per game for each team to 10.29 goals per game," said Patrick McEwen, a mathematician with Lax Film Room.
So about one-fifth of a goal per game. That's it? I sought out another expert opinion.
"Total goals have increased from 20.3 to 20.6," Matt Glaude of College Crosse said. "Shots have decreased by 0.2 per game, and possessions have held steady at 64 per game."
So scoring isn't really up by that much overall. Never let the statistics get in the way of a story.
Quint Kessenich covers college sports for ESPN and writes weekly for The Baltimore Sun during lacrosse season.