1) Maryland
After falling to ND in the natty, the Terps come into 2025 with a laundry list of transfers: known freak Bryce Ford, Matthew Keegan (bing legend), 6'5 225 DIII Middie-of-the-year Jack Dowd, and Noah “Big Beauty” Armitage. Defensively they return McNaney in cage and welcome transfer AJ Hernandez who returns to his home state after not getting his dick wet for a whole year at Navy. Their biggest question will be at the dot with Weirman graduating, but I reckon between Keethler, Creter and freshman Carrier, someone will emerge.
2) Penn State
A bit of a sleeper at 2 here considering the loss of Posey and Malone, but I have word that Tambroni’s staff is high on Kyle Lehman’s development after he refamiliarized himself with his ex girlfriend and has been on a tear all fall. Despite laying a fucking egg for Team Upper Decky at War at the Shore, Rutgers transfer Jack Aimone should be very solid for the nits. Sam Sweeney’s 2nd cousin Sydney will keep the boys dialed and their horns wet. Expect Alex Ross and Jack Frac to be all Americans, and Pup Buono to either join them or drop out midyear to seek out niche variants of Japanese Beef.
3) Johns Hopkins
Other firms have them at 2 but with the losses of Angelus and Degnon on attack and Crawley at OC I am less keen. Much of their success depends on if we see the 2023 Monkey wrench cock version of Russell Melendez or the 2024 guitar playing fairy that disappeared in big games. Russ will need to step up for his senior year if Hop has any chance to play on Memorial Day. Their defense, anchored by Scott Smith and Loyola transfer Luke Staudt in cage, will keep them alive if all else fails. Expect great things from Big Matt Collison, sleeper Brooks “Sauna freak” English and Certified Chill Guy Pat Hackler from Yale.
4) Michigan
These guys are poised for a solid year. Losing Michael Boehm is notable, but with Ryan Cohen, Bo Lockwood, and DIII transfers DJ “Cider” Dixon and Will Byrne, the offense looks to be in great shape. Defensively, Princeton transfer Pace Billings joins nailgun Kees van Wees who was blackballed from All-America honors after hit sticking Uslacrosse’s wonderchild McCabe Millon. I’m hearing that the team got a 76% makeout kill rate at Skeeps this fall and has been riding mopeds wearing their umich lax lids. Michigan is steadily improving, and winning the last 2 B1G tournaments shows they shouldn’t be slept on.
5) Ohio State
Just as most other teams on this list, OSU bolstered their offense with transfers, with Griffin Turner (Hofstra), Ryan Donnery (qpacc), and the Umass duo of Shane “Lucky dick” O’Leary and Mason Bregman. Bergman, who is expected to make an immediate impact, allegedly hooked up with Will Howard’s sister after their home opener vs Akron this year. Defensively, the return of Bobby van Buren fills the void of PLL draft pick Marcus Huggins, and Big tasty is back in cage. After 2 straight 9-loss seasons, the Buckeyes need to figure it the fuck out, but they definitely have the pieces in place to do so in 2025.
6) Rutgers
To round out the list, Rutgers has the most question marks on this list and the most room for improvement. Without Ross Scott and Shane Knobloch, their offense looks to younger guys like Haydn Sommer, Greyson vorgang, and JJ Aiello, and returners Logan Peters and Dante Kulas to step up. They have 2 high caliber d3 fogos running the show, I’m interested to see how they fare. On defense, Cardin Stoller is good and Tommy Mendyke is great. If they can minimize time at dragons getting kick backs from Cris cab for losing games, they should be able to move up from the 6 spot by years end.