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SALT LAKE CITY — As midfielder Josh Rose walks around the University of Utah campus donning a red shirt that reads "Utah lacrosse" on the front in bold letters, it's not always obvious to onlookers that he's a Division I athlete.
The shirt, alone, could be a dead giveaway, but it's not always enough to highlight a program that is only in its fifth season as a university-sanctioned sport. In June 2017, the University of Utah's board of trustees approved men's lacrosse as its newest sanctioned sport to begin in 2018-19, making it the westernmost Division I program in the country.
But even after five full seasons of lacrosse being an officially-sanctioned sport at Utah, there's plenty that aren't aware of its existence.
"It's been interesting, honestly, since being so new," said Rose, who is also a captain on the team. "People are like, 'Oh, we have lacrosse team,' or they think I'm on the club lacrosse team. But it's been super cool being able to play in the stadium, seeing banners on campus of marketing and trying to get people to the games has been super cool."
After Utah's 11-9 win on Sunday over Air Force in the ASUN championship game, which clinched a spot in the 17-team NCAA Tournament for the sport, it's become harder to ignore the program's presence on campus. Men's lacrosse becomes the latest Utah program over the 2022-23 academic year to win a conference championship and represent the university at the highest level of the sports in college athletics.
"It was incredible," said head coach Andrew McMinn, who is in his second season with the program. "Just so deserving for those guys. I mean, with the work that they've put in and how they've carried themselves throughout the year, I mean, it wouldn't have been right if it didn't culminate in that type of success.
"And, of course, it doesn't always work out that way, but these guys have just carried themselves at such a high level on and off the field for the entire season. It was just very well deserving, to say the least, for every one of those guys out there to be able to accomplish what they did (on Sunday)."
It's a remarkable accomplishment for a program that was a club team just six seasons ago. And yet, junior attacker Tyler Bradbury feels like the team deserves more respect given the success the team has had over the last two seasons, and winning is helping the team gain that respect.
"I think that we've kind of been under respected as a Utah program — with all the success of the ski team and the football team, women's volleyball, women's basketball — and I think this is really good for us to kind of show the rest of our school that we're a top player, too, and we can compete with anyone in the country," Bradbury said. "So it's been pretty cool and pretty rewarding to show everyone that we can do that."
Utah is riding an 11-game win streak and features the second-best scoring offense in the country as it prepares to travel to South Bend, Indiana, to take on the third-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish — a prominent team in the sport who needs no introduction and features the third-best scoring offense.
It's a chance for the Utes to take on a program steeped in tradition — they're "one of the big three ACC schools," Bradbury said — in a sport heavily dominated by east coast teams. And the fact that lacrosse has been dominated almost exclusively by east coast teams isn't lost on the players of the westernmost team in the country.
Within its own sport, Utah is still trying to gain some respect. As the only Power Five program in the west, Utah is carrying the banner for half of the country that has yet to fully embrace the sport at the collegiate level, even as lacrosse has become one of the fastest-growing sports at the youth level.
"I actually look at it kind of ... 'Hey, we're the westernmost team. We have nothing to lose right now. No one really expects anything out of us,'" Bradbury said. "Like let's just show them what we have. Let's be the underdog, show them that east coast schools don't rule lacrosse."
Bradbury, who is a native of Oak Park, California, has been carrying the banner of lacrosse in the west since he decided to switch from soccer and baseball. He'd never heard of the sport, but a P.E. teacher in school brought two players in to teach "the origins of lacrosse" to the class. So he gave it a try and fell in love with the sport.
"About two months later, I think, I quit both soccer and baseball," Bradbury said. "Everything else is just so slow once you start playing lacrosse, so I think that whole pitch got me enticed."
He's not alone; Utah's roster has several athletes from around the country just like him who adopted the sport and are now trying to prove that lacrosse can be dominant in the west, too. And with the popularity of the sport going nationwide, the west has a chance to make its name known, Bradbury said.
"As it pertains to the players, I think that the east coast, just with the history of lacrosse, those guys tend to have more skill; they've been growing up with their dads playing college lacrosse or whatever it is," Bradbury said. "On the west coast, I seriously think that we have the best athletes in the country. ... And I think when you have athletes coming into college, you can teach them the skills. You can't really teach someone to be a good athlete, and I think that's where we kind of have an edge."
McMinn, who was a goalkeeper for the Providence Friars in his college days, believes that the increased talent around the country has been one of the biggest factors for his team to be as good as they are so quickly. "There's all that much more of an opportunity to find very talented kids that can compete with the best of the best."
Now, his team gets the opportunity to perform on ESPNU against another high-powered offense, similar to the type of offense his team runs. But with six players who have scored 20 goals or more this season — Utah is the only Division I program in the country with that honor — he believes his team is equipped to handle the pressure of the game.
"That's the type of ball we like to play," McMinn said. "It's exciting for us and we get to go against teams that play a similar style — they don't push the pace quite as much as we do — but, obviously, they have some success offensively in all segments there. But it's just exciting to get into an opponent that we feel like we can play our style and really get up and down and run the field."
The Utes will play the Fighting Irish on Saturday (12:30 p.m. MDT, ESPNU).
