Acrosse the College Lacrosse Polls: February 25, 2013

These pieces are usually more substantial, but as everyone is still kind of idling in the driveway, it's really hard to make internal combustion when you're just holding a can of gasoline and a bucket of screws. So, you get what you get at this point.

The media and coaches polls are out and while there isn't unanimity at the top of the polls, there is clarity: Maryland, after breaking one off in a special region of Loyola's being, sits atop both tallies. Notre Dame hauled in four first-place votes in the media poll and the coaches threw one first-place vote to both the aforementioned Irish and Johns Hopkins. This is the world we live in.

Every team has finally ran out on a (probably frozen) field at this point in the year for a regular season game, so everything is moving a bit from preseason expectations to reacting to actual performances in games. That's a good thing, I think, and it means that stuff is starting to focus a little bit. Below is an aggregation of both the coaches and media polls. I'm holding off on featuring computer-type rankings until we get a little deeper into the season. If you'd like to see how I voted this week, click this fancily-highlighted text on your Internet computing machine.

Some thoughts:

• I'm not really sure what Ohio State has done over the last few weeks to rise in the polls, especially an average of three-and-a-half positions from last week's aggregation. The Buckeyes remain undefeated, but they played groggily against Detroit, let Jacksonville hang around at the Moe's Classic, and eventually hammered a Division I newbie. I'm not saying that Ohio State can't be impressive this season, it's just that they haven't really done anything to move them up substantially in the polls. If the Buckeyes beat or play Penn State tough on Saturday, I'll join the bunch that is pushing Ohio State's ascension. Until then, though, I remain cautious and will doomsday prep as necessary.
• There are clumpings in the rankings, but it's not as well defined as last week. You can see a clear pecking order among the top five, but then things become a bit of a mess: Cornell, Virginia, and Massachusetts exist in their own space; Penn State is wedged between that group and the Colgate, North Carolina, and Denver cohort; then there's teams just kind of existing around and behind the top 15 or so (this is basically a graveyard for teams with untapped potential and schools that haven't impressed at the start of the year but began the season high in the polls). That's kind of the story of college lacrosse right now: You feel comfortable with who the strongest teams are at the moment, and then it's just blood leaking from your ears the rest of the way trying to slot teams.
• Conference breakdown: ACC (four); ECAC (four); Big East (two); Independent (one); THUNDERDOME! (three); Ivy (three); Patriot (two); and America East (one).

What do you guys think about this? Okay or no-kay? The comments, they are yours.