Fate of the FOGO: How the New Shot Clock Rule Affects the Faceoff
Win the clamp, scoop up the ground ball, safely get it to an attackman, sprint back to the box. Breathe.
Repeat.
Those were once the main responsibilities of a faceoff athlete – or a faceoff, get off athlete (FOGO) – as it was appropriately named. But the days of the FOGO are dwindling. As only eight starting spots at the stripe exist professionally in outdoor lacrosse, more skill became required from these athletes over time, especially this PLL season.
“I’ve always hated the term FOGO because it’s so old school. We used to call guys FOGOs when they literally couldn’t catch and throw and all they could do is sit on a knee and clamp,” former Redwoods faceoff athlete and seven-time All-Star Greg Gurenlian said.
With the Premier Lacrosse League’s new 32-second shot clock rule, the term “FOGO” may never be used again.
Before the 2023 season, the PLL changed the shot clock following a won faceoff from 52 seconds to 32 seconds.
The 52-second shot clock is still in effect, but begins after the first 32 seconds of play when a defense forces a turnover or shot-clock violation. With the new rule, faceoff athletes find themselves playing offense and defense as the 32 seconds wane and there’s not enough time to sub off, essentially killing the notion of the FOGO.
Trevor Baptiste, Atlas’ faceoff athlete and the 2022 MVP, stayed on the field for minutes at a time through the first three weeks of the 2023 season, but he felt the effects of the new rule immediately.
“There was one stretch in the second quarter [against the Redwoods in Week 1] where we were on the field for like three minutes straight. It was back and forth, up and down. Faceoff, then into another faceoff. It’s a lot,” Baptiste said. “I was definitely tired in that moment. Sometimes you just don’t have enough time to sub and you still have to get something out of that possession.”
It’s a balancing act. Sub out too soon, stay in too long or don’t do your part on defense? Then you’re “a liability,” Gurenlian said.
Become that, and you’re “one or two bad games away from never playing again.”
This is the pros, after all.
With only eight teams in the PLL, everything is matchup based. When Gurenlian was playing against a more athletic faceoff opponent, he would make sure to closely guard his guy and not just run off the field and leave his matchup open with an opportunity to score. If he went against a bigger, less mobile opponent, he thought the opposite.
“If I win, I need to keep this guy out here as long as I can and get him caught up on defense because then he’s a liability,” Gurenlian said. “For Trevor, how he plays against TD Ierlan (Redwoods) or Petey LaSalla (Whipsnakes) is going to be way different than how he plays against Connor Farrell (Chrome).”
The faceoff position requires more speed, smarts and power than it did a year ago, when faceoff athletes had more time and less pressure to make a play.
Luckily for Atlas, it has Baptiste, who is 65-87 (74.4 percent) and grabbed 38 ground balls – leading the league in both – this season.
Because of that, Atlas coach Mike Pressler said he puts short sticks on the wings, anticipating setting up the offense and knowing “Trevor’s going to win a majority of faceoffs and if we lose it, we can still get our LSM on the field.”
But with the new rule, which Pressler said so far, he isn’t a fan of, tons of questions follow even with a wunderkind like Baptiste.
“If you’re going to leave him out there after every faceoff win, that doesn’t mean you score,” Pressler said. “If you turn it over or a goalie makes a save, what does he do? Does he run in the hole and play defense, does he run off for substitution? You’re asking so much more of your single faceoff guy that you’re carrying on your roster. We’re not even in July yet, and in some of these places it’s going to be super hot and super humid.”
Gurenlian, however, “loves” the rule because it “will incentivize kids to continue to work on the rest of their game,” he said. While not any position player can step up to the faceoff, the faceoff athlete will have to slot into offense or defense, and play well while doing it.
Remember, “you can’t be a liability.”
So, where does that leave the FOGO?
“You want to get the guy who’s the best at getting you the ball,” Gurenlian said. “But if you have the choice between him and a guy who can get the ball and do other things, that guy is going to be more attractive from a draft or signing standpoint.”
Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse: add FOGO from transfer portal
As the summer of the transfer portal has progressed for the Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse program, Gary Gait and his staff have added a number of players who figure to feature prominently for next year’s team.
Despite all the activity, there was one glaring team need that remained unaddressed.
That changed earlier this week when the Orange added the FOGO that they so desperately needed via the portal, as former Canisius FO specialist Johnny Richiusa announced via his Instagram his intention to transfer to SU.
instagram.com/p/CgKl_95uE2w/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading” data-instgrm-version=”14″>
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by @johnnyrichiusa_13
Richiusa is coming off a solid freshman season for Canisius in which he finished with a .521 win percentage (149-of-286) and 104 ground balls (7.43 per game).
His winning percentage ranked him third in the MAAC, while his total FO wins and ground balls per game were good for second in the conference. He was named conference FO Player of the Week four times, and was named to the MAAC All-Rookie team at the end of the season.
The Rochester-area (Penfield) native will join a unit attempting the very difficult task of replacing Jakob Phaup as the Orange’s starting FOGO.
It’s not just that Phaup had a very successful year last season, finishing 11th in the nation in win percentage at .578. It’s that he was the Orange’s ironman of the dot in 2022.
After splitting face-off duties in the opening game blowout of Holy Cross with the since-departed Jack Savage and freshman Jack Fine, Phaup took every single face-off for SU the rest of the season.
In fact, he took 401 straight face-offs to end the season after that first game. In doing so, he set a program record for FOs taken in a single season (419) and took a whopping 96 percent of the team’s FOs for the season (419-of-438).
Simply put: that’s a lot to replace. It’s a lot of production. It’s a lot of effort. It’s a lot of wear-and-tear. Phaup was a fifth-year senior last year with a whole career’s worth of experience guiding him through a physically taxing season.
Is it fair to expect Richiusa, coming off his first year in the college game, to replace all those face-offs by himself? Perhaps not.
For comparison’s sake, Richiusa, as Canisius’ primary FOGO last season, did take 76 percent of his team’s face-offs (286-of-377). That’s obviously not a Phaup-level of face-offs, but honestly I’m not sure anybody should be taking 96 percent of his team’s draws these days unless he’s one of the elite FOGOs.
So, it may not simply be a case of adding Richiusa to the roster and plugging him in as the set-it-and-forget-it FOGO.