I disagree. Will be years before they get to that level. Look at Pitt so far. Will be interesting to see how they do their first season but I believe Pitt has a much better chance than Clemson does at reaching Top 20.
Not sure how fast either team will finish a season ranked in the Top 20. It's not that easy, I realize that the sport is growing but there is still a limited amount of top tier talent and the vast majority of that talent will most likely continue to go to the top programs.
There are a lot of great schools that have had women's lacrosse for a long time that have not been able to crack the Top 20 consistently. Just look at the programs that you must compete against in order to get the top talent / recruits:
North Carolina
Maryland
Boston College
Syracuse
Northwestern
Virginia
Princeton
Penn
Florida
Notre Dame
Penn State
JMU
Duke
Stony Brook - mostly for the Long Island kids.
Michigan - has been improving as well and has a lot to offer student athletes.
Throw in - USC and Stanford for players looking to go to school on the west coast.
For the most part the top HS players will receive offers from and be able to find their home at one of the schools listed above.
As stated above, there are a lot of great schools out there that have had women's lacrosse for a many years but they have not been able to bring in the same level of talent as the schools listed above.
You can have a great coach at a great school but at the end of the day you need to have the athletes/players in order to compete with the best programs. As someone once said, "It's not the X's and O's, it's the Jimmys and Joes” or in this case the "Izzy's and the Charlotte's".
