Why Kevin Corrigan doesn't care about UVA homecoming with Notre Dame in Charlottesville for championship weekend

It’s a homecoming for Kevin Corrigan in Charlottesville this weekend.

Virginia is where Corrigan played his college lacrosse in the late 1970s and it’s the last program at which he was an assistant before arriving in South Bend for what’s going on a 40-year stint as Notre Dame’s head coach beginning in the late 1980s.

Four decades is more than enough time to make a man forget his roots, evidently. The host site of NCAA men’s lacrosse’s 2026 championship weekend being Corrigan’s alma mater is of no consequence to him.

None whatsoever.

“In all honesty, I really don’t care,” Corrigan said. “It’s really not about that. It’s about this team that has one chance to win a championship, and this is it. And honestly, I don’t care if we were playing on the moon. We got hopefully 120 minutes of lacrosse and an opportunity these guys will never have again. That’s my and our entire focus.”

Corrigan has done a fine job of keeping the main thing the main thing during this Notre Dame (11-2) postseason run, which has included victories over Jacksonville, 18-5, and Johns Hopkins, 15-9, to date. So many people want to make the run about more than what this specific team has accomplished, but Corrigan won’t go there.

For instance, any time someone mentions this being the third time in four years Notre Dame is a part of the national semifinals and it could be the cementing of an Irish dynasty with another championship, Corrigan halts such chatter immediately. Shuts it down. He says this is the first and only time the 2026 Fighting Irish will ever be in the Final Four and that’s the only way he wants to look at it.

Be grateful for the now. Don’t be too fixated on the past.

Nothing that happened in 2023 or 2024 matters to this year’s Irish except for wanting to make the end result on Memorial Day the same as it was in those years. Just go win two more times. Then let history speak for itself.

The first of the two required wins must come against a team Notre Dame has already faced. Not home team Virginia, who bested the Irish twice. The Cavaliers were knocked out of the tournament early. It’s the Syracuse Orange (13-5), who Notre Dame took care of by a score of 16-11 in South Bend on April 25. Since then, Syracuse lost to North Carolina in the ACC Tournament then beat Yale, 16-15, in the first round of the NCAAs and got revenge on UNC, 13-11, in the second round.

Let Syracuse beating North Carolina two weeks after losing to the Tar Heels serve as a warning to Notre Dame — just because the Irish beat the Orange once doesn’t mean it’s destined to happen again. Corrigan is approaching this game the same way he’s approaching the tournament as a whole; prior results are not being leaned on as predictive measures.

“You can’t count on anything in the first game necessarily developing the same way,” Corrigan said.

Corrigan said information gathered on Syracuse via game planning and in-game experience will be used to Notre Dame’s benefit. It’d be foolish not to take what’s known about certain personnel and apply it favorably. Notre Dame must still play a unique game to advance to the national title. The Irish must be at their May 23 best, not their April 25 best that was good enough to send Syracuse home defeated a month ago. Different day. Different stakes. Different outcome possibilities.

Corrigan said Syracuse’s defense and goaltending is better than it was back then. And the Orange’s offense and face off ability can take over games. It’ll be far from a cake walk for Notre Dame.

“There’s only one way to prepare, and that’s for the very best that this team can play,” Corrigan said. “That’s what we’re looking at; what is the very best they can play in every aspect of the game and how do we overcome that anyway.”

It’s a testament to Corrigan’s professionalism, how locked in he is on the task at hand this weekend. His father was the head coach at Virginia. He’d often go to work with dad, immersing himself in Cavaliers culture and all things lacrosse from the time he could walk. That’s how it all started.

Nostalgia can be one heck of a drug. Sometimes, too powerful of one to overcome. Corrigan even sounded a little choked up Tuesday when he called his dad his “hero” for how well he set up his son to succeed in the sport. Corrigan wouldn’t be here, championship weekend, without ever having gone there, Virginia, which just so happens to also be “here” when the Irish show up in the coming days.

But again, this is not about Charlottesville for Corrigan. It’s just a host site. It’s not about Virginia. The Cavs aren’t even in the field, and Corrigan’s shirt doesn’t say UVA anymore. It says Notre Dame.

Notre Dame is what it’s been all about for him since 1988 and what it will all be about for him this weekend. Nothing else.