Fact: Nobody In College Sports Has Ever Had A More Ridiculous Freshman Year Than Notre Dame's Jordan Faison
Larry French. Getty Images.We've seen some great freshmen throughout the years. Trevor Lawrence won a national championship with Clemson football. Anthony Davis won a national championship, player of the year, and tournament most outstanding player in 2012 with Kentucky basketball. Johnny Manziel took the world by storm. Carmelo Anthony was the tournament most outstanding player on his way to winning a national championship with Cuse. Paul Kariya became the first freshman to win the Hobey Baker award while leading Maine to a hockey national championship in '93.
All of these guys, and so many more, had a massive freshman season. But the biggest thing to recognize there is the singular term "season".
Jordan Faison just wrapped up a couple of ridiculous freshman seasons. Plural.
First up was the fall with the football progrum. He was originally recruited to South Bend for lacrosse, but decided to walk-on to the football team. Maybe he wasn't the most highly touted football recruit to ever step foot on Notre Dame's campus, but he went from a walk-on to having the 2nd most receiving touchdowns on the team, and winning the Sun Bowl MVP.
Right after the Sun Bowl wrapped up, it was straight to lacrosse practice. He was a top-50 recruit in his class in lacrosse, so I'm sure the Irish had hopes of him chipping in here and there. But they were the defending national champions who returned 6 of their top 8 scorers from last year. And they also brought in Devon McLane as a transfer from Brown who was a 40+ goal scorer. So they didn't necessarily need Jordan Faison to be a key contributor all season long.
5th on the team in goals, 6th on the team in points, and turns out that scoring behind-the-back against Maryland is now his go-to bit. Because yesterday in the National Championship game, he pulled this one out.
Freshman year. 4 touchdowns and a Sun Bowl MVP during the football season, 22 goals and a national championship during the lacrosse season. Trevor Lawrence, Anthony Davis, Johnny Manziel, Carmelo Anthony, Paul Kariya. All of those guys had monster freshman years, but none of them even touched a lacrosse field after their season was over.
Facts are facts.