2027s Anonymous: How Top Evaluators View The Class (FREE)

On September 1, which falls on Labor Day this year, recruiting will officially open up for the '27 class after months of live evaluations.

In what has become an annual tradition while preparing the rising junior rankings, I had a long list of Division I coaches share their general (and anonymous) thoughts on the class, how things could shake out, and how each positional group looks. For reference, here's a look at last year's post prior to the initial '26 rankings drop.

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— “I feel like it's the initial reaction for coaches to be like, 'Oh, this group isn't as good as the previous one', it's crazy how consistent that comment is every year... I wouldn't say that I'm someone who compares and contrasts it with the class before it. Hey, this is the class we have, this is what is in front of me…. I try and take every individual class as its own individual entity.”

— “One of the main things that jumps out and is maybe a little different compared to the past few years is that there are more Canadians playing field lacrosse during the summer than I felt like there's ever been. It's an incredibly talented class of Canadians, mainly guys playing at boarding schools in the U.S.” 

— “Our list is the smallest one I've ever had in my career… What's kind of crazy is that, at least for the top guys, you almost have to go into 9/1 in a kid's top three to even get a visit.”

— "All we need sometimes is just a few top guys to make a class great, but other than the obvious ones, I don't think it's so obvious at all, which makes me nervous. Outside of the high-end kids, this is a class I really wish there was more time [to evaluate]."

“The attack is better than the midfield, and there's a bunch of very good lefties. Every two years, it feels like there's a surplus of lefties… One of the biggest trends we're starting to see, and part of it is the way the sport is being coached offensively, is that you're seeing a lot of attackmen who play above the goal line and are much more comfortable there… I don't know how many pure X attackmen and below GLE guys there are out there, so it's making those types even more prized because there are fewer of them. Of course, it's a positive in the sense that you can play them out of the midfield at the next level and you don't have to pigeonhole them…. At attack, I think there's a good amount of differentiation — if you're looking for a particular skill set, there's a variety represented, and certainly a good amount of high-level lefties but I'm not sure there's a lot of below the goal line guys who can play mostly at X.” 

“Overall, I think there's a lot of depth in terms of two-way middies… You're also seeing this trend at shortstick defensive midfield: more and more kids are willing to admit that that's what they are, and we're seeing fewer kids who don't know it yet…. It feels extremely light and top-heavy with goal-scoring midfielders, so in general, separating the midfielders is what I'm having a hard time with... In the midfield, it's similar in the sense that you have a lot of good players and you have to figure out what you're looking for because there's a lot of good to very good.... This midfield class grew on me a lot as the summer progressed."

“To me, I feel like this class has a lot of good face-off guys that are all pretty different… maybe we're not seeing the total game-changers like we saw in the '25 class, but there's depth at the face-off X, at least at our level… Depending on who you are and what else you have coming in, it's not the worst year to not take a [face-off] guy... There's enough variety at the face-off X, but not much separation."

“I think there's a lot of good defenders, but I don't think there's an alpha defender in the class, there's a lot of good and rock-solid but the gap between, let's say the No. 1 and No. 20 guy, isn't too big... With the defensive personnel, I just don't think they're as disruptive as we're used to seeing, so maybe they're not as noticeable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not a strong defensive group. It's just more nuanced to evaluate this group of defensemen…. my defensive list is triple the size it's been [in the past], for what it's worth… On D, it's similar to last year's class — there's not a lot of top-end depth overall, and definitely not as many No. 1 cover guys."

“It's fairly obvious that the strongest unit is the class of goalies; it's an extremely deep goalie class led by 10 to 15 incredibly talented kids.... There's a reason so many of these summer games were so low-scoring, right? This is one of the better and deeper classes of goalies that I can remember.... All of the Top 20 programs, if not more than that, will get a goalie that they will feel very good about potentially [starting] for several years.... Last year, a few of the ACC programs didn't even take a goalie and will now go all in on a top guy in the '27 class."