I think it's also important to consider the paths for men's lacrosse versus football since the last time football won a national championship.
In 1988/89 when Corrigan arrived men's lacrosse had only been a varsity program for 7 years. In those days the tournament was 12 teams with one automatic "western" (meaning west of the Appalachians) qualifier. With apologies to the folks on this board that played on those teams, the lax world viewed the western qualifier as a charity case. MSU, Air Force, and ND traded births in those early days, before Corrigan's program building started to change that.
In 1995, ND finally broke through in the tourney, beating Duke in the first round, and was a pipe shot away from a tie game late in fourth in the quarters.
In 2001, ND got to its first Final Four, ultimately losing to Syracuse.
In 2010, the Irish got to their first championship game.
All during that time, the sport was growing at the high school level all over, in no small part because of Kevin Corrigan's efforts. He took-- and continues to take-- the team all over--- Florida, Texas, California, Georgia-- to play games. And those efforts were coupled with a willingness to recruit anywhere. And look at the dividends:
Since 2001, ND has been to 8 Final Fours, 5 title games and won two titles. We've missed the NCAA tournament once since 2006, and that was because of a royal screwing. Since 2006, we've made the quarterfinals 15 times. After rough starts, we now have .500 or better all-time records against Syracuse, Hopkins, Maryland, North Carolina and Duke, some of the bluestbloods in the sport.
That rise has been coupled by an explosion of talent in the sport. There are players at D3 programs now who might have started at Michigan State in the 1990s if there was a similar level of high school talent back then. That may be an exaggeration but only a slight one. So in short, we're doing this against a much deeper talent pool than Syracuse or Princeton faced in the 80s and 90s.
If our football or basketball programs had enjoyed that kind of sustained success, Rock's House or The Pit might feel a little calmer too.