Lindsey Ronbeck and her current Florida teammates have never lost a Big East conference game. 

And they won’t.

Their three-year-long streak will remain because the Gators are on the move again — out of the Big East and into the American Athletic Conference which is sponsoring women’s lacrosse for the first time this year. Florida was in the American Lacrosse Conference from its inaugural season in 2010 until it joined the Big East in 2015. 

“Obviously there’s the Big 10 and ACC that have the top teams that personally I’d love to be in, but when you’re moving from conference to conference and seeing familiar faces but also one or two new teams, there’s not a huge difference,” said Ronbeck, a senior attack. “The big difference and the thing that I care about is there are only six teams in the conference. That’ll allow us a lot of opportunity to play new teams out of conference that we haven’t been able to play before.”

Florida, an affiliate member, will join Cincinnati, Connecticut, East Carolina, Temple, and fellow affiliate Vanderbilt in the new AAC. They leave behind a Big East now shrunken to six teams and led by their top challengers over the last two years, Georgetown and Denver.

“Not being able to play teams like Denver and Georgetown in conference, it’ll definitely be different for us,” Ronbeck said. “I don’t think it’s too much of a concern. We’ve dominated the Big East all four years that we were in it, three for me. I personally think moving into a conference that’s similar is kind of important for us to not change in any big way.”

Not much figures to change for Florida in terms of competition. The Gators have won their last eight regular-season conference championships in a row. After going 1-4 in their first year in the ALC, they went 20-1 over the next four regular seasons before leaving for the Big East, where they were just as dominant. They were 31-1 in Big East regular-season play and did not lose a game in the last three years, including winning all four Big East tournament titles in four years. 

“Your goals never change,” said Florida head coach Amanda O’Leary. “No matter what conference you’re in, you still want to win. That conference championship is something you should strive for year in and year out. It doesn’t matter what conference that we’re in, that’s a goal to win not only the regular season, but also the conference championship. Those goals don’t change. 

“I’m super excited to join the AAC. It’s a new opportunity for us with some competition that we’ve played in the past, but this is a new opportunity for us and we’re excited to compete in it.”

Florida is 25-3 overall in games against teams that will be in the AAC. Vanderbilt owns two of those wins. The only conference that has had any success against Florida is the ACC, which owns a 14-8 record against Florida.

“If you look at the trending, you look at what UConn has done, what Temple has done, Cincinnati is coming along, and Vanderbilt, they’ve always had a really strong program, so I think moving into this conference, this is an upward trending conference with the teams that are in it,” O’Leary said. “If you look at the coaches, they’re some of the best in the country. It’s not like our conference RPI will plummet. It’s going to keep rising with the level of kids these teams are recruiting. I’m excited about it. When it all comes down to our conference, I think we’re trending up for sure.”

The Big East meanwhile loses its top program, but still has two NCAA tournament at-large selections from last year in Georgetown and Denver. Marquette, Villanova, Butler also remain with Old Dominion moving in from the Atlantic Sun Conference. 

“Going down to six teams makes it challenging with what to do out of conference,” said Georgetown head coach Ricky Fried. “That’s one of the biggest challenges with conference realignment is finding new opponents.”

Finding opponents is easier for Georgetown than Denver because of the Hoyas’ location in the middle of the East Coast. Denver head coach Liza Kelly said it will be hard for the Pioneers to schedule the maximum of 17 games. Until this week, she still had been hoping to play Florida as a non-conference opponent.

“I’m sad that we’re getting smaller,” Kelly said. “I liked the competitiveness. I also liked the ease of scheduling. That’s something that’s always been a challenge living out west is getting home games. I was definitely disappointed. We have a great six teams in the Big East, but I was sad some of those teams left.”

Denver slid into the Big East two years ago after playing in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, and aside from some long road trips, it’s been a good fit. 

“We knew the MPSF was going to fold,” Kelly said. “We knew the Pac-12 did not want to take affiliate members. I did not want to be stuck without being able to compete for an AQ. Internally, we talked about that it made sense to go to the Big East because that’s where the boys are. They seemed excited about it. That process moved really quickly. When they started talking about separating was when [East Carolina] was going to be added too. That’s when it seemed to get really big. Some of the core Big East teams maybe weren’t happy seeing affiliate members win. They need us as much as we need them right now.”

With fewer guaranteed games, Denver is scrambling to fill out its schedule with suitable replacements after conference realignment. 

“That’s always been our challenge,” Kelly said. “Whether you’re in the MPSF or Big East or any conference, every conference has the top teams that carry their RPI and the bottom teams that tend to hurt it. It’s not just replacing Florida, it’s making sure whoever you add, it’s not just dipping down too low to take away from a good RPI.”

Georgetown is lessening the loss of Florida from its schedule by adding Boston College. Fried admits it's guesswork gauging how good opponents will be, but looks at what each team offers in several areas. 

“You have the RPI piece, the competitive piece, you have the budget piece,” Fried said. “Balancing those is how we managed it. Geographically where we are helped us pick up some other teams.”

Taking away the top team in the Big East may hurt the conference RPI some, but the conference has all that Georgetown is looking for.  

“Back in the day, it was awesome,” Fried said. “You had natural rivalries. That’s changed a bit because of the restructuring. Having the ability to gain the automatic is always going to be an important part of what happens. We increased our chances with Florida not in the conference because they’d beaten everybody the last four years. That will only make us a little hungrier and add a little extra incentive.”

O’Leary loves the challenge of playing in a new conference and finding some new opponents. She is working to schedule tough opponents out of conference.

“That’s probably the biggest challenge,” O’Leary said. “When we went from the ALC which only had six teams in it to the Big East that had eight and then 10, and now we’re shifting back to a six-team from being in the Big East, so there’s holes in your schedule or the opposite and you have to drop some teams. The scheduling situation is probably the biggest challenge.”

Ronbeck never gave the conference that Florida played in much of a thought when she was selecting schools. She followed it from afar as a high school recruit when the Gators last loss a conference tournament championship to Northwestern in the 2013 ALC.

“I knew the ALC was a pretty decent conference and I knew Florida had a tough time clinching that win against Northwestern,” she said. “I was pretty excited to be going into a tougher conference, but then we moved into the Big East.”

Now Florida is moving again, it is retaining a chance at an automatic qualifier for the NCAA and maintaining a tentative non-conference schedule loaded with Top 20 potential. It includes Colorado, Maryland, Loyola, Navy, Elon, High Point, Syracuse, UNC, Princeton and Stony Brook. That lineup should be challenging enough for Florida and Ronbeck, one of four All-Americans returning for the Gators.  She returns for her final season after missing three games last year in mid-season due to a knee injury. Without her, Florida’s offensive production fell off 3.5 goals per game, and it picked right back up when she returned to help the Gators go 17-4 and reached the elite eight of the NCAA tournament.

“Me and the rest of my team all agree having a tougher schedule throughout the season is so much more beneficial to us when it comes to the NCAAs because we’ll be used to fast-paced game situations and seeing tough teams that we won’t normally see in our conference,” Ronbeck said. 

Florida could remain nomadic because just like Vanderbilt and Denver, it is an affiliate member of a conference. That won’t change for Florida unless the SEC adds women’s lacrosse.

“We always knew we’d be an affiliate member until that day the SEC has the opportunity, if ever, to host a conference,” O’Leary said. “That’s a mindset we’ve all had.

“I’m optimistic because the Pac-12 was able to get together a conference and a conference championship,” she added. “There’s always that hope that the SEC will sponsor women’s lacrosse. The unique thing is they have very good club programs. They’re very strong in the club program and very competitive. I follow club lacrosse, the men and the women, and they do very, very well in that arena. I’m optimistic. I don’t know when or if it will happen. I know club-wise, they do really, really well. That’s our hope is that they see how well their club teams are doing and if they’re going to add a sport, that lacrosse would be the one that they’re going to add.”