NCAA national rankings and the Big Four

Oh, meant to include this in my OP, a quote from this week's Chasing Glory:

"the institution of Title IX legislation in the mid-70s in America, designed to encourage equality for women in collegiate athletics, also carried a separate, unintended consequence. 'Men's Olympic sports just got killed,' says Bob Larsen...Soon, 35 scholarships for track and field were reduced to 24, then 14, and finally 12. With 21 track and field events at the NCAA level, schools had no choice but to cut back...'Not all schools supported distance running or cross country. As a consequence we lost our fan base as the talent began to cluster into just a few dominant programs. And that type of system does not develop talent long term.' [says Larsen]"

Could this year's slip by the Big Four, and the movement away from "cluster programs" really be the first signs of a system recovering from Title IX? And did Title IX really play that large of a role in the recession of American distance running?

Link to the article:

http://www.nyrr.org/races/pro/mens_trials/glory/week_6/monday.asp

Well, two of the programs pushing the 'big four' down are the Big Two of Oregon and UTEP - If you add them back in the dominance goes back even further, although you start to pick up programs like Western Kentucky. (Note also that CU is only listed as third in its region!)

In addition, programs like CU and UW do not run everyone and thus look not quite so good and it comes out in the polls (it is ok for the polls to discount those guys that are not yet running because the polls are just a beauty pageant anyway.

These comments aside, I know of one top runner who described it as a close battle of up to eight teams.

Someone out there ask WISCONSIN what being ranked #1 means. In something like 6 or 7 years its gotten them 1 Title!!! Thats it people, 1 Title. Ask Colorado what it means to not be ranked #1, 2 TITLES IN THREE YEARS!!!! And i dont care if your ranked 2 or 100th youre not #1 , so what does all this ranking stuff mean? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The only ranking that will matter is after each race on Nov 19 people. LOL you guys need to get a clue. If Wetmore prepared his team based on rankings, they would have any rings people. For that matter ask Butler about \'05!

ranksmank wrote:

Someone out there ask WISCONSIN what being ranked #1 means. In something like 6 or 7 years its gotten them 1 Title!!! Thats it people, 1 Title. Ask Colorado what it means to not be ranked #1, 2 TITLES IN THREE YEARS!!!! And i dont care if your ranked 2 or 100th youre not #1 , so what does all this ranking stuff mean? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The only ranking that will matter is after each race on Nov 19 people. LOL you guys need to get a clue. If Wetmore prepared his team based on rankings, they would have any rings people. For that matter ask Butler about '05!

Shut up, faggie.

Whats your point, I ended with "..the polls are just a beauty pageant anyway." [You have some point about CU finishing first a couple of times without being ranked 1st, but they were ranked 2nd or 3rd, which means those rankings were pretty good. You also seem to have an issue with Butler, but the comment is too vague to convey much]

ranksmank wrote:

Someone out there ask WISCONSIN what being ranked #1 means. In something like 6 or 7 years its gotten them 1 Title!!! Thats it people, 1 Title. Ask Colorado what it means to not be ranked #1, 2 TITLES IN THREE YEARS!!!! And i dont care if your ranked 2 or 100th youre not #1 , so what does all this ranking stuff mean? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The only ranking that will matter is after each race on Nov 19 people. LOL you guys need to get a clue. If Wetmore prepared his team based on rankings, they would have any rings people. For that matter ask Butler about '05!

Note on the women's side:

1. Stanford

2. Princeton

Both schools have Corona Del Mar High School alumni on their rosters.

Well I didn't think it was 05, but I know one year Butler ran out of their minds to be in the top 5 or so. They were ranked MUCH lower that year. I thought it was 04, but I can't find results.

Ranksmank I agree with you, though perhaps with less anger in my voice. I probably didn't make my original point clear enough-- it's not that the rankings themselves can be declared a major coup in NCAA distance running, but that they may signal the beginning of a new era in NCAA XC where nationals is no longer a battle of dynasties, where teams besides the Big Four have more than an outside shot at it.

Go back through the last ten years of results, and look at how often other teams crack the top two. Usually out of the Big Four none of them finish lower than around 6th or 8th. This year we could potentially see NONE of them in the top five. I don't think that will happen, but even still it makes nationals feel a little different this year.

The same thing has happened in other NCAA sports as well. There have been too many upset to count in Football this year.

In this instance, it might mark the return of teams deep in top foreign runners, plus the return of another team with similar pedigree to your listed big four. Of course, UTEP is one of those teams with a number of good foreign runners and they were the epitome of concentrated top runners -- they scored something like 17 points one year.