NCAA at-large bids are at stake and the NCAA Cross Country Rules Committee needs to remove Wisco from Louisville results

Disqualify every team who ran. I heard they didn't run their best because they're training to race for regionals and nationals.

Give me a break guys. I've usually enjoyed your fanaticism but to say the integrity of the sport is on the line is absurd- this is how our sport is. We race one or two races a year.

Love the "thoughtexperiment" post above, even as a brief fantasy... that would be just too funny.

Why is this SUCH a big deal?

In high school we do this too. Why would I tell my lead girl who can run faster than others to lead the entire time when she doesn't need to??

She sometimes ask why I hold her back in races, the simple fact is there is a bigger picture here and it shouldn't be frowned upon.

Maybe its a coaching strategy, maybe they're training through. Who cares. Let programs operate the way THEY want to operate.

I thought some of those Wisco boys demonstrated some true discipline.

How about we get rid of Auto-Qualifiers at regionals then? Make entry to nationals based on a cumulative point system a la the USARC series.

Have the NCAA choose 25-30 meets during the season that serve as points meets and only count 2-3 of those meets (per team) as their season total. (This would help equalize smaller budget teams that can't afford to travel more than a couple of hours.) Tie breakers would be based on average finish place, # of races run that season, and if still tied there would have to be a pancake showdown. Most eaten as a team in 10 minutes makes Nat's.

Its ridiculous to compare not trying that hard to other sports and to call it forfeiting. If a track team doesn't run their A 4x4 at every scored meet, are we saying that the team forfeited the meet? Of course not. If a jumper doesn't take all 6 of his jumps and is content with 3rd place at a meet, its not a problem. Why does a XC team have to run balls to the wall every time they race in order for it to "count"?

Ok, let me respond to a few posts here.

We aren't saying Wisconsin needs to be penalized. Just DQ them. The way the NCAA system works it doesn't matter if Wiscon was first or last in that meet. They're going to NCAAs so they could care less if they were DQd.

We too would like to find a better process for qualifying for NCAAs, but in the interim, this is a temporary solution as the wins over Wiscon shouldn't impact the at large process. If someone has a better way to qualify, please post it.

Ok moving on.

Yes, forms of this happen but as you said this was blatant. As you said it was flaunted. That's the way sports work. If you hold a guy in the NFL sneakily, no one calls it, but if you clip him wide open in front of the goal line, you get the flag.

But you misunderstand the reason why we and others are outraged by this. I could care less if Wisconsin did this three weeks ago. We are upset because Wisconsins actions impact the at-large process. That's the issue here. Lots of teams tempo for a few miles or the whole way in the first meet of the season, but that's fine as the meet doesn't count for NCAA scoring.

This is not true for 2 reasons.

1) We didn't acknoweldge that teams do this at conference meets. I've NEVER heard of a team not trying to win conference.

2) As for regionals, you're goal is to qualify. If that's what you do, then it's ok. It's pretty easy to distinguish between the two. If you want to go 90% at regionals and qualify, that's fine as you are honoring your competition as you are in the first of a two-meet championship. More importantly, your cruising into the finish isn't screwing up the at-large process.

When I was coaching at Cornell, one of my guys Bruce Hyde won the Northeast Regional as one of Byrne's Iona Kenyans wasn't killing it from the front early on and it gave him a chance late.

Yes but part of capitalism is how do the consumers react. With the little league softball team, there was outrage. Here there is some as well. A coaches job is not to win it's a) to please his boss the AD. Plenty of coaches are fired in basketball for a boring style of play.

People defending this action keep using the slippery slope argument of "How will we not DQ everyone as few people give 100% in every race?" That's stupid. The slippery slope fears exist with everything.

I can turn that on you. If you are fine with teams jogging courses, then what about this. I used to think about this when I was at Cornell. So I'm friendly with Syracuse's Chris Fox. Are you fine with me driving the Big Red up to Syracuse on a Tuesday and he has his guys run a tempo so I crush them and get the at-large points. In return, whenever I'm talking to a top runner in recruiting who can't qualify academically for Cornell, I agree to praise SU.

Of course that would spark outrage as it's jeopardizing the NCAA at large system. This is doing the same thing.

I'd much rather have the NCAA say you can fly to a course and run it as practice. Change that rule. Don't let teams not try in competition in countable meets.

I would have much rather had Wisconsin flaunt the you can't fly to a course to practice rule than not try in a race. They could have done the following. Fly to meet and then only race 3 ot their studs. Saying the the others were sick or had injury scares and let them see tempo the course while the others were warming up.

Guru Coaches have ruined the sport. I don't personally think the qualifying procedure is that flawed compared to other sports in the NCAA. I'm sure there was a team that realized what was going on at Louisville and took advantage of it- good for them.

The big problem with the at-large system is this: there is no penalty for losing, only gains for winning. This has a couple of bad consequences. One is that it makes huge national meets a virtual necessity, because it never hurts a borderline team to get stomped by 25 schools, but it helps them if they catch a couple of good teams on bad days (or minus their top guy).

I don't think Wisconsin did anything at all wrong in this case, but it nevertheless distorts a problematic system. That's a fact. Teams at the Louisville meet got an at-large point they didn't deserve, just for the blind luck of scheduling that meet.

It's easy to think of extreme examples where the rules allow much bigger distortions. Imagine this: Two potential auto-qualifier teams schedule Friday and Saturday dual meets with each other. They all tempo together, with Team A going 1-5 on Friday, and Team B going 1-5 on Saturday. They both could have just given each other an insurance at-large point, with no penalty to either for losing. No coach would actually do this, but the fact that it's possible is a problem.

That's obviously a deliberate misuse of the rules, but what about this: The coach of a likely auto-qualifier decides to tempo when racing an invite and one of the teams that "beats" him (and gets an undeserved at-large point) is coached by his former assistant and good friend? Is that a problem?

Or this: An auto-qualifier team is banged up so the coach has them completely jog the Wisconsin Invite and 30 teams get a free point. But teams that were turned away from the Wisconsin Invite obviously don't get that free point. Is that a problem?

Being penalized for losing would fix this distortion, but I don't think there is any way to account for losing in a workable at-large point system.

You raise an interesting point about having big clashes in season. I've always felt that having a lot of mystery at Worlds/NCAAs is what makes those events so great. When people say, we have to make the regular season riveting, I just laugh and say, "It's part of the sport." But that's besides the point.

I'd be fine with Wiconsin not racing until the end of October. No issues there, but you can't have a team's not trying impacting the at-large process.

I don't really care about track as the team score in track is irrelevant. It doesn't impact other teams. Stop worrying about the slippery slope of how we'll stop it. It's like saying, "We shouldn't have a holding rule in football because sometimes it's not obvious it was a hold."

Here it's obvious. They didn't follow the rules. They should be DQd. It's pretty standard really. There shouldn't even be any debate about this.

I guess my only regret is perhaps we should have had a different title. Instead of saying, "Shame On You, Wisconsin - You Disrespected The Sport And Should Be DQed" we should have said "Wiscon jeopardized the at-large process and should be DQd". Get rid of the judgemental title.

rojo wrote:

I'd much rather have the NCAA say you can fly to a course and run it as practice. Change that rule.

I like your response except for this. I think it's a good rule as it stands. Not many teams can afford to fly across the country for a tempo run. That gives an advantage to teams with larger budgets.

Now, if you get the NCAA to pay for one such flight for each team I'll be on board. (Pun intended)

Cowl wrote:

STFU about this. It happens all the time and happens exponentially as you get better. As a DI All-American, I didn't go "all-out" early in the season and ran just as good as I needed to continuend improving throughout the season.

I remember racing Colorado and them running "as a pack" as a tempo effort, same with Florida State and same with Stanford.

Let's DQ Ed Cheserek because we know he's not giving 100%, he's just going through the motions out there.

Sometimes you guys amaze me on your ignorance with the sport.

No, you are the ignorant on, you clearly like the comprehension to understand what was wrote or didn't bother to read it.

xcrunner6 wrote:

Why is this SUCH a big deal?

In high school we do this too. Why would I tell my lead girl who can run faster than others to lead the entire time when she doesn't need to??

She sometimes ask why I hold her back in races, the simple fact is there is a bigger picture here and it shouldn't be frowned upon.

Maybe its a coaching strategy, maybe they're training through. Who cares. Let programs operate the way THEY want to operate.

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the issue, and probably don't really understand the at large point system. Nobody thinks it's a problem to tempo a race, everyone does that at some point. The issue here is that Wisconsin presumably gave qualifying points to teams that don't really deserve them, giving those teams an undeserved advantage in qualifying for nationals.

Let's pretend that I am the coach of a team that is on the bubble to make nationals. My team is competing indirectly with other bubble teams, like Illinois and Eastern Kentucky, for kolas points. Well, now those two teams got a "free" point off of Wisconsin, giving them what amounts to an unfair advantage over my team. If, after regionals, one of those teams is the last team into nationals with only one more point than my team, I'll be pretty upset about that.

The Brojos are soft as hell if they are actually this outraged by Wisconsin. It's called strategy lads, if tempoing at Louisville goes towards the greater good of their season on a whole, then it was smart of them to do so and good on them for playing the smart move. Why have a conniption fit over this now when like 95% of track races nowadays are jog fests, where's your high-horse judgment of that?

Dewey_Runner wrote:

The Brojos are soft as hell if they are actually this outraged by Wisconsin. It's called strategy lads, if tempoing at Louisville goes towards the greater good of their season on a whole, then it was smart of them to do so and good on them for playing the smart move. Why have a conniption fit over this now when like 95% of track races nowadays are jog fests, where's your high-horse judgment of that?

My impression is that you don't understand the points system. No one was suggesting that tempoing a race could or should in any way hurt Wisconsin. The problem is that their tempo run ends up affecting other teams lower down the food chain, giving certain teams an advantage over others in qualifying for nationals. There's no reason why Wisconsin should care at all, but this incident does point out a clear flaw in the at-large points qualification system. The system tries to eliminate this issue by not allowing points to be scored until late September, but if teams like Wisconsin do this later in the season, it's still a problem.

Funnily, when Mick was interviewed after the meet, he made it pretty clear that he hasn't even bothered to learn how the points system works. I honestly think he had no idea that he was giving away free points. Perks of being a top dog in your region, I suppose.

I may be an NAIA guy, but I'm pretty sure I understand the points system pretty well.

Louisville, Illinois, and Eastern Kentucky are really the ones who benefited from Wisco's pack. They got points, which is good for them, but it seems like the general argument is that this will cause undeserving teams to qualify for NCAAs. This probably isn't how it will turn out.

In order for teams to sneak in when they (supposedly) shouldn't, they need to beat a team that has enough points at regionals to qualify, and are pushed in because of that. Points are earned by beating projected top two teams from the regional during the regular season, which Wisconsin definitely is. The three teams mentioned above are now in a better position to qualify, but when it comes down to it, Louisville looks like it's the only one of that group with a real fighting chance.

Illinois and EKU probably won't score enough points during the season as it is to push anyone in, so the only likely repercussion is that Louisville is hot this season and brings a team or two in with them. Chances are good that any team pushed in by Louisville will be on the bubble to begin with, where ten teams are fighting for five spots (for example) and the order could be pretty interchangeable as it is.

A HUGE part of cross country is showing up and doing well on race day when it's really needed. Unexpected teams get in every year, and they aren't any less deserving of their spots just because they had an iffy regular season, they should be applauded for making it happen when it's most important.

A Wisco workout during a race probably won'y have any long standing or far reaching effects. There is always the possibility of something crazy happening because of it, I won't deny that, but the likelihood is that things won't be too shaken up.

If they are getting in or out by a few points, then they aren't a player for the podium and I personally don't care if they don't make it. Prove to me you deserve to be there or quit crying about a team that is gonna be 30 th instead of you.

DQDQDQ wrote:

I can't stand Byrne, he's an arrogant dude. He's basically deciding who makes NCAAs by allowing/disallowing certain teams into his meet. Now, he goes and pulls this crap and basically gifts points to a few teams, violating the integrity of the system.

It's a sad state our sport is in. When will we, as coaches, stop looking at self interests (the interests of our team alone) and develop a structure that creates a sport which is interesting and useful in the eyes of our administrators. Teams will continue to be cut if we have zero fans and zero revenue. We're killing our own sport. It's completely our fault. How can we even imagine that under the present structure of the sport that any interest will exist?? It's literally impossible. Honestly it depresses me.

Coach Byrne is not arrogant he is smart to better enable his guys to recover and train for when it counts.

8km and 10km races take a lot out of a young runner. Maybe if race distances were shortened at the beginning of the season (or the entire season), more people would be a factor in races (mid-distance guys), which makes a race more exciting to watch, recovery would be easier and therefore efforts might be greater from everyone involved. 8km and 10km race distances enable future marathon runners to be developed and not necessarily benefit track guys and proper development of one's speed endurance. Heck, the 10km distance may be dropped from the Olympics.

Just drop the distances in NCAA cross country and races will be treated more like races by everyone involved.

It's an interesting situation, but only because of the at large process of qualifying.

You can't compare cross country to other sports. An NBA player can play near 100 games throughout the course of the season, the impact of competing does not take the same toll. There is a vastly different impact on achieving peak performance as well. The process of introducing various stimulus and balancing the training load is completely different and to compare it to other sports is to ignore what makes great coaches in this sport.

Racing and performing is not simply a test of fitness. Managing nerves and stress and travel and competing and going through the whole process that leads in to the 25 minutes of racing, for many athletes, is as important as the training and physical preparation itself. Having opportunities to work through and manage some of those things separately from the fears of performing poorly or insecurities of racing fitness can be good for some athletes. Every athlete is different from physical skill set to psychological make up and understanding the needs of an individual or of a specific group of athletes is so important.

In 2013, I had my top 5 Gig Harbor boys all run together as a pack at Pre Nats. There were several reasons. I wanted the kids to run the course they would be running at Nationals, an all out effort didn't fit in with the training schedule, I was taking the girls as well and wanted it to be a meet the whole team did together as 1 team, as well as some of the reasons listed above. Their instructions were that the top 4 would work together as a pack to run with the 5 guys and bring him along for 2 miles to set him up to run a good race and let him take over the last mile. If our 5 guy had a bad day the pack could have finished back a ways and we easily could have lost the meet. But winning that meet wasn't my focus for the kids. The kids had been working all year with the goal to contend for a national title and that's what everything we did was working towards. There's a multitude of reasons why coaches do things and why things could have gone the way they did with Wisconsin and what makes him a great coach is his ability to make those decisions.

I do not think Wisconsin should be disqualified. An honest effort is an honest effort and just because Ches had a good reason to simply obtain his time in his 10k, doesn't qualify anyone to take that little passage and apply it at their own discretion. What Wisconsin has done is brought to light that there are flaws in the current system. Perhaps a clause to exclude teams from impacting the points system in extreme cases like this, but it absolutely ridiculous to say they disrespected the sport. They are focused on winning a national title and if their coach thinks what they did this past weekend gives them the best shot at the end of the year then doing anything else would have made him a lesser coach and would have been disrespectful to his athletes and unworthy of the trust they put in him as a coach. His job is to help his kids win when it counts, not cater his training plan for the kids or the program to anyone else.