Drew Hunter in the NCAA

I honestly do not understand this weird admiration for Drew Hunter that letsrun has. He definitely would not have beaten Knight over 10k and most likely would have finished well behind Fisher as well. What has Hunter done so far that is so much more impressive than either of these athletes? He's the same age as Fisher and has fairly similar PBs, and Knight's 5k stands out above them all. Is it just because he turned pro that people think he's so good? (Also, not saying that he won't be good in the possibly near future, just that his level of recognition at this point in time fairly unfounded).

Rant over

The weird admiration is that while Hunter was in high school, everyone was salivating over the unbeatable Fisher, who was supposedly the greatest thing since sliced bread. And then Hunter beat him, as a junior, in an 8:42 2 mile, closing with a 54 400. And then followed that up the next week by beating him at the USATF Junior 1500 (finishing behind college frosh Haney), this time with a 52 second last 400.

Then, in his senior year of high school, Hunter actually lived up to the hype, crushing every cross country race, running a flat track 7:59 indoor 3k, breaking 4 twice indoors and once outdoors, and even running a decent 800. He unfortunately got Lyme at the end of senior year and didn't fully realize his potential, but he was very good.

Then, as a young pro, he had, by all accounts, a good year. He broke 4 a few times indoors and lowered his PR in the mile and 3k. Outdoors, he ran some good races, and qualified for the USATF 1500 final, which was a big deal. When he went to Europe, he lowered his PR to 3:36 for the 1500, the only teen to do so from the US other than Jim Ryun or Matt Centrowitz. And he followed that race up by beating Craig Engels to win his first legit professional race to close out last season, having run the last 1200 of that race in 2:53 (he won in 3:57).

Fisher has only run 3:42 for the 1500 (obviously he's way better, but that's his PR). Knight has only run 3:39. Hunter has run 3:36. Fisher and Knight were two incredible high school talents. Hunter beat them both at their best in high school (beat Fisher as a junior, and as a sophomore beat Knight at Penn Relays in his breakout race). He continued to improve after that. With Fisher and Knight now two of the NCAA's best, it's absolutely fair to wonder where Hunter would have ended up had he not gone pro.

Personally, I think Hunter might have been top 10 as a frosh, and maybe top 5 this year, but XC isn't his specialty, and I'm not sure how he'd transition to the 10k. I don't think he'd have beaten Knight last Saturday. I do think he'll go on to have an exceptional pro career, but, like Fisher, he needs to be a little less realistic in how he approaches races and go for it more. He might surprise himself.

I'm not saying that Hunter isn't worthy of comparison, I'm just saying that he shouldn't be considered head and shoulders above the college guys just because he went pro early. From your list of accomplishments all three of these guys seem very similar, with Drew being the better miler and knight being the better distance guy. Which is why I don't understand the idea that he'd be up there for 10k xc, because Drew is obviously a miler. I'd like to see some time trial like efforts from Fisher to really compare, but he almost always brings it for championships. Also Fisher and Hunter are basically the same age.

Bigly guy wrote:

I'm not saying that Hunter isn't worthy of comparison, I'm just saying that he shouldn't be considered head and shoulders above the college guys just because he went pro early. From your list of accomplishments all three of these guys seem very similar, with Drew being the better miler and knight being the better distance guy. Which is why I don't understand the idea that he'd be up there for 10k xc, because Drew is obviously a miler. I'd like to see some time trial like efforts from Fisher to really compare, but he almost always brings it for championships. Also Fisher and Hunter are basically the same age.

I don’t think the OP, I, or most posters here view Hunter as head and shoulders above the rest of the NCAA. The OP wasn’t saying “Hunter would have totally won lol,” he was legitimately asking where he might have finished and if he might have beaten Knight. Since you say that Hunter is worthy of comparison, then the OP’s question is worthy. Knight finished 9th in the world in the 5k and Fisher has a lethal track kick and has improved by leaps and bounds since high school. Both of them are probably going to be very successful pros, if that’s what they want to do with their lives. If Hunter’s pedigree is very similar to those two, as you admit, then wondering where he might finish is totally fine. I agree with you. Hunter isn’t a 10k xc guy in all likelihood. He’s still an extremely good runner for his age, and everyone—including, no doubt—Hunter himself—probably wonders how he’d do in the NCAA. Likely very well, but I doubt he’d have a title yet.

I agree with the posters that he would probably have been top 5-10, but Knight would have cleaned his clock. My question is how he would have stacked up against Kerr, Engels, Kiprotich, Thompson and the other studs in the outdoor 15 last spring. I think he could have slipped into a medal position, but I don't know if he would have beaten Kerr considering Kerr has run 3:35.99 in a race he won/made it to worlds and Hunter was only dragged to a 3:36.77.

I'm not convinced Knight would have cleaned Hunter's clock. You have to realize that Hunter runs a good 1500m/5000m off of his massive strength endurance (also known as 10k ability).

Hunter would have now had 2 years to train for a 10k XC, and as a sub 13:30 runner (potentially in 13:15 shape at his best) there is not really an option for him to be worth worse than 28:00.

XC is dynamic and every race is it's own race, but Drew Hunter could no doubt run with Fisher and Knight. Would he have beaten them? I'll refrain, because that's why we race in the first place.

Dkdkciicikf wrote:

I'm not convinced Knight would have cleaned Hunter's clock. You have to realize that Hunter runs a good 1500m/5000m off of his massive strength endurance (also known as 10k ability).

Hunter would have now had 2 years to train for a 10k XC, and as a sub 13:30 runner (potentially in 13:15 shape at his best) there is not really an option for him to be worth worse than 28:00.

XC is dynamic and every race is it's own race, but Drew Hunter could no doubt run with Fisher and Knight. Would he have beaten them? I'll refrain, because that's why we race in the first place.

Unless I'm mistaken, Hunter has not run faster than 13:49 according to All-Athletics. That's not to say he couldn't run faster than that, but 13:15 is one hell of a number to just liberally throw out there. That's not even to say how ridiculous it is to assume he couldn't run any "worse than 28:00". There are plenty of guys that are nowhere near as equivalently good at 10k as they are at 5k. Who knows though, without being in the NCAA, he hasn't had to put an emphasis on the fall like these other athletes, and perhaps could have risen to the challenge. I still maintain that Knight would have destroyed him though.

My point is that if Drew had done a good European B race 5k he may have been able to scrape under 13:20 had he trained for the 5k instead of the 1500m. And if he had trained for an XC 10k, he obviously would have been at a somewhat comparable level. 28:00 track shape is not hard to imagine for a 13:20 guy, and Tom Schwartz is quoted as saying he thinks Hunter could have run very close to 13:20 in 2016. I realize I'm making a lot of unproven conclusions off of unproven conclusions, but you see the logic. Certainly you don't think Knight is worth much more than 28:00 Payton Jordan shape?

I think it's pretty rare that the NCAA xc champ can't run well under 28:00 on the track

As long as we are talking about Fisher and Hunter, I think that Day and Maggard need to be brought in to the discussion, particularly the latter. Everyone knows about Day's breakthrough, but Dillon finished just one place and four seconds behind Fisher. He was a 1:56 (barely)/4:19 1600 kid in High School, and ran 3:42/13:41 last year, but shows huge potential in the longer stuff (he hasn't run 10000 on the track yet). Day had the benefit of tons of teammates pushing him, Maggard is pretty much on his own in training from what I can tell.

Here’s why people were salivating during Fisher’s junior and senior years:

2X Footlocker National Champion (destroying Hunter and a loaded field in 2014)

2X Indoor Mile Champion (really going for sub-4:00 solo and tripped on the rail, jogging it in to a 4:03)

2X Dream Mile Champion (beating Hunter)

NB Nationals 2 Mile Champ as junior

NB Nationals 2 Mile runner-up as senior (congrats Hunter)

Hard to find anyone with that type of hardware. Maybe Ches. Fisher gave all us fans what we wanted 95% of the time. And he didn’t depend on paced races to do it.

Hunter ran very fast his senior year indoors, where he clearly trained throughvfrom cross tobindoors to do so. I still believe it was because he underperformed at Footlocker (after going out very fast) and felt he had to prove something indoors. He never ended up winning the “outdoor mile” title at all.

My favorite race from Fisher’s high school days was his 4:01 for 1609m completely solo at his own state meet in a drizzle.

He then went to St Louis to break 4:00 a few days later. Then on to the Dream Mile to defend.

Then he loses by a second to Hunter over 2 miles. And the Hunter fanboys lost their sh!t. There was some weird jealousy/obsession stuff going on there. Obviously it’s still lingering.

and Hunter's dad Marc finished 4th in 1977 and 6th in 1978 competing in the NCAA XC championships.

You forgot Maggard’s most prestigious accomplishment- Blue Jean Mile WR holder. Is Fisher a world record holder? How about Hunter? End of discussion.

Best thing to happen to Grant Fisher was Drew Hunter going pro. Now he gets to generate doubt and maybe win himself an NCAA XC title. Has he sent Adidas a thank you card?

Obsessionator wrote:

Here’s why people were salivating during Fisher’s junior and senior years:

2X Footlocker National Champion (destroying Hunter and a loaded field in 2014)

2X Indoor Mile Champion (really going for sub-4:00 solo and tripped on the rail, jogging it in to a 4:03)

2X Dream Mile Champion (beating Hunter)

NB Nationals 2 Mile Champ as junior

NB Nationals 2 Mile runner-up as senior (congrats Hunter)

Hard to find anyone with that type of hardware. Maybe Ches. Fisher gave all us fans what we wanted 95% of the time. And he didn’t depend on paced races to do it.

7 out of 8 is 87.5%, not 95%

Uh uh wrote:

Best thing to happen to Grant Fisher was Drew Hunter going pro. Now he gets to generate doubt and maybe win himself an NCAA XC title. Has he sent Adidas a thank you card?

You do realize Fisher already has an NCAA title, right?

I have posted about this a good 1000 times on other threads about Hunter and I'll post it again

What has Hunter done at distances higher than 1500m? He ran a 3:36 and that's amazing for a guy his age, but comparatively that's leaps above anything he's done at other distances. And I realize that he hasn't experimented with or even ran a lot of 3k's, 5k's, and 10k's, but anything said is all speculation.

Honestly, I am not in the slightest convinced he'd be that good at 10k. I think he has potential up to 5k, but he has shown enough instances in anything that he does to show he has the 10k strength of guys like Knight, Day, Baxter, Fisher, Maggard etc.

He has a 7:59 flat 3k with no 5k's or 10k's on a track. You guys are over here salivating how fast he could run a 10k yet he doesn't have a 5k reference and a 1500m is certainly not a good indicator of a 10k. Also, Hunter ran 14:20's for 5k his senior year at FL south on a blazing fast course? Knight and the NAU duo nearly doubled that.

I'm not saying Hunter can't hang with those guys, but there's nothing AT ALL to convince me he can, and I'm not going to speculate based on a 3:36 1500m he was pulled to over at a meet in Europe.

I don't think you can really compare track times between Hunter and Knight/Fisher.... Obviously all 3 have had opportunities to hop into fast races that aren't championship style but Knight and Fisher have clearly placed their emphasis on the NCAA championships so they can't afford to keep trying for fast 15's or 5k's every couple weeks or months. More than likely, they get their qualifying mark for NCAA Regionals and then maybe get 1 or 2 more opportunities to run fast. Obviously there is no reason for them to hold back in the big races like Payton Jordan or Stanford Twilight so maybe their PRs are only 3:39 and 3:42, respectively, but if you let them continue to race the 15 and focus on just running fast than I bet they could run comparable times to Hunter's 3:36. Not trying to discredit Hunter at all because 3:36 is darn fast but I don't really think comparing track times is a 100% fair estimate one way or another because all 3 have had different foci-- Knight and Fisher, trying to win Championships and Hunter, trying to run really fast and eventually be a international stud for the USA in a few years.

All in all, I think Hunter finishes in the 5-10 range last weekend. Probably hangs with the chase pack and breaks away with Fisher, Maggard, etc. but I would think Fisher beats him out this year.

Drew Hunter should date Mary Cain.