Why is UofM XC so weak?

Who cares as long as there football team wins more then 8 games....

"Amazing. Everything you just said is wrong." -- Luke Skywalker

First sentence, wrong. Is winning the Big 10 two out of the last 3 years really not good enough for you?

4th sentence, extremely wrong. That 10k had all 3 Alabama guys, Tyler Day, Matt Baxter, and Dillon Maggard, and Flanagan beat them all. Not weak in the slightest. Fluke statement is also wrong. He was injured all winter, hence why he did not qualify indoors.

MSU is very rarely better than Michigan. That statement is also wrong.

Top 10 at Nats is not "disgustinly (sic) bad", nor is it a "disgrace".

And how did all those guys you mentioned not win a title? Because they weren't supposed to. Those guys are great runners, but they are not on the talent level of NAU, BYU, Stanford, or Oregon runners. Not even close. I'm from Illinois and watched Bund and Beller race all the time. Great runners, but they did nothing to indicate that they could be scorers on a national championship team. Bund was 5th at Illinois XC, and I think Beller was 10th in the same race. These were considered to be great races for both of them. They overachieved. They were never, ever considered contenders for state titles. They have both had exceptional college careers, probably exceeding expectations. I never saw them as NCAA qualifiers.

You could actually make the argument that Michigan does more with less. Wisconsin and Illinois have both had far superior recruiting classes compared to Michigan in recent years, but have performed considerably worse. If Michigan's success the last 4 years honestly is not good enough for you, just think about what it must feel like to be a Badger or Illini fan.

Considering how weak the big ten is I think it means little to nothing the past couple years. There has not been a threat to win a title from the Big Ten in years. Hard to consider it a power confrence anymore in XC. Also the 10k was weak, please do not try to argue that. A great win, but a weak year in the 10k compared to years past (Not bens fault at all). Also, Michigan gets top recruits just look at the rankings this year, yet they can not develope talent to get multiple individuals to All American in XC, indoor, or outdoors. A perfect example of how weak the Big Ten is that an UofM runner won the Big Ten 5k and then did not even qualify to make it to Oregon. You do not see that in the Pac12, Acc, Sec,Big12.

I think the moral of this story is the Big Ten in XC is extremely disappointing. We are talking about a power 5 conference that has trouble putting their top team in the top 10 at Nationals. The Big Ten should almost always have a team competing for a top 5 spot. The Big Ten XC is a dying brand. Wisconsin has put the nail in the coffin the last couple years. MSU and Michigan are after thoughts, bad teams trying to pick up the mess Wisconsin left behind.

You must be a Michigan Runner

Big 10 has never been an XC powerhouse. Nothing new here. The "power 5" label is pretty meaningless outside of football anyway. Dominant teams and conferences come from all over in non-revenue sports.

Look what Alabama just added to their top 3 runners! Expect a NCAA title from them this year in Madison, Wisconsin!

Yeah, I saw that as well. Look out Northerners.

Look what Alabama just added to their top 3 runners! Expect a NCAA title from them this year in Madison, Wisconsin! [/quote]

They added someone in addition to Kigen, Kiprop, and Chelanga? Who?

BIG 10'er wrote:

The Alabama Elephant Mascot wrote:

Look what Alabama just added to their top 3 runners! Expect a NCAA title from them this year in Madison, Wisconsin!

Yeah, I saw that as well. Look out Northerners.

One of these emails is of course Sully himself.

I’ve been following Michigan XC for the last couple of years and I think Michigan has actually exceeded expectations in XC. Michigan is hardly pulling “amazing” recruits. Ben was the last recruit (5 years ago) that has had prs faster than 9:00/4:08. The reason for this is an emphasis by the head track coach on a diversified program. Michigan has maybe 6 distance scholarships. The top 5 teams in NCAA XC year after year invest a majority/all of their 12.6 scholarships in distance. Two top 10 finishes in the last 3 XC seasons and two big ten championships are about as good as you can ask for that little of an emphasis on distance. It is unrealistic to expect national champions and perennial All Americans from this group.

The 10k field featured 7 of the top 10 finishers in XC and 11 XC All Americans. There were 12 guys with season PRs under 28:50. I would hardly consider that weak. Running 28:35 in a championship race against that quality of a field is not a fluke and may be considered an upset win, but you are severely denigrating the field. Ben ran 13:48 in his first and only race of the indoor season coming back from injury… he said that he had only run for two weeks on ground leading up to it. The kid is good.

Is there any argument to say that none of the 10k guys could hang in the 5k? 8/16 guys who ran at indoor nationals in the 5k were in the 10k at outdoor nationals…

Also the Big Ten conference men had 4 of the 5 national champions in the distance events this year. You can hardly talk about how the Big Ten is weaker than other P5 conferences.

I’m a Michigan fan boy but these claims and your expectations for the program are ridiculous.

I agree track was great for the Big Ten, but we can agree that XC is beyond awful. As for the recruits please look at the class rankings they have been getting solid to great recruits, along with all the ivy league transfers. Also, Stanford has a much more diverse program in track and still hammers everyone Michigan has in both track and xc. Michigan should have a program at Stanford level but instead it is just nothing even close

Having 6 scholarships in distance area is HALF the NCAA allows. Schools like Iona, Portland, and Furman for example invest all their aid in distance but aren’t close to fully funded! I would guess hardly zero schools have 6 full rides in distance area!

It's ranked the #1 Public University in the world.

According to the Stride Report they have the 8th best recruiting class coming in.

https://www.thestridereport.com/articles/2018-recruit-rankings-8-michigan-wolverines

The stride report shows that in 2017 Michigan did not have a top 10 ranked recruiting class coming in. I also found on Flotrack that in 2015, 2016, and 2017 Michigan did not get any top 25 recruits, which is exactly what I have been saying. The recruits Michigan gets are good, but they are not superstars and it does not warrant the expectation of being a top 5 perennial program. You're correct, this year Michigan has a great recruiting class - in no way does that imply that they had a top 10 recruiting class in the last 5 years... I am hopeful that they will reload and continue their upwards trajectory with more top 10 NCAA performances.

Pretty transparent that a) you are not a Michigan man and b) this post was more than likely solely intended to throw shade at Ben (which is beyond me, as he's one of the nicest guys in the sport). Anyways:

Hmm...drops down to 5k and challenges for the win against the 4th-place finisher at the most recent Olympics and 9th-place finisher at the World Championships (both of whom specialize in that event)...yeah, sounds like his 10k win was a fluke if I've ever seen one.

Reevaluate your personality.

It is not the number one ranked public university

Classic Letsrun thread, fighting about irrelevant teams and irrelevant runners