Any thoughts on the top men's and women's teams and individuals for this fall's NIRCA? Discuss. (And yes I know D1 is the only one worth discussing and D3 is better than NIRCA but whatevs......)
Any thoughts on the top men's and women's teams and individuals for this fall's NIRCA? Discuss. (And yes I know D1 is the only one worth discussing and D3 is better than NIRCA but whatevs......)
I'm going for the win ?
ISU’s squad of old men fifth years may have finally moved on.
Word is ISU guys from ~6 years ago are enrolled at the University of Phoenix and registered with NIRCA.
Iowa State will be up there again if they can get a fourth a fifth runner. They lose 4 of 7. Dont see them contending though.
Penn State only loses 2 of 7. This will probably be their best shot of any year at getting their first title finally.
Oregon is the clear favorite if they do in fact return 6 of 7 (everyone except Ryan Jones). They choked at nats last year but they'll be back.
Purdue keeps getting better and has impressed me.
UC Davis probably will reload but we won't know until the season starts. I wouldn't count them out even though they finished 9th last year.
Hard to make too many concrete predictions until races start and we see who added grad students or good freshmen. Who da f knows. I'll be back.
Good stuff. Any thoughts on the women's side?
Swami Sez wrote:
Oregon is the clear favorite if they do in fact return 6 of 7 (everyone except Ryan Jones). They choked at nats last year but they'll be back.
Carter Christman will return, but not Seth Berdhal - he got a walk on spot on UO's team!
Wow, that's insane. Congrats Seth!!
Unfortunately I don't keep notes on the women side. I'll need to do more research. Any females on this thread? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
IU club guys: is Matt Flaherty competing this year?
Flotrack has yet to cover a NIRCA team for a Workout Wednesday or any NIRCA races. If you want to see that door open for more teams in the future, consider retweeting this on twitter:
https://twitter.com/H0RSEL0G/status/1039331469397831681
Contacting them directly has done nothing so a public post seems to be the only way to gain any traction. I'd like to see NIRCA's competitive image improve to those not involved.
Michigan is a top three team now. I'll have more time next week to make a mid-season prediction update.
I'm curious what these predictions look like. Very few meets on clubrunning.org give telling results for nationals. I kind of wish NIRCA still released rankings even though they were practically meaningless.
galensucks wrote:
Flotrack has yet to cover a NIRCA team for a Workout Wednesday or any NIRCA races. If you want to see that door open for more teams in the future, consider retweeting this on twitter:
https://twitter.com/H0RSEL0G/status/1039331469397831681Contacting them directly has done nothing so a public post seems to be the only way to gain any traction. I'd like to see NIRCA's competitive image improve to those not involved.
Flotrack probably won't make much money off of NIRCA races so they have little incentive to send people out to film.
You should try filming one yourself and then tweeting it to them and maybe they'll put it on their site.
Is anyone in this thread running @ Princeton next weekend?
I want to put out a quick top five ranking here. After regionals I'll make a top ten I guess. @NIRCA pls do your rankings on the site again.
1. Oregon
First of all shouts to Justin Gallegos for being the man. First NIRCA pro runner.
As I said previously the Ducks return 5 of 7. The team was a no-show at the UC-Davis Yolo and Williamette Invites so it's hard to say how this team is going to look exactly. Carter Christman and Robert Pedersen had solid performances at Dellinger. The team underperformed last year at East Lansing so maybe the warmer Lexington weather will help. We'll see if Coach Heinonen does in fact send them to the Lewis + Clark Invitational this weekend.
Oregon has 3 national titles and 5 top three finishes.
2. Michigan
Goodness gracious Michigan. Almost all of the Wolverines top 7 was under 26 at Little Tens, which is a totally legit 8K course (I checked strava). That's the kind of firepower that wins titles. Tyler Opdycke and Adam Sawicki, both sophomores, will easily be in the top ten at nationals. It doesn't appear the team took any of their other races this seriously so I'm very interested in seeing how regionals goes.
Michigan has 1 national title and 3 top three finishes.
3. Purdue
Conner Standt is making a name for himself. He was 9th in the 5K at spring nats and has been racing well this fall, leading his team to a second-place finish behind Michigan at Little Tens. Purdue was overshadowed by the Wolverines but still put up 40 points to Michigan’s 22 with an average time of 25:46. Purdue’s top three matches up well with Michigan’s but their 1-5 spread will need to get tighter in order to contend.
Purdue has 0 podium finishes but had their best all-time finish last year (4th).
4. Penn State
A perennially great, but not championship, team. PSU might have their best roster ever but is still sitting at fourth. It's hard to gather much from their races with very few of their supposedly returning runners competing. Joseph Clark and Matt Beyerle will mix it up in the top ten but the Wolverines have a stronger 3-4-5 right now, as do the Boilermakers. Some freshmen wildcards might play a role (Ross Harps). Raymond Friend has also steadily progressed over his four years.
Penn State has 0 national titles and 4 top three finishes.
5. Iowa State
The defending champs lost a good chunk of their top seven (4 of 7) but won’t fall that far with grad students Andreas Lommer (defending national champion) and Jeff Mettler (6th) holding down the fort. I can’t find any of their races online but with two low sticks I feel comfortable putting them at 5.
Iowa State has 1 national title and 4 top three finishes.
Oregon State University just had a huge meet at the Lewis and Clark Invite - 24:38, 25:20, 25:44, 25:49, 27:07.......if that course was legit (doubt it) and they end up running Nationals they should be talked about as a legit contender for the win.
Anyone running the Princeton Invite tomorrow?
According to Oregon State's strava uploads it was around 0.3 mi short. So gotta add +1:30 or so to their times.
Good luck at Princeton!
I'll be at Princeton with my dawgs woof woof!!!
My insider tip is Michigan.
The Wolverines averaged 25:28 on Little Tens, a true 8k XC course. Their top 2 runners Opdycke and Swaicki are running 25 flat, followed by freshman Shepherd who is usually ~10 sec behind them and then they have high density around the 25:50 range to fill the remaining spots.
They dominated all meets so far this season.
Their woman are also looking to repeat last year's victory where they had 4 freshman. They also dominated all meets so far in this season, getting between 5-8 runners in the top 10 each race.