Best SUNY running schools

King Cuomo wrote:

professorcuomo wrote:

Just out of curiosity, what are people's opinions of other SUNY schools we haven't really talked about here? Fredonia, Brockport, Alfred, Morrisville, Oneonta, Cortland? Others? Asking from both an academic and athletic standpoint here.

Of that list Oneonta has had the most success on the distance side in recent years (3 trips to NCAAs in XC in the last 5 years or so). Cortland has had a long history of success in distance and to a lesser extent so has Fredonia but both have been relatively quiet in XC as of late. Academically I would guess Oneonta is probably slightly above Cortland/Bport/Fredonia but not by much.

This is what I was talking about in an earlier post. If you just look at the history of those teams over the past 5-10 years, that might not tell you what the next 3-5 years will look like. Yes, Oneonta had a few trips to NCAAs over the past 5 years, but that started with their previous coach. They got a new coach in 2018 and their results have been getting worse in the region since then. Fredonia had a brief 2-year period where they had a couple of really good individuals, but that seems to be an outlier for them. Similar to Oneonta recently, Cortland was pretty successful in the late 2000s, and even though they have the same head coach since then, their results have been steadily regressing as well. It's interesting that their best years coincided with the years that the new Oswego coach was their assistant coach. I believe he was coaching at Christopher Newport a few years ago as well when they were the first team from the South region to get on the podium at NCAAs. Will be interesting to see if Oswego gets better.

Still say that which school is better academically depends on the major.

Accurate description. The 'pre-med' courses ( calc, bio, chem, etc.) at SB were incredibly difficult. Also, the only reason a school like Geneseo would rank ahead of Albany would be because it is a smaller class size and they can be more selective in admitting students. I bet from a research and associated services point-of-view Albany offers more.

I disagree that Oneonta has been getting worse in the region. I'd argue the region has just gotten more competitive between 3rd-7th. In the last 5 years only 3 teams have made nationals 3+ times. Geneseo, RPI, and Oneonta. They've been 2nd in the SUNYAC 4 or 5 straight years and each year they've performed better including in 2019 putting 5 all-sunyac. Which is kinda a big deal since it's only happened a handful of times in the last 20 years by teams not named Geneseo. Granted they graduated a lot in the last two years, but they had some really good success with their younger group and have a great young staff that cares and knows what they're doing.

King Cuomo wrote:

I disagree that Oneonta has been getting worse in the region. I'd argue the region has just gotten more competitive between 3rd-7th. In the last 5 years only 3 teams have made nationals 3+ times. Geneseo, RPI, and Oneonta. They've been 2nd in the SUNYAC 4 or 5 straight years and each year they've performed better including in 2019 putting 5 all-sunyac. Which is kinda a big deal since it's only happened a handful of times in the last 20 years by teams not named Geneseo. Granted they graduated a lot in the last two years, but they had some really good success with their younger group and have a great young staff that cares and knows what they're doing.

Word on the street is that the Oneonta coach is leaving; took the job at Quinnipiac.

correct: https://gobobcats.com/news/2020/11/23/rich-marcello-named-head-mens-cross-country-coach.aspx

I was an athlete in the SUNYAC within the last 10 years, so a lot has changed, but a lot has also stayed the same.

Here's what I remember about each school:

-Brockport: Good field events, some good sprinters and distance, best throwers in the conference

-Buff state: Great sprinters who usually transferred "up" if they did well. Sucks at all other event groups

- Cortland: Best overall team in the the SUNYAC, strong in all event groups. Won NCAA championship in XC. Looks like now they're mostly a sprint and field event school, not strong in XC anymore

-Fredonia: Good pole vaulters I think? Don't have much of a memory of them doing much

-Geneseo: Best XC/distance school in the SUNYAC/region. Also the best academic D3 SUNY.

-Oneonta: Great sprinters and field events, they seem to have a new head coach every year or so, so something must not be fun behind the scenes there.

-Oswego: Good throwers I think? Another that I don't remember much about

-Plattsburgh: Not a very good team, has a decent athlete every few years

Here would be my tiers for the D3 SUNYs (obviously dependant on events/major, etc):

1- Geneseo, Cortland

2- Oneonta, Buff state

3- Everyone else