38 individuals qualifiers seems incredibly generous...on top of 217 on the team side.
I never thought I'd hear someone complain about such an overtly generous system. But here we are.
I don't see 38 as "generous" at all, out of 9 regions.
That's only four schools per region that have individuals going to nationals. There should be more representation from more schools in order to bring more attention to the sport.
That is patently ridiculous, it is what I hear from the rich-kid high schools who don't have top individuals, but they can afford to have a big team.
No, XC is both about team and individuals, especially in our world of haves and have-nots. There are a million reasons why a college might not have a great team, but to have a top individual come out of that less-than-stellar program is often a bigger story than the top schools who get the top recruits and win the region. We should celebrate the runners who rise above their predicted level, not just those who start on top.
D3 has the best individual qualifying system. Top 7 individuals not on a qualifying team who placed in the top 35 at the regional meet. I've seen plenty of guys who qualified individually go on to earn All-America at Nationals and it definitely makes the field more competitive.
38 individuals qualifiers seems incredibly generous...on top of 217 on the team side.
I never thought I'd hear someone complain about such an overtly generous system. But here we are.
I don't see 38 as "generous" at all, out of 9 regions.
That's only four schools per region that have individuals going to nationals. There should be more representation from more schools in order to bring more attention to the sport.
This is what happens when an entire generation gets participation trophies.
If you can't beat a bunch of runners doing a tempo workout while you're all-out racing to get to nationals, you don't deserve to go to nationals. 255 runners is PLENTY for nationals. Honestly it makes no sense that top 40 is AA in XC when it takes top 8 to be AA in track(yeah I'm aware of 2nd team and honorable mention).
These guys are fine runners, but would probably not be top 100 at NCAAs.
It is splitting hairs to say they these guys are better than the individual qualifiers out of other regions. And in reality they are probably not...can you find more than 1 TFRRS profile of an individual qualifier who has slower 5k/10k prs than these guys?
Tbf these TFRRS profiles just highlight how non sense that regional was. A 28:39 “10km” from someone whose 5k PB is 14:28? People will say “it’s XC distances aren’t exact” but that egregious.
The D2 "mountain region" is the south-central with the RMAC. They have the same problem with getting shafted on individuals because the bulk of the top 25-30 finishers are all from very good qualifying teams so they get less individuals than other regions (normally they only get 2). Messed up deal. Somehow in D1 and D2 individuals are penalized from the best regions.
No doubt the Mountain Region course was short, but that is beside the point (XC times are irrelevant here). The point is the system is not really unfair to individuals.
What individual is Jacob White better than? Look at the "weak regions", there isn't one:
Northeast last guy in has 5k of 13:56.
South last guy in has 14:10 5k (listed on his TFRRS but not on his PRs for some reason).
Mid Atlantic guy has a 5k of 14:13.
South Central last guy has 14:22/29:19 Track PRs, which is weaker than the others, but he is still faster than this supposedly snubbed Mountain Region athlete who barely cracked the top 30.
38 individuals qualifiers seems incredibly generous...on top of 217 on the team side.
I never thought I'd hear someone complain about such an overtly generous system. But here we are.
Theoretically, you could have a 5th place overall finisher at region who isn't on a qualifying team not go and could leave out some outstanding individuals.
You want more schools representing at NCAAs. If all that matters are the 31 teams or the 45ish that have somewhat of a shot...then you are incentivizing the other 150 NCAA schools to never care about XC.
Individuals fill that gap. It allows for more teams to say "look, we got a guy/gal to nationals!"
Go count how many players/schools make it to the NCAA tournament in basketball, or bowls in football. It's WAY more than XC.
It gives mediocre schools a chance to say they made the tournament. That incentivizes schools to care and support that sport.
In XC, we get too elitist. We shoot our sport in the foot.
Go look at where he ran his 14:28. It was after running 10k the day before.
maybe he had a good summer of training and he is better than he was couple months ago.
No matter what, the rule of having to finish in the top 25 is stupid. Regardless of where he finished look at the people around him and see their PBs on the track.