Has Mike Smith failed Nico Young?

For the record I never said Nico or Mike were failures. In fact, I said Nico has had a tremendous career and Smith a tremendous coach. I used the word failure in my title, of course, for clicks. However, my real question is clearly stated. We knew Nico was going to be great, but given that he has been unable to achieve an individual title under Smith, has the duo underachieved?

Nico doesn’t have great foot speed. When he’s going against guys that run 50 or faster in a 400m and he can’t it makes it hard for him to really win any tactical races. As another poster said, he’s gonna make a really good 10k-Marathon type.

But you admit it is a fact.

Simply put - Dave Smith has produced MANY successful pro athletes - men and women. There is nothing about his training that "ruins" anyone.

German's struggles were because of German. That's it. Natalie Cook has the worst biomechanics I've ever seen. She isn't racing this year at Colorado because they can't keep her healthy either.

Please tell me about these successful pro athletes. Who would you say are his top 3?

If you don't already know about OSU pro athletes, then what qualifies you to insult Dave's coaching? You are ignorant of his success.

In no order:

Kirubel Erassa - 60:44 half marathon

Girma Mecheso - 62 half marathon before supershoes

Ryan Vail 2:10 marathon

Shadrack Kipchirchir - olympian and multiple time world championship qualifier

Josh Thompson, 2022 World Championship 1500m finalist

Riley Masters - 3:36 and 13:16 pre super shoes

Sinclaire Johnson - 6th in the world in 2022 1500m

Kaela Edwards - qualified for 2023 world championship 800m

Tyreek Hill - NFL player

Chase Ealey - 2x world champion in shot put (2022 and 2023)

What?? If you're an NCAA Div 1 coach, your job is to win to win the team title, and if you need to burnout some runners to reach that goal, you do. Over an over. I don't think Mike Smith cares a wit about what Nico does after NAU.

LOL! As if he had anything to do with their success.

None of his male distance runners have been as good in their first couple years post-college as Nur and Grijalva. His failure with Fernandez will forever be a stain on his record.

No, he has not failed him. That's a very consistent college career. That's good coaching.

Today he was back well before the sprinting started. His conditioning appeared to be a notch lower than previous years. I think you can argue he hasn’t progressed in about 2 years from when he ran that fast 5k. But that is also somewhat normal. People stagnate for a bit and then hopefully take a step forward.

Nico has done some amazing things and fast times in college. Mike Smith sets him up to help win as team. Mike has never had a NCAA Cross Country Champion and doesn’t seem to care. Mike had said in an interview that NAU coaches and athletes don’t talk about the outcome. That’s part of the problem at NAU. Nico is never prepared to win the race. Only to be tough and fit. If you want to win NCAA’s you need to be prepared to win. Not talking about the outcome is a set up to never winning the race.

Don’t think Dave Smith coached Riley Masters, who went to Oklahoma and was coached by Martin Smith

Has any of Nico's coaches ever talked about his lack of foot speed? I think everyone is just assuming that he doesn't have it because he tends to frontrun.

On the contrary Graham blanks coach has talked about his lack of foot speed hence why he chooses to wind it up from further out. Clearly this lack of speed didn't affect him today

He's run a 1:47 800. maybe he doesn't have prime Makhloufi level foot speed but for a 5k runner at the NCAA level, 1:47 is more than enough

You guys are such pressimists and haters.

Having great high school teams does not mean that you're going to succeed in college and it doesn't mean you'r going to tie Dathan Ritzenheim's 4th place finish as a true freshman. He's had some of the best times ever and is something like a 10-time all-american. Plus people want to be on champion teams. He has 3 championships.

I don't even love the guy, but I mean what are you going to say about Tyler Gonze, Connor Burns, Colin Sahlman, Gary Martin, Simeon Birnbaum, Lex and Leo Young, Ryan Schoeppe, and every other great HSer?

When have either of them run 1:47?

On another subject, I’m not convinced Nico Young is a marathoner just because he’s clearly not a 1500 guy. Admittedly this is superficial but it’s hard to picture his form holding up over 26.2. And 13:11 at 19 years old shows plenty of potential at 5k…

Oh, and stupid thread. Who knows how Nico Young would have done at any other school, and he’s certainly done well at NAU.

LOL. You could've coached German to a nation title.