NAU XC rebuild

Are you asking if Smith is allocating more scholarships to the women's side instead of men's side, thus reducing availability on the men's side? If so, no - scholarship budgets are separate between men's and women's team and scholarship limits are also separate. You could not go beyond NCAA scholarship limits for one team instead of the other nor could you utilize funds earmarked for one team for a separate team.

They've got no shot at winning, but they could still podium if Smith works his magic and he gets 1-2 transfers. Or maybe one of their current guys can make a leap.

Colin Sahlman, Prosser, Gorgas, Nyoak is a good top 4 that can capably score for them <70. (I assume Sahlman will be able to carry over his good results)

All of them are able to drop sub 30 10K on hard courses which is the baseline you need to be an All American placing

I get the feeling Nico is coming back. He has yet to win that elusive XC title. Besides aren’t college athletes pros now? And the Olympics are over so why not come back?

saving my predictions on their XC chances until after outdoor season when the portal floodgates open. remember they didn't get Las Heras or all those New Mexico women transfers until summer.

In one of the indoor interviews he sounded like he was done. NIL is slightly different than having a good contract and right now he is about as high as is reasonable to expect. Winning ncaa XC isn’t getting more cash.

NAU definitely got old. For whatever reason the last couple of classes haven’t stepped up yet. Some of that might be lack of opportunity with how good the top end is, but normally you like to see younger runners being there. Who in the last 3 classes has been an AA? CS is definitely turning into a track beast but it might turn out 10k is a bit too far for him to be your low stick at nationals. And then among the most of the fresh/soph you have a bunch of 13:50 guys. That might be ok for your 4th/5th man in a lot of years. Again maybe they are about to take the next step and be low 13:30 type guys.

It sort of isn’t worth having these discussions til like August when we have a clue who is coming back and who is transferring where.

Yes, NAU is losing a lot of talent. I'm pretty confident that they will be alright next year though recruiting talent and the transfer portal.

They will still beat Oregon and Stanford next fall

He could add a lot right away as he is like 21 years old already as a junior in high school

He could add a lot right away as he is like 21 years old already as a junior in high school

They redshirted a couple of their top guys last fall and Nyoak was very very good before his injury. With those guys back they are actually returning a very decent squad:

Prosser - 21st NCAA 2023, 19th NCAA 2022, 13:46

Nyoak - 5th Mountain regional 2023, 3:57/13:42

Kusche (RS) - 39th NCAA 2022

Gorgas - 62nd NCAA 2023, 13:49

C Sahlman - 151st NCAA 2022, 7:48/13:38

Raff (RS) - 88th NCAA 2022, 7:59/13:51/28:56

Grotenhuis - 9th Big Sky 2023, 13:38/28:45

Puffer - 13:51

Scherer - 10th Big Sky 2023, 23:42

Plus some unknown quantities like A Sahlman, Munson, Washburn, Shively, Perez, etc.

Lacking somewhat in top 10/20 quality. Prosser has shown he can be there, Kusche and Nyoak may have potential. C Sahlman has incredible talent and should be AA (Beamish was 37th). They could definitely pull off a podium finish, a win will be tough but they know how to show up as much as any other team.

Pretty sure Raff is 100% done despite having that extra year available, he's just doing Pro Trail Runs now. He made a blogpost about how he's free to do his trail runs now and that's where his passion is, so I doubt he ever wants to go back to XC training.

Kusche technically does have another year of eligibility if they actually did RS him, but based on his Strava he's just been off in South Africa for the last year training. Would be weird for him to just come back to school suddenly, but yeah I guess he could come back if he wanted to.

pretty sure Kusche and Raff are done.