This is a nice step, but I’m still waiting for him to match a top 2 like Hocker and Teare, because they kicked out Ben Thomas right after he got Hocker to 6th in the Olympic final and a 800-1500-3000-DMR sweep at indoor nationals. Maybe Birnbaum will get to that level, but I’m still waiting. Not even trashing Jerry’s coaching abilities or results, because at this point I think he’s doing a great job for most teams, he’s just at a bit of a disadvantage because of who got kicked out to make room for him.
Who hates Schumacher? His role in Burritogate is despicable of course, but, hate? What a weird "accusation" out of nowhere.
What many here, including me, predicted was that he'd fail to simultaneously keep BTC successful and make Oregon successful again. Turns out, yes, as predicted, BTC went down the drain, and yes, Oregon didn't exactly improve while Schumacher tried to keep BTC afloat.
Now with BTC dissolved, Schumacher has more time for Oregon, which seems to now finally work out.
Jerry has used 90% of the allotted scholarships on distance runners. The rest of the team is a shell of what it used to be. At NcAA they will be a non factor.
If Birnbaum gets dumped out of the heats at Nats, the "JV Cooper T" taunts will commence, sadly.
In Teare's second year out of HS his SBs were 3:43 and 13:32 (paced race at Stanford), and he got second to last in the 5000 at outdoor nationals
Birnbaum has run 3:37 and 13:31 (winning an unrabbited* race)
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And they took down the #1 team in the land in USC quite comfortably at conference as a result.
TFN wrote:
EUGENE, OREGON, May 16–18 — If Oregon was going to defend its home turf during its first Big 10 Championship as one of four new west coast members (‘Big 18,’ anyone?), it was always going to be on the strength of its distance runners — even if they have sported a pretty balanced program over the years...
As strong as the Ducks prospects seemed to be between 800 and 10000, most folks didn’t expect them to squeeze 68 points out of those five events. A massive 23 of those came in Friday’s 10,000 – where Oregon went 2-3-4-6-8 – and Saturday’s steeple, where Benjamin Balazs (8:40.93) and Sergio Bel Barrios (8:42.67) finished 1-3.
PS. Everyone on here 5 years ago saying Vin had lost was embarrassed. Now history has repeated itself with Jerry.
Check back in after NCAAs. With the amount of resources and facilities the Ducks have, they should at the very minimum (and I mean on a bad day), be fighting for the team title at Nationals. That is the standard. Jerry wasn’t hired to flood the Big10 10k (at home!) with second tier athletes on large NIL deals whom will never score a point in the national meet.
In the 8 and 15 at Nats they could get 15-20 points total. But even that is a big ask.
But hey, a Big10 win is still something to celebrate. They still won it. I guess after four years it’s at least a small step forward.
Let’s be honest, though, compared to the Vin and RJ Oregon days, the last four years have been a failure on the men’s side. This wasn’t a broken team when Jerry inherited it. If this was Oregon football or basketball, Jerry would have been let go last year.
Now, through just attrition and funding against the backdrop of NCAA legislation that will likely choke out most of their competitors, The Men of Oregon will likely, someday, sniff the podium once again in cross, indoor and outdoor. But this is not what everyone had in mind.
Empty stadiums, forgotten fan base, and getting excited about beating underfunded distance programs. The magic is gone.
Having a sprints coach as the director made a lot of sense for Oregon. The history will always pull distance runners in, if they want championships they need to convince elite sprinters to go to Eugene instead of somewhere warm
Someone mentioned distance scholarships at UO - has that factor been marginalized by NIL? For example is someone like Birnbaum getting more NIL$ than a scholarship? It seems that UO might have the most 'distance' NIL money with Nike. NIL numbers aren't public, right??
The people you’re calling out are more than likely the type to never take accountability. They’ll come up with an excuse on here to justify their hatred/ jealousy.
“Oh but he injures his athletes” (like EVERY single coach deals with who trains elite competitive athletes).
Mike Smith has a recent history of developing Olympians. Yet pretty much every single one of his 2024 Men’s national XC lineup has dealt with some type of injury within the past 12 months. Must be a bad coach then, eh? (Not).
I wouldn't call myself a Jerry "hater" but I think there were legitimate concerns/questions when he started out at Oregon. Again, he had been out of the college coaching game for almost 15 years and was also trying to balance the remaining Bowerman athletes. Still, he had all the resources and recruits but for a lot of the time they were either injured or just kept on the shelf. When he had top prospects like Simeon, Rheinhardt, and Burns MIA with no real explanation, it was frustrating from the outside because these were guys with a lot of potential. It was also weird to see when they did race it was always at something like the Dellinger XC invite or some all Oregon intrasquad meet at an empty Hayward with an EDM light show going on.
Again, I'm not hating on Jerry and I'm rooting for these kids to be great. Seeing Simeon compete well and have some solid PRs this year is awesome. As others have said, this is a good step but Oregon has higher goals than just a good conference meet. A lot of those early questions about Jerry are still valid without big performances at NCAAs.
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Reason provided:
Forgot to add "not"
PS. Everyone on here 5 years ago saying Vin had lost was embarrassed. Now history has repeated itself with Jerry.
Check back in after NCAAs. With the amount of resources and facilities the Ducks have, they should at the very minimum (and I mean on a bad day), be fighting for the team title at Nationals. That is the standard. Jerry wasn’t hired to flood the Big10 10k (at home!) with second tier athletes on large NIL deals whom will never score a point in the national meet.
In the 8 and 15 at Nats they could get 15-20 points total. But even that is a big ask.
But hey, a Big10 win is still something to celebrate. They still won it. I guess after four years it’s at least a small step forward.
Let’s be honest, though, compared to the Vin and RJ Oregon days, the last four years have been a failure on the men’s side. This wasn’t a broken team when Jerry inherited it. If this was Oregon football or basketball, Jerry would have been let go last year.
Now, through just attrition and funding against the backdrop of NCAA legislation that will likely choke out most of their competitors, The Men of Oregon will likely, someday, sniff the podium once again in cross, indoor and outdoor. But this is not what everyone had in mind.
Empty stadiums, forgotten fan base, and getting excited about beating underfunded distance programs. The magic is gone.
Second tier athletes on NIL deals…you making stuff up to fit you bitter narrative?
and how would you know what ‘the standard’ is? You don’t, you only presume.
the team that Jerry ‘inherited’ are graduating out and the results that are happening are coming from, in large part, from Sophomores and Freshman.
Is Bob Liking (a senior) a second tier athlete? Because the Oregon freshman and sophomore beat him in different races.
With regards to empty stadiums and forgotten fan bases, that’s endemic of track and field across the country, not just lower attendance than the glory days of old in Eugene. Look at why Grand Slam track was formed and look at the early attendance. It’s a project to build back a fan base in the sport…one that has not been at its peak since perhaps the 80s. It’s not an Oregon thing….but then again, that’s just you staying on theme with your sad little narrative isn’t it?
Teare and Hocker were recruited by Andy P weren’t they? Like Ben Thomas showed up and they were there already?
People will hate but winning some women’s titles, winning the new Big 10, seems like he is doing just fine.
He could win the triple crown on both sides and it would be wrong somehow
Yeah, but I wasn't taking recruiting into account when talking about results, just because it's Oregon. There's an argument to be made that an NCAA coach's ability to recruit is an important factor to consider, but it's Oregon. They're never gonna have a hard time getting top recruits. And it's not like Powell leaving like he did was all for Thomas' benefit, because I know top recruits like Brody Hasty decommitted and went elsewhere. I'm sure they'd have gotten to a similar level under Powell if his results at UW are anything to go by, but I'm not certain about Jerry based on his results so far. Birnbaum came into college as a 3:37 guy, compared to Hocker's like 4:08, and Birnbaum has run 3:52i compared to Hocker's 3:50i their sophomore years. Thomas got Hocker as a freshman in college and turned him into an Olympic champion 4 years later. Jerry got all the top talent from the whole NCAA as pros for over a decade and produced 0 Olympic champs.
I know you look at it as hating, but I just feel like all the praise for Jerry right now is a bit disrespectful of Ben Thomas. I know Jerry has a decorated past, but it comes as a double-edged sword. He has very large shoes to fill, and given the circumstances he was brought in under (the dissolution of his pro group after an athlete tested positive, kicking a new and highly successful coach to the curb), I'm expecting him to be better than the last guy. I know it takes time to get results, but now he's been around for as long as Thomas was.
800 2nd) M Erickson (SR) 1:47.93 1500 3rd) S Birnbaum (SO) 3:53.38 6th) R Harrison (SO) 3:54.31 Steeple 1st) B Balazs (SO) 8:40.93 3rd) S Del Barrio (FR) 8:42.67 5000 1st) S Birnbaum (SO) 13:31.87 7th) Abdel Laadjel (JR) 13:35.97 10000 2nd) A Smith (SO) 29:24.65 3rd) E Bishop (JR) 29:25.13 4th) E Burke (SR) 29:26.10 6th) A Laadjel (JR) 29:27.42 8th) Q Norman (SR) 29:28.15
10 different distance athletes scoring in a mega-conference meet seems like an objectively good showing to me, but what do I know.
Teare and Hocker were recruited by Andy P weren’t they? Like Ben Thomas showed up and they were there already?
People will hate but winning some women’s titles, winning the new Big 10, seems like he is doing just fine.
He could win the triple crown on both sides and it would be wrong somehow
Yeah, but I wasn't taking recruiting into account when talking about results, just because it's Oregon. There's an argument to be made that an NCAA coach's ability to recruit is an important factor to consider, but it's Oregon. They're never gonna have a hard time getting top recruits. And it's not like Powell leaving like he did was all for Thomas' benefit, because I know top recruits like Brody Hasty decommitted and went elsewhere. I'm sure they'd have gotten to a similar level under Powell if his results at UW are anything to go by, but I'm not certain about Jerry based on his results so far. Birnbaum came into college as a 3:37 guy, compared to Hocker's like 4:08, and Birnbaum has run 3:52i compared to Hocker's 3:50i their sophomore years. Thomas got Hocker as a freshman in college and turned him into an Olympic champion 4 years later. Jerry got all the top talent from the whole NCAA as pros for over a decade and produced 0 Olympic champs.
I know you look at it as hating, but I just feel like all the praise for Jerry right now is a bit disrespectful of Ben Thomas. I know Jerry has a decorated past, but it comes as a double-edged sword. He has very large shoes to fill, and given the circumstances he was brought in under (the dissolution of his pro group after an athlete tested positive, kicking a new and highly successful coach to the curb), I'm expecting him to be better than the last guy. I know it takes time to get results, but now he's been around for as long as Thomas was.
I agree 100%. Ben Thomas currently has the #1 and #12 guys in the NCAA in the 800m. Both are higher than any Oregon 800m athletes. Ben has the #14 athlete in the NCAA in the 1500m too - higher than any Oregon athletes. Ben's best 10k athlete is a freshman and only about 1 second behind Oregon's top 10k athlete.
All this with about 5% of the resources that Jerry has at Oregon.
Sorry mods. You can't delete a post like that. If the whole thread goes that way, yes. But one post? No.
PS. While I'm a big Jerry defender, I guess it should be pointed out that it shoud have been even more points. He got really unlucky that the 100k+ Kenyan 800 guy - Kidali - didn't even score 1 point.
We all know you’re a Jerry defender. Your mods censor all the quality talks about that grifters activities. Gotta say this sites support of Shelby and Schumacher really make me suspicions of the Johnsons prs.
The men of Oregon have largely had a good spring. Nobody would argue Jerry's training is not effective; to this end, he is a good coach. The thing is that the risk profile of how BTC and now, presumably, the Ducks train seems super high. Simeon looks like he is coming into peak form at the right time. The 5k/10k group is doing well, as is Rheinhardt Harrison. But here is a list of men who have not competed at all this spring:
- Elliott Cook, 3:33 1500, last year's NCAA runner-up
- Connor Burns, 13:42i and B1G champ
- Tomas Palfrey, 3:54i
- Tayson Echohawk, 3:58i
- James Harding, 1:47i
In addition, Jeffery Rogers (3:58i and 3:40 this spring) hasn't raced in a month and may be injured. On the women's side, Maddy Elmore has been MIA since XC, 4:30 true freshman Ali Ince hasn't raced outdoors, and Wilma Nielsen (NCAA indoor mile champ) hasn't raced. And so on and so forth
I did not compete at the P4 DI level, much less UO which has very few peers as far as being a pre-professional track team. But I question whether the training truly has to be so rigorous that this many of their elite athletes -- rather than the typical, somewhat less-talented seasonal casualties of other college rosters -- are on the shelf. Did these young people fully realize what they were getting into? Given all the blue chippers that UO brings in, how poorly would they really do at B1Gs and nationals if they took a slightly more conservative approach to development? So respectfully, rojo, I will remain a Jerry skeptic (not quite a hater) given the totality of performance and progression under his coaching