Wartburg has two guys sub 14, a 14:10 guy, and 4 more guys right around 14:20 (along with 15 more guys sub-15). Their enrollment is 1400 in a small Iowa town. People preaching that this ain't a big deal, have clearly never coached collegiately.
I'm a former SEC runner who's coached D1 for many years and had Olympic Trials Qualifiers. Pretty well connected in the coaching world.
Not enough people talk about the fact that most top D3 programs coach circles around the majority of D1 coaches. Think of how many mid major programs are tossing scholarship money at 4:10-4:15/9:00-9:15 HS kids and signing a bunch of them, then you look at their TFRRS page and they struggle to even have their 5th-7th guys under 15:00.
Meanwhile, the elite D3s are scraping together a roster of 4:25-4:40/9:40-10:20 walk-ons, and two years later those guys are outperforming those aforementioned D1 kids.
If you were to take the top-10 D3 coaches and top-10 D1 coaches and swap their programs, the D3 coaches would adapt to coaching the blue chip 4:05/8:50 kids, but I don't know if the D1 coaches would be able to help less talented kids find those breakthroughs.
Just my two cents, not trying to knock anyone! But having seen a lot of these "elite" D1 programs up close, there's such a surplus of talent that it's hardly surprising when some pan out and become studs. I'm always impressed with what top D3 coaches are able to do with a bunch of local kids who can't even make their HS state meets, and don't even have money to offer them.
What interests me is that this seems like an analytically tractable question, given the amount of public longitudinal data available on running performance. With the right dataset and the right statistical expertise, someone could identify which schools, programs, or coaches most consistently outperform expectations in athlete development, even within different tiers of competition. I’d love to see that analysis done—if the right analyst happens to be reading this.
The way to get fired in P4 coaching is to spend time recruiting a bunch of walk-ons and then investing energy into developing them. There's only 24 hours in a day, and whatever time you are investing in developing that 4:15 kid should be spent recruiting next year's 4:06 kid. Or, if you are at a top program, next year's 4:02 kid.
Maybe you can get 30% of high-level walk-ons to be serviceable conference level runners, but you will get less than 5% to ever score meaningful points that help you place high in your conference. It might be more like 1% in the 16 team conference era. You might go two recruiting cycles and get 0 track points out of your walk-ons, even if you are a wizard at development. There are the exceptions that prove the rule, but they are very few and far between.
Oh, and the whole question is moot, because no P4 program is allowed to stockpile walk-ons anymore.
All that said, respect to the top D3 coaches. They are, in fact, developing good runners.
I was only a 444 guy in hs and they recruited me like I was the next Galen rupp. They are absolutely relentless in recruiting and have a huge roster so it’s not surprising that they get a lot of hits. Turning 17 minute guys into 14ish guys is hugely impressive and speaks to the development allowed at the D3 level. And the vast majority are Iowa kids within a 2 hour radius.
I was only a 444 guy in hs and they recruited me like I was the next Galen rupp. They are absolutely relentless in recruiting and have a huge roster so it’s not surprising that they get a lot of hits. Turning 17 minute guys into 14ish guys is hugely impressive and speaks to the development allowed at the D3 level. And the vast majority are Iowa kids within a 2 hour radius.
They have never had a recruit that fast let alone 7 of them.
Funny how they manage to win conference track meets without them though. Budget...
They were starting to get some good milers in Bucknams last few years but they've never had a distance group to approach being competitive at the regional level. Not worth it if you can have a great track team without them.