Stanford FAILS again!

3-Peat wrote:

Final note added, Fernandez is better than Derrick. Yes, Derrick beat Fernandez yesterday, but Fernandez looked like he had a lot more in him.

Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds?

Fernandez looked better so he must be chilling?! This is the national meet. They knew they were racing Stanford. Do you think those 3 Ok State guys thought, oh let's finish together behind 2 stanford competitors, who were our main competition going into this race...

Team work baby, you may learn a thing or two about it...

3-Peat wrote:

Team work baby, you may learn a thing or two about it...

Common dude - you really think German held back so he could hold hands with his team mates across the line. He ran a good race but he wasn't as good as Derrick.

ok - Stanford did not win and did not have a great day but did they fail, No.

Were they overrated? Yes, especially considering they were missing their 4-5 runners.

Ben Johnson and Brendon Gregg were the big questions coming into the season and they both got hurt. So now you are down to a freshman and a few unproven guys fighting for the 4-5 spots.

Derrick - had the exact race you would expect. He will have a chance next year to become second person in history to make top 10 in four consecutive years.

Riley - you have to give Dunn some credit here he has turned Jake Riley into a solid top 10 runner.

Heath - admittedly, a bad day for heath, not terrible but about 20-25 points higher than where he sould have finished.

JT Sullivan - 85th not a good day but how much more would you expect from him, 20-30 pts?

Olson - 105th he fell and still finished just behind some of the other top freshman. ok performance but just not the guy you wanted to be your No. 5 yesterday.

Riley Sullivan / Unterainner - how much were you really expecting out of these guys maybe 50th-75th at very best?

In looking at it this way i dont think on a great day they score less than 150 pts. a good day would have had them around 175.

Oklahoma St. is just that much better. Stanford should have beaten FSU and Wisconsin, but were only few points on an off day without 2 guys they were expecting to be in the top 5.

I cant think of another team in the NCAA that could have lost 4-5 runners and still made the podium.

So this is not on the scale of last year. An off day for sure, but i think the reality was that they were not close to OSU with out Gregg and Johnson.

On the womens side, they finished right with Pac-10 rivals Oregon, Arizona, and UW without their No. 1 runner. Not sure what happened to her but I assume it was an injury and sometimes that just happens.

I think Dunn has the programs moving in a positive direction and he is developing the talent he has. I would expect that they will win an NCAA championship in the next couple years, possibly on both sides.

I'm reading this shit about teammates hanging back to run with and help out other teammates. What utter shiite! You run for low points at nationals, period, you don't run below capacity to be someone's nursemaid. Low score wins. If someone blows up and gets passe din the last 100-meters oh well. That's the most ridiculous cockamamie excuse I've ever heard for underperforming in my life.

In the post race interview, Coach Dave Smith mentioned they ran a conservative 3-1-3 half course press - they ran for the team title and won. Great coaching and great execution by his team. True story!

dope dope wrote:

I'm reading this shit about teammates hanging back to run with and help out other teammates. What utter shiite! You run for low points at nationals, period, you don't run below capacity to be someone's nursemaid. Low score wins. If someone blows up and gets passe din the last 100-meters oh well. That's the most ridiculous cockamamie excuse I've ever heard for underperforming in my life.

Stanford was very open about Derrick, Jake and Elliot running together. That was the point.

At the end though, everyone has to finish storng. German would never let Stanford blow past at Nats. That's the stupidest thing I've read on these boards. However, like I said, Stanford was open at the beginning of season about packing the 3 together.

louou wrote:

Stanford was very open about Derrick, Jake and Elliot running together. That was the point. [/quote]

This is why Stanford underperformed. Someone in that threesome did not go 100%, possibly more than one guy.

A very intelligent post. Thank you for your perspective, which is completely right on.

Part of this is correct. Stanford was a bit overrated. Not a lot - I had them #3 coming in - but no one was going to take out OSU from what I was looking at. I don't actually believe Stanford failed... just had unrealistic expectations placed on them by the rest of us.

1. I wasn't counting on Heath staying with Riley and Derrick. He's a much better track runner than XC racer - and if he gets himself focused mentally, I think he has a shot at an NCAA 5k title before graduating. I suspect he had a bit more in him, but lost a little getting banged up during the first part of the race. I had him in the 20s.

2. Their fourth without Johnson (or Gregg who red-shirted) is a steepler/mile guy who had never raced at nats. I had him about where he finished.

3. Their back three were composed of a freshman, a RS Soph who has had very limited racing experience because of injury, and a RS Soph who I thought would be further up. I thought one of them would be their fourth, but only slightly ahead of their fifth (Sullivan). Still a total of almost 200 points.

I had them placing third (I didn't count on FSU being 2nd). But I knew OSU wasn't going to be beat and I was pretty sure Wisconsin had a better pack.

So, what do they have for next year? A lot, actually. Derrick, Riley, J. Sullivan, Olson, R. Sullivan, Unterreiner. But they also gain back Gregg who is a sub-29 10k guy (although still not proven in XC) and Johnson. They also get in the Rosa twins (we'll see how Joe progresses after injury) and have a fairly deep RS Freshman bench next year.

Can they unseat OSU? Who knows, but I think they actually have a better shot next year than they ever did this year. More pieces that can be switched out without losing a lot of points at nationals will help a lot.

I do believe that Dunn is doing a good job with the program overall. Other than Derrick and maybe Heath, the guys making up the program are not the type of runners Vin used to bring in. The Rosas change that, and we'll see what happens with them, but I've been impressed especially by guys like Jake Riley and JT Sullivan (particularly in Steeple).

OSU gets Wills and has a full returning line-up. So, they will and should be the heavy favorites.

Until next year, I suppose...

Anyone can have a bad race, and anyone can crack under the pressure of a big race. Having said that, I think Stanford runners are a little more prone to this than those of most other schools.

Stanford does an extremely good job of giving its undergraduates the feeling that they are essentially guaranteed the good life thanks to their Stanford education and connections. Note that I'm *not* saying they are guaranteed this, just that the institution creates a very convincing impression that they are (so as to justify the insane tuition). So when push comes to shove, when it really starts to hurt, I think Stanford athletes are (in general) more likely to back off because their non-sport options probably appear quite good.

Obviously, this varies by person, so I'm not saying all Stanford athletes are like this, and clearly the same could be the case for students at other schools as well, depending on their personal situation. But on average, I'd argue that Stanford athletes are somewhat more likely to cave when things get really hard simply because they perceive the cost of coming up a little short at sport to be lower.

I mean, if I'm Chelanga, I'm thinking that my "plan B" of using my Liberty degree in "government" would be a big big step down from the life I could have if I made it as a professional distance runner. If I'm a Stanford guy, I'm thinking, well, if the running thing doesn't happen, I could go work at Google, or join that startup some of my friends are putting together, or ....

I'll admit that I'm prejudiced because I ran at Stanford (quite a long time ago), but I think that what you wrote about Stanford's sense of privilege and entitlement somehow eroding their will to "make it hurt" (which is exactly what you're describing) is a load of rubbish. I don't think Stanford's stature as a university has changed much since the school scored 24 points at the NCAAs when Lanana was there. They were a tough crew then, and they're a tough crew now. As one of the posters here explained, the team had lost its fourth and fifth runners, and without them couldn't cover Oklahoma State -- and might not have anyway.

"I think Stanford athletes are (in general) more likely to back off because their non-sport options probably appear quite good." Please explain how the school has basically retired the Sears Director's Trophy for overall athletic excellence. It isn't just because they're spending a lot of money on athletics. There's a great culture for athletic achievement at Stanford, it has long been a distance running powerhouse, and it continues to be one.

No, actually OSU would've won without German.

partly true about Stan wrote:

1. I wasn't counting on Heath staying with Riley and Derrick. He's a much better track runner than XC racer -

I'm tempted to think this too, but reality is that Heath has done very well on big stage cross before (Junior Nat's winner) but more often has just underperformed on the big stage. You simply can't say a guy who ran like he did at Pac-10s, Pre-Nats and Regionals is about where he should have been yesterday. Too bad. I suspect some early contact is partly to blame, but it's just too bad he didn't get a good chance to redeem last year's bad performance.

Good luck to him in Indoors/Outdoors.

Looking at the pre-nats results, Miles Unterreiner was right in the mix with guys like Brian Leung from Princeton (21st at NCAA), J.T. Sullivan was only a few seconds behind Michael Fout of Florida State (28th at NCAA), and ahead of David Forrester of FSU (42nd at NCAA).

Pre-nats:

http://www.gosycamores.com//pdf8/717107.pdf

Ben Johnson out was a big blow because with him you would have had a 4,5,6 that on paper could all be top placing in the top 40, if they are hanging with guys they ran with at pre-nats. On paper they could have been racking up 50-70 points at NCAA with their 4 and 5 instead of 196. The pre-nats Stanford team would have given Oklahoma State a run for their money.

The difference between 30:30 and 31:10 in the 4 and 5 spots is often not ability but guys having their best race of the season at the right time.

A couple of interesting flo-track videos, showing Stanford and Oklahoma State on their long runs:

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237630-flotracks-workout-wednesday-season-5/356938-stanford-wow-the-long-run

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/237498-2010-cross-country-season/357992-sunday-run-with-oklahoma-state

This is speculation, but it seems like the Stanford is pushing their long-runs harder- in the video Derrick relishes how they become hammer sessions. Stanford treats the run as almost a borderline tempo run, whereas it's clearly more of a recovery day for the Oklahoma State team. Maybe this is a differentiating factor between a fresh Oklahoma team and the end-of-season burnout on the Stanford end (Riley and Derrick excluded), as well as some of the injury problems.

I'm very interested to see how OK St. handles pressure. They did a great job of flying under the radar the last two years, and i believe ran as well as they did because of it. Now they are heavy favorites, similar to Standford two years ago (who chocked). Dave Smith will not be able to divert attention away this time...

Define "chocked."

The only radar they were under was the radar of irrational detractors like you. Why would that change now?

32 wrote:

I'm very interested to see how OK St. handles pressure. They did a great job of flying under the radar the last two years, and i believe ran as well as they did because of it. Now they are heavy favorites, similar to Standford two years ago (who chocked). Dave Smith will not be able to divert attention away this time...

OSU handled pressure very well. They were the defending champions. Don't you think there is pressure to defend.

I think Dave Smith handled the pressure very well. At regionals he rested Mesecho and Stunblaski. Knowing that those runners were the key to OSU winning. At the same time he let McElroy and Moskowitzs run at Midwest regional giving them experience for next year.

In 2008 OSU did the Stanford choke thing. The last two years Dave Smith has over come the pressure by using his runners wisely. Resting some when needed and giving other experience for the next year.

As much as some of you hate to admitted. Dave Smith knows what he doing.

He'll have OSU ready for the pressure cooker next year.