Worst D1 Track teams

More time should be spent improving your running times rather then trying to make yourself feel better by downplaying college track programs. Clearly that list is B.S.

If you cant beat every single person in that program in their event just shut and enjoy the sport. Don't disrespect those that work hard and dont deserve to be downplayed on a track web site. We get that to much from others outside out sport

fully funded? wrote:

Is Georgia State fully funded? I don't think so on the men's side.

But look at their head coach...works at a university and can't even get a degree. Great hire by the GSU administration there!

Since when does having a degree make you a great coach? Very little of what is taught in most colleges is going to help you out when it comes to coaching runners.

That is an awful article with a poor premise and even worse justrification. The criteria used to evaluate the teams changes constantly, and it seems like most of the information is based solely on the 2011 indoor season with no historical perspective or context.

Of course the author knows about injuries, athletes studying abroad, redshirts, academic probations, events like the jav and 400m hurdles that don't translate well indoors, and other factors that may hinder performance. Or the simple fact that, at a conference meet, a team will always finish last. By the way, I love the intro to the CU piece: they had five runners under 14:10, but they still suck. Brilliant analysis.

My question is: what is the solution to this imagined problem? Are there dozens of qualified coaches waiting in the wings to lead these programs to glory?

I think this is the most telling part of the article:

This article was written by Matt Smith. Matt ran 3 years of division 1 track and has been a high school and private coach for 10 years. He is a huge track nerd and loves to debate about the sport.

Couldn't hack it all four years, so he tears down those who are currently competing and coaching.

The article is based on the worst FULLY funded programs of the 2011 indoor season. The article states that CU is a better outdoor team. I'm sorry you go to one of these schools or coach there. If you think there were worse fully funded programs indoors please let us know.

"We are ranking the 5 worst men’s track teams in D1 from Indoor.  To be ranked in the bottom 5 you must be fully funded, we are not going to rank a team with 4 scholarships in the bottom 5. "

objective? how about the first ranked team is the team that this guy who runs the website was fired from in the fall. not only that, but it mentions him in the 'article' and says how he was the only thing making them good. sounds to me like this whole thing was written so that this webmaster could slam his former employer. that is pretty far from objective.

comprehension wrote:

objective? how about the first ranked team is the team that this guy who runs the website was fired from in the fall. not only that, but it mentions him in the 'article' and says how he was the only thing making them good. sounds to me like this whole thing was written so that this webmaster could slam his former employer. that is pretty far from objective.

Exactly, this guy sounds like he has an ax to grind with one of the mentioned teams, whether a former employee or a "private coach" who can't get his foot in the door as a college coach.

I'll just let a few let a few things be known.

1. I was never fired from any job, especially the job at South. For a lot of reasons I decided college coaching was not what I wanted to do anymore.

2. I didn't write the article.

3. I am not the webmaster for Trackbullet

Prepgold wrote:

The article is based on the worst FULLY funded programs of the 2011 indoor season. The article states that CU is a better outdoor team. I'm sorry you go to one of these schools or coach there. If you think there were worse fully funded programs indoors please let us know.

"We are ranking the 5 worst men’s track teams in D1 from Indoor.  To be ranked in the bottom 5 you must be fully funded, we are not going to rank a team with 4 scholarships in the bottom 5. "

I ran track at a D-III school, so I have no dog in this fight. It seems like you do, though, which is odd for someone who claims to have no affiliation with Track Bullet (despite being listed in its "friends" section).

How are you defining fully-funded? By scholarships alone? By the team budgets? By the travel budget? By the alumni endowments?

If you want a truly accurate ranking, creating a metric that quantifies key characteristics of each team. Number of athletes qualifying for nationals, place at conference, number of scholarships, etc. Maybe even factor in average athlete performance using Purdy points. After some number crunching you will be able to determine the "worst team" in America with an easily defended number.

This article just seems like someone bitching and using poorly reasoned statistics to back up a faulty premise.

check our signing class

I didn't say I don't write articles for the site. I said I am not the webmaster. I did not write the article.

The only dog i have in the fight is supporting the site. I think Matt was clear that he only based it on indoor. He gave personal records for the teams and gave his opinion. He took the idea from ESPNs Bottom 10 for football.

I actually disagree with Matt on a few of these teams, but again it wasn't my article. Email Matt I'm sure he will respond to it.

Well PrepGold, firstly you suck for posting this trash and your friend Matt is a dummy. You make your sport looking bad. If you just would of said you hated these schools and wanted to hate on them that's one thing but to do it through a hidden pretext of bitter resentment is not a good look.

Easy Portland State. They Blow

I think the point is that these school should all BE good at track and they are not. this article is on point. for what these teams HAVE available to them, compared to i dunno your basterized lesser known state school in their respective states, the aformentioned teams suck balls

Can't really respect a guy's opinion about track when he calls a meet with two teams a duel meet.

I'll go ahead and agree that something like a bottom 5 is good to have. Why is everyone so defensive about calling out bad programs? As long as everything is taken into consideration, its objective, and its not someone trying to paint a particular program in a bad light its a good idea.

Agreed. Real sports like basketball at UK or football at Duke are under constant scrutiny and attack. T&F may not be a team sport insofar as its only one person at the line, but a major conference major power like Purdue or UK should have excellent athletes across many events, thus producing a good team score. Pretty simple.

ok guys, well we all can criticize which is funny, and easy. BUT, what should these programs do to turn this around. How about we put a positive spin on this, so the coaches that read this thread

Oh I am sure great posters like: "long dong sliver" will struggle immensely with a task that requires doing something positive and helpful, BUT lets see if we just can't get it done.

So yeah, but in all seriousness, what could they do to run it around?

Robert morrow university is pretty bad...actually the whole conference is. Well below sub par for being D1 programs.

Robert f***ing morris