stanford vs colorado

Wtfhmmm wrote:

It is conceivable that one wins PAC 12s and the other NCAAs. Also, who does the rankings for the USTFCCCA? Stanford is ranked 4th in the west region and like 9th in the nation. Morons.

Exactly what is moronic about that?

How about this? Stanford won't get second. They'll get 4th, even though they are tied for the most talented team award. Colorado will get first, but they're the 4th or 5th most talented team.

Colorado gets it because they're interchangeable. I expect Saarel to be top 10, Huryz, Theroux and Pearson to be top 20. And Murphy top 30. The Cardinal and NAU have solid 1-4, but they just don't have the 5th-7th power. Oregon has a lot of potential (as always), but they just are consistent enough. Besides Ches, Jenkins and Pepiot there are no proven studs. The best i could see is 2nd for them if everything goes perfect (ie: Haney lives up to expectations, Leingang avoids Sophomore slump). Very unlikely though. I say 3rd or 4th. NAU could do big things and they might surprise. They have 3 returning all americans and it looks like Caleb Hoover has improved a lot. Top 10 for Futsum (could be as high as 2nd), and McElroy I think will be around 15th. Their transfer from Louisville got 29th last year and he'll have to do even better if they want a chance at winning.

odok wrote:

Wtfhmmm wrote:

It is conceivable that one wins PAC 12s and the other NCAAs. Also, who does the rankings for the USTFCCCA? Stanford is ranked 4th in the west region and like 9th in the nation. Morons.

Exactly what is moronic about that?

The only way Stanford gets 4th at regionals is if they sit key players out or run on auto pilot and even then they aren't losing to UCLA. They have won 4 out of the last 5 years. As for national rankings, putting them anywhere outside the top 5 is absurd. If you want to claim that the rankings are based on what teams have actually done as a whole this season then Oregon and Oklahoma State should be lower. You can't rank a team lower because you think they may bomb at nationals.

Wtfhmmm wrote:

The only way Stanford gets 4th at regionals is if they sit key players out or run on auto pilot and even then they aren't losing to UCLA. They have won 4 out of the last 5 years. As for national rankings, putting them anywhere outside the top 5 is absurd. If you want to claim that the rankings are based on what teams have actually done as a whole this season then Oregon and Oklahoma State should be lower. You can't rank a team lower because you think they may bomb at nationals.

Why should Oregon and Oklahoma State be lower?

Great point by the first responder who mentioned that team point wise, there isn't a huge difference between 8th and 20th because of non scoring individual studs.

The thing that we can be most sure of- because of depth and Wetmore's track record- is that CU will run well.

I'm a big Milt fan but we just don't know what place Rosa A, Rosa B (both are top 10 if on their game, but a potential DNF), Maks (top 5 or DNF? Flip a coin) or McGorty (top 15 is reasonable, but he DNF'd last year and has been hurt) are going to finish.

So the "if" here is, "if" all 4 Cardinal studs show up, they will win regionals (where lower sticks will matter more) and it will be a blood bath at Nationals.

Coaching is King wrote:

Come on you can't be serious questioning if Stanford will actually beat CU. Coaching is King, and everyone knows the differences in this situation.

Wetmore is a ridulous talent, knows how to recruit and coach athletes. Race day will be like a different planet between these two coaches. Wetmore doesn't need to prove a damn thing, and the pressure will not come from that particular coach. Not sure if anyone really nows that dude at Stanford, but it's not even close. In fact it's a joke.

With great athletes on both teams, coaching and Leadership will rule the day. Sorry, but that's the way these things go.

As someone who admittedly loves Wetmore, let me point out a few errors in your post and try to play the role of devil's advocate.

1) Coaching isn't king in college xc. Recruiting is. Who are the alltime greats in Colorado xc history? Goucher, Ritz, Torres. What do they have in common? Foot locker xc champs.

That doesn't mean coaching isn't important it is but I'm just correcting errors in your post.

2) Do you know anything about the xc coach at Stanford? Miltenberg won a NCAA title as Georgetown. Yes it was woman's running which is significanlty different than men's but it's still a good sign.

He's done a great job of totally resurrecting the Rosas. Before he got there, they looked to be total collegiate washouts. One didn't even run NCAAs as a frosh and the other was over 150. Two years under Milt and Jim's now the top American born runner at NCAAs.

3) You are aware that Jenny Simpson totally imploded at NCAAs under Wetmore right?

Rojo

PS.As for Stanford, I wonder if there is a correlation between having a higher IQ and being more likley to choke. I'm serious. The more shit you've got in your brain, the more it's easy to over think it and screw up. Although Saarel is brilliant and he ran brilliantly so mabye not.

I think I'm going to compare the PRs of the Stanford, Oregon and Colorado guys. If they put 3 in the top 20, it's hard to lose.

Yeah, Shorter was lucky he was a real dumb guy.

Rojo, some of the stuff that comes out of our mouth is beyond comprehension.

stanford vs oregon vs colorado 5k PRs

https://twitter.com/flotrack/status/501151513478434817

My guess for Pac 10's (Team Scoring):

Oregon 1-2-8-12-18 = 41

Colorado 4-5-9-11-15 = 44

Stanford 3-6-7-10-14 = 42

Oregon wins Pac 10's, but total toss up….

At Nationals

Oregon 1-8-24-35-44 = 112

Colorado 6-12-13-19-25 = 75

Stanford 4-5-9-24-36 = 78

Colorado Repeats in a close one with Oregon dropping to 3rd.

Thoughts?

Rojo,

I certainly didn't offer any proof that Coaching is King, but you actually lended more support my claim than I did.

First your website just did a huge media-blast on Mark Wetmore. I assume Letsrun did that becuase Mark is a great coach. Was that the case, or was it for some other reason?

You said recruiting is king, and that certainly is also a big part of coaching, so I agree recruiting is an extremely important part of coaching along with be good tecnically and emotionally. If we take the extreme case of a terrible coach going to Footlocker with scholarship offers, they may land a High School Champ, but will certainly strike out at getting NCAA Championships. Wetmore, like many other coaches, has had Footlocker Champions, but I don't think a bad coach will have much luck by simply picking up Footlocker Champs and getting NCAA championships. You name 3 CU guys that were also Footlocker Champs and went to CU. Goucher is now 39, Torres 34, and Ritz 31, so they did their things at CU quite a while ago, and certainly aren't involved in Wetmore's 2014 team of guys aged 19-to-22. I do think that your comments about Goucher, Torres, and Ritz support everyones thoughts that Wetmore's success is long-lived, and probably related to something he's been doing consistantly great through time.

As for Jenny Simpson, Mark Wetmore continues to coach her. I guess we could all remember a 2010 race that went bad for her under Mark Wetmore's guidance, but how about the titles and championships she also earned under Mark. Not sure why her bad 2010 NCAA XC race defines her or Mark Wetmore. I would say Jenny is very smart, free to choose and has chosen Mark Wetmore as her current coach for a reason. Probably because it matters to have a great coach.

Lastly, If I have it correctly the Rosa's were recruited to Stanford in Jan-2011, and the current coach came in 2012. That means the Rosa's only ran as Freshman, the year before the current coach came. Most Freshman redshirt and develop over the following 4-years, so not sure anyone considers the Rosa's as having unusually bad Freshman starts. They were the amoung the best High School runners in 2010-2011, had big expectations and were recruited to a top program like Stanford, and then suddenly became College washouts in 1-yr, as Freshman? Doesn't completely add up, but I am glad to hear that you are saying coaching was big for the Rosa's and they have now been saved from washing out by the current coach.

Also, my impression in the 20-yrs of coaching is that Mark Wetmore has actually done more with no-name people than most any coach in the country. Mark has very little in the way of scholarship resources beyond the 12.6-scholarships for track/XC, and can't offer the academic prestige that Stanford can. Stanford probably has an easier time of recruiting no matter who the coach is, and there have been a long line of them. In other words independent of coaching, Stanford has a huge advantage in the recruiting war because of financial resources and academic prestige. Mark Wetmore does it with the standard budget, and attacts athletes with his coaching ability alone.

If Coaching wasn't King, then decades of consistant success wouldn't be something we observe, but we do observe that consistantcy, so I have to believe Coaching is King.

Stanford's won plenty of national championships. There's no institutional choking hazard linked to intelligence. They have a lot of proven college talent this year. But you have to expect Colorado to win the national title, because they always overperform, relative to track times, whereas Stanford often underperforms. Why? Maybe it is about the fact that CU trains and lives at altitude. That's particularly important at 10k xc.

rojo wrote:

As for Stanford, I wonder if there is a correlation between having a higher IQ and being more likley to choke..

I think you're making a mistake in assuming that the average Stanford runner is smarter than the average Colorado runner. Sure, if you look at the ovrall profile of the two schools, it's clear that the average Stanford student is smarter than the average C.U. student. But if you limit this analysis to the sports teams, and in particular the cross-country teams, I think this difference evaporates. Have you ever seen Ryan or Sara Hall try to compose a coherent sentence? Anyone who thinks either one of those two could have gotten into Stanford without the running creds is deluded. And it's easy to find many other examples. Stanford is maybe the top academic school in North America but it's just like any other in that it let acadmically underqualified kids who are great athletes in.

As for your theory on the whole, I think you can find as many normal and stupid chronic chokers as you can smart ones, but the smart ones are more striking because their post-race comments are often more poignant.

rojo wrote:

3) You are aware that Jenny Simpson totally imploded at NCAAs under Wetmore right?

Rojo

While I felt bad for her, This was so nice to watch because the camera views of her behind were incredible on my HDTV back in like 2010 or whenever it was

Yes, coaching isn't king. Recruiting is extremely important, agreed.

However, it should be mentioned every guy who won footlocker who came to CU won NCAA cross. How many other coaches have that record? Coaching must play a big role.

Jenny Simpson is an exception. There was a time in her collegiate career that when she did not always respond well to being challenged, and when there was risk of not winning she'd throw in the towel. This is not a common problem among champs, and much to her credit she has proven she is way beyond that now. She also never won FL and arguably became way bigger under wetmore than before him, although she was pretty good before CU, not as good as she was during/after relatively.

Regarding choking, interesting thoughts. I think it has less to do with IQ and more to do with personality, insight, and most importantly innate confidence (a huge product of childhood development).

Yes, coaching isn't king. Recruiting is extremely important, agreed.

However, it should be mentioned every guy who won footlocker who came to CU won NCAA cross. How many other coaches have that record? Coaching must play a big role.

Jenny Simpson is an exception. There was a time in her collegiate career that when she did not always respond well to being challenged, and when there was risk of not winning she'd throw in the towel. This is not a common problem among champs, and much to her credit she has proven she is way beyond that now. She also never won FL and arguably became way bigger under wetmore than before him, although she was pretty good before CU, not as good as she was during/after relatively.

Regarding choking, interesting thoughts. I think it has less to do with IQ and more to do with personality, insight, and most importantly innate confidence (a huge product of childhood development).

Not exactly Rojo!

Pierce Murphy is a perfect example of a guy that Mark Wetmore builds Championship teams with. Coming out of High School Pierce Murphy had the following sea-level times(Hawaii):

800 2:00.67

1600 4:29.53

5k-XC 16:26.

3-yrs later he's 39th at NCAA's.

Wetmore can spot talent, and develop talent better than anyone.

Convenient omission is Murphy's 9:14.09 3200

"HIGH SCHOOL: Murphy was a standout at Island School in Lihue, Hawai’i. He set a pair of state records en route to winning in the 1,500 and 3,000-meter runs at the Hawaii State Championships in 2011 and was named the Gatorade Hawai’i Track Athlete of the Year. In 2009 he was named the Gatorade Hawai’i Cross Country Athlete of the Year. Murphy owns records for the island of Kauai in the 800, 1,500 and 3,000. He was a KIG all-star for track and cross country his freshman through senior seasons.

HIGH SCHOOL BESTS: 800-meters: 2:00.67; 1,600-meters: 4:29.53; 3,200-meters: 9:14.09; 5,000-meters: 16:26.00."

KemBOII wrote:

Convenient omission is Murphy's 9:14.09 3200

"HIGH SCHOOL: Murphy was a standout at Island School in Lihue, Hawai’i. He set a pair of state records en route to winning in the 1,500 and 3,000-meter runs at the Hawaii State Championships in 2011 and was named the Gatorade Hawai’i Track Athlete of the Year. In 2009 he was named the Gatorade Hawai’i Cross Country Athlete of the Year. Murphy owns records for the island of Kauai in the 800, 1,500 and 3,000. He was a KIG all-star for track and cross country his freshman through senior seasons.

HIGH SCHOOL BESTS: 800-meters: 2:00.67; 1,600-meters: 4:29.53; 3,200-meters: 9:14.09; 5,000-meters: 16:26.00."

No question a great Hawaii kid. My point is that Wetmore develops talent.

BTW the 16:26 was a 32nd place at Footlocker Regionals as a Senior. It's not exactly like Wetmore just builds a team with Footlocker Champions, and kicks his feet up as a coach.