Bad D1 Schools to Transfer to

Look at university of San Diego. They have an okay team with guys breaking 25 each year but definitely not competitive. The try out standard there is running 10 miles in sub 60. It’s a good academic school that offers merit money for good grades. And the location is great. I went there but didn’t run if you have any questions :-)

why D1? in my mind D1 should only be a focus/goal for people who have potential to go pro. If a D1 school offers you a scholarship, that's a valid and a good reason to go. if you end up at a D1 school for academics and can make it as a walk-on, that's great. But unless you're running elite times (you're not) there's not a huge reason in my mind to have that D1 or bust mentality. there are high level D2 programs that can compete with many D1 schools and D2 still gives scholarships (although maybe not to you right now). and the others, D3, juco, NAIA, get faster every year and i think are starting to close some of that gap. There's some fast D3 programs now. Nick Symmonds came from a D3 school, the same school that my coach went to. Both of them are pretty fast (maybe nick has him barely beat)

In my opinion you should go to a school that is a good academic match (ignoring division), and then see if you can walk on, and if you can't, see if the school has a club team, else I'm sure there will be at least some club team in that city you can join and go to meets/train/race with.

Look, all I did was look up some not so competitive conferences and looked which teams placed bottom half in the last xc conference meet. I have no idea what OP would consider a "relevant" school. That would be up to him to research and decide.

Another school I was just thinking of would be College of Charleston.

I'll name 10 schools. Quinnipiac, Manhattan, St. Peter's, Marist, Niagara, Canisius, Central Connecticut State University, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, and Farleigh Dickinson. That's just two conferences out of the many I'd previously mentioned.

Never said it was special. My point is that a 8:41 hser has a hell of a lot more upside than 26 high college kid. Again, Vanderbilt isn't taking him

That is an amazingly ignorant statement. There are several factors to determining upside, not just age and times. That high school kid could easily turn out to be a bust, while under the right conditions the college kid could blossom.

Keep in mind, smart coaches like to have at least one guy on their team who may not have fast times but has a good work ethic, gets along well with team mates, is well liked by the team and has a good positive attitude. Having at least one athlete like that on your team helps uplift the team atmosphere. The other team members, including the fast guys, draw inspiration to work hard and smart (they know the coach likes the positive guy and they know the reasons why so they emulate the kid with the good habits.)

I've seen and known high school studs with fast times, who were cancers on their teams and actually ruined their teams. That happens when the coach is weak and only considers times. College coaches (the good ones) try to learn about the athlete's personality and will pass on a fast kid with a bad attitude.

Buffalo is pretty bad.. you could probably transfer there... though the coach is pretty bad.

Tons oF D1 colleges that you couldrun for. Not all are Alabama, ND or syracuse. There are plenty of D1 schools with average XC and track programs that a 26 min would make the top 7. You just have to look. Use the internet

For real. Just check out the bottom end of something like Paul Short, lots of slow D1 kids out there. Also depending on OP's context a coach at a good might be interested. If you ran 26 high for 8k XC off of garbage training/injury, that might indicate that you have a higher ceiling.

I don't have much suggestion but I'd consider looking at schools that have good coaches but that don't have high caliber squads. You can see this by looking at how much people improve or don't improve during their college career. Even with a good coach you can have a low performing team if the school doesn't have much scholarship $/bad facilities, is in a weird place for training, or the school is niche for academics.

NOT furman lol. worst school ever.

Don't go to the NEC, joke of a conference.

Agreed. D1 coaches don't give.a **** about backpack runners. Speaking as a former backpack runner hahaha.

UNCG

I don't know about the other schools but Murray State only has XC for Men. There is no Men's track program. They ended their Men's track program around 1986. Back in the late 70's and early 80's when Bill Cornell was there they had a very good Men's program. When he left to take the Head coaching job at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL most of his athletes followed him there. Murray State eventually just went downhill and has been ever since.

When I responded to the comment about wanting to be at "a bigger school that isn't completely irrelevant," I assumed that he really was talking about the "relevance" of the "school." But I'm thinking now that this is more what he's looking for -- a school that has some reputation in running, even though he realizes that he won't have any real relevance to the school's running program, perhaps because he simply wants to claim some kind of association with a big-name running program. To me, that's like wanting to be able to be the water boy for the University of Alabama football team. I suppose there are people who have aspirations to have such connections to good athletes or athletic programs; it just doesn't sound very appealing to me.

"...so I can be completely irrelevant"

Lol you sound annoying as hell. 26 minute 8k and talking like this. Embarrassing tbh. You’re getting stomped on in DIII, check yourself, bruh.