Where would Ritz place at NCAA nationals in 2024

I know I'm late to the conversation, but I saw someone had bumped this thread and I wanted to respond to this comment. Here are my thoughts on what you wrote:

• I think we need to be more careful about judging the quality of a cross country field by people's track PBs and track accolades. Yes, that information is useful, but some people are just better on grass than track, and the times that someone can run with super shoes, pacers, and wavelight on the bouncy indoor BU track or in pleasant California conditions don't necessarily translate to how well that person can manage a cross country course in sub-freezing temperatures in Iowa (where the 2003 championship was held).
• Related to my point above, the guy who beat Ritz for that 2004 5,000m outdoor track championship was Robert Cheseret, younger brother of Bernard Lagat. He was in the XC championship race that Ritz won; he finished 69th.
• Gavin Thompson and those early 2000s Eastern Michigan teams were tough. They finished 3rd at the 2002 meet. Gavin was one of those guys who was better at XC than track. The year before his 3rd place finish behind Ritz and Hall, he finished 13th, right in between Matt Tegenkamp and Dan Lincoln. He was a legit XC stud.
• If we're going to talk about the 3rd place finishers as a way of judging the quality of a field, then what about Dylan Schubert, who finished just 2 seconds behind Blanks? He's a legit XC stud too, but you can't convince me he's a better XC runner than Ritz. Given that Schubert finished 3rd this year, it's not a stretch to think that 2003 Ritz would have been up there battling Blanks for the win.
• Your best point about NCAA Ritz's chances of winning the XC championship in the current era is the point you made about his health while he was in college. After finishing 4th as a true freshman, he missed the championships his sophomore year due to injury. Even when he won the championship the following year, he was coming off injury. He has stated that he hadn't run in 8 of the previous 12 months before that race. With that in mind, I could see Blanks getting the best of him, but I'm confident he would have beaten one-shoe Samuel for second.

Ah, to live in bouncy shoe fantasy land. Must be nice.

Ritz won NCAAs on a 5-week season, backed by maintaining endurance in the pool for months. Hall was rather unstoppable for 2 years in cross country. Fall 2002 didnt work out in his favor at the national meet but he was indeed considered a title contender going into the race. So Hall really wanted 2003 and was pretty confident. Ritz stole that show.

His follow up track accolades were also efforts that duct taped otherwise injured seasons. He'd be injured and show up. Ritz's talent was quite rich and he came with an extra fight. Someone else said he rose to the occasion in his races.

Hall actually had the better track seasons.

Ritz outgrew the NCAA system in one way but he was likely also annoyed by it too. Really hard to top the 2003 win.

Dude was 3rd at world JR XC as a high schooler. I think he would do just fine in any era. He quit the NCAAs after his JR year. In the modern era he could have stuck around for six years while getting paid with super shoes.