Has Letsrun never heard of a rebuilding year? They have had 1 off year after winning 6 of the last like 9 NCAA titles. Just give them a couple years so they can develop guys some more.
I agree that the criticism is overwrought, but they have underperformed on both sides a bit the last two years, with some obvious notable exceptions. My pet theory is that their relative decline has coincided with their adoption of double threshold training. I’m not anti DT, but my understanding is they do it mostly according to Daniels pacing, rather than testing. For a stud like Nico, that’s probably fine. Makes him super strong. But if your actual threshold is slower than Daniels suggests, that training would often be counterproductive. Occasionally, very counterproductive. That’s my theory for why their results have been so inconsistent the last few years. Totally speculative, I admit.
Last year they did fine considering what OSU and NC had. This was certainly a bad year but every coach has them. Wermore and Vinana both have underperformed before on boys and girls side. I assume Smith and Cornfield have identified the problem and will solve it for next year.
Smith kept this program alive. Just wait until it’s completely done with Cornfield in the head seat. No one in their right mind will fun for him for good reason
They will all go to a place where corn don't grow - like Iowa State.
What serious injuries? Besides a girl being hit by a car and another that has non running related health issue? There’s some serious haters on here that like to just completely make sht up. And if losing to NCST powerhouse by one point last year and making the podium this year is bombing then you and I have way different opinions about the definition of bombing. They were ranked 3rd going in and got 4th. Oregon women were favorites to win and got 5th? Colorado who is loaded with big names didn’t make the meet! Go take your hate for NAU somewhere else it’s getting pretty tired.
Yeah but the women were ranked #1st before the season started. They were ranked #1 in weeks 2 and 3.
Lots of other injuries besides the 2 you cherrypicked. They were extremely injury prone last track season too.
Mike Smith even injured his wife.
I keep asking you to name more and you literally can't. Because they don't exist. I have a very good friend on the team and know quite a bit more than you do obviously. Every single high achieving team in the NCAA is going to face a few injuries. It's the sport. To name a few, NCST!, OR - where are 1/2 their studs from the last few recruiting classes, ND, WA, Colorado (a ton) Stanford where's their top recruit everyone thought would break records? - I can name multiple athletes from each team that have struggled with injuries. It's obvious you just hate NAU and that's fine to each their own, but stop spreading lies. The injury rate at NAU is quite low. Especially bone injuries probably due to the trails they have access to.
Winning NCAA is a very hard task, you have to have health, fitness, mindset, race plan, nerves etc all come together for 5+ people on the same day at the same hour. Props to teams who accomplished this. They deserve a lot of credit.
It's his fault he didn't have any talent! It's his job to bring in talent.
Every recruit in the world would answer an NAU phone call. If they have a lack of talent it's because they were horrible recruiters.
Or because they aren't developing guys like Puffer.
That's the rebuilding. Took first 3 years in a row. Then second and then repeat that. They took a place outside top 2 for the first time in like a decade it's not in any way his fault.
You rebuild with freshman not juniors. They have too many guys that have made nice progress (puffer went from what like 14:15 to 13:50 over 2 years) but not the breakthroughs to being 13:30 guys who will be AA threats.
And it just isn’t 1 year. Look at the HS recruits in the years after Nico and how many of them have developed into top 50 guys…
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