10/27/2025 - This thread started well before anything was confirmed by Iowa State.
A volunteer moderator deleted several threads on this topic. That's not the way this should work. We believe in free expression and have reinstated them and merged them into this one thread.
As we wrote at the time, "If there is no truth to these rumors, please contact us at letsrun@letsrun.com or give us a call at 844-538-7786 and we will be happy to delete them and issue a statement."
It ends up appearing that the rumors had some teeth to them. Earlier today LetsRun.com co-founder Robert Johnson emailed head coach Jeremy Sudbury to let him know about this thread and asked if there was any truth to it.
At 3:31 pm ET, coach Sudbury emailed me the following:
Hello Robert, Thank you for reaching out directly. There were team rule violations. I have worked with our administration, and the involved athletes have been suspended and will not compete the remainder of this season. Have a nice rest of your weekend. Jeremy
Subsequently the Stride Report has written an article on the matter:
And coach Sudbury has confirmed to us that no one who ran in the A race at Missouri was impacted by the suspensions. We have asked him about the status of his #3 runner from Missouri as it appears he was arrested last week after leaving the scene of a traffic accident as shown here.
Previous thread titles included, "ALLEGED Doping Bust at NCAA Program. What Now?" and "Iowa State EPO"
Let's go back to the Indian getting caught out of NCAA competition last year who is the last athlete to get caught doping in the NCAA doping pool?
Publicly, it was Semoy Hackett in 2012. Her name only became public because it cost her team an NCAA title.
Important to note that the NCAA did not inform WADA or her federation that she had failed a test. She competed in the OLYMPICS after failing a test.
That was 2012. Does anyone actually think zero athletes have failed tests since then? They just normally are adjudicated in a non-public way. A season ending injury, a transfer, etc.
The NCAA claims that FERPA prevents them from sharing information with USADA.
USADA could have lobbied Congress to change this, but they chose to lobby Congress to make laws about doping in Russia. Travis Tygart has a lot to say about Russia, but hasn’t lifted a finger to address the shadow anti-doping organization in his own backyard.
All the ISU XC Men are getting drug tested today. I expect ISU to continue to TRY and keep everything in-house, but with how this is going I'm assuming the Big 12 or NCAA will step in soon.
Bonny is clean, the one who blew up everything. We have 5 names right now. Again, none of these guys have failed a drug test! One was caught with the substance and accused the other 4. The drug test today will confirm suspicions.
We have to steer away from the narrative of "The Kenyans must have brought the stuff over, they should be blamed". The interesting part of this whole process is the names slowing unraveling in this process. I think there is truth to the Schubert stuff, but I think it's just an individual thing with Dylan, and Furman has no part in this. There is a current network of Dylan and probably others facilitating where to get this stuff. I've also heard ramblings of Langdon being involved but it's too early to tell, I want to believe he's not involved. Now were hearing Brian Masau was caught at OSU with EPO? After the history behind Shae Foster it would make sense why we haven't heard about it. Dave Smith seems pretty good at keeping this stuff in house.
The longer Sudz doesn't address the specific EPO rumors, the more it becomes suspicious. Especially with Big 12's on Friday, he needs to act swiftly. I do believe Pollard has his back and will continue to back Sudz during this process, but don't think he should with the implications this scandal has on future accomplishments and recruiting.
A big week ahead for this situation. Stay tuned/
Response from Rojo: I received a call from Dave Smith about your statement regarding Musau. He said the allegation regarding Musau is absolutely a total lie. He said Musau is in the AIU testing pool and is tested all the time. Oklahoma State called USADA and asked htem to test both Musai and Messaoudi so they could go to Worlds/Olympics . In at least one of the cases, the African country didn't want to pay someone to fly over her to test him. So Oklahoma State is footing the bill at like 800 or 900 a test. So Ok State is paying thousands a year to make sure their top athletes are tested out of competition. They are testing clean and you are saying a lie.
This post was edited by rojo 1 hour after it was posted.
I think it’s very likely Iowa State AD cleans house here. It’s not like Football or Basketball. It’s a non-revenue sport. A national championship Cross-Country team is nice to have, but absolutely not worth all the negative media this scandal brings. Not worth protecting the coaches.
This^
One of the ironies of collegiate XC/Track is that the typical slam against it (or any sport that's not fball or bball) is that nobody cares about. That is, nobody cares until there's a sniff of scandal or dysfunction, then the ADs care A LOT and they will clean house- QUICKLY!
Since there's no financial loss by axing a nonrevenue sports coach, those teams and coaches are actually held to a higher standard than the sports that garner all the attention.
All the ISU XC Men are getting drug tested today. I expect ISU to continue to TRY and keep everything in-house, but with how this is going I'm assuming the Big 12 or NCAA will step in soon.
Bonny is clean, the one who blew up everything. We have 5 names right now. Again, none of these guys have failed a drug test! One was caught with the substance and accused the other 4. The drug test today will confirm suspicions.
We have to steer away from the narrative of "The Kenyans must have brought the stuff over, they should be blamed". The interesting part of this whole process is the names slowing unraveling in this process. I think there is truth to the Schubert stuff, but I think it's just an individual thing with Dylan, and Furman has no part in this. There is a current network of Dylan and probably others facilitating where to get this stuff. I've also heard ramblings of Langdon being involved but it's too early to tell, I want to believe he's not involved. Now were hearing Brian Masau was caught at OSU with EPO? After the history behind Shae Foster it would make sense why we haven't heard about it. Dave Smith seems pretty good at keeping this stuff in house.
The longer Sudz doesn't address the specific EPO rumors, the more it becomes suspicious. Especially with Big 12's on Friday, he needs to act swiftly. I do believe Pollard has his back and will continue to back Sudz during this process, but don't think he should with the implications this scandal has on future accomplishments and recruiting.
A big week ahead for this situation. Stay tuned
Agreed. More info to come. This thread has kept this issue from being swept under the rug
I would presume they would think they would never get caught and that they found doping products on one athlete shows someone was taking it recently. EPO and PEDs both very different and stay in system certain period of times usually a few weeks.
What are the odds that EPO is still detectable in any of these athletes if this all blew up on Friday? Certainly they cut it off then at the very latest- but probably before then. Doesn't it seem likely that they will all test negative? This testing is too late.
I think it’s very likely Iowa State AD cleans house here. It’s not like Football or Basketball. It’s a non-revenue sport. A national championship Cross-Country team is nice to have, but absolutely not worth all the negative media this scandal brings. Not worth protecting the coaches.
This is just a terrible, terrible take. I don't know what's gone on but what has been alleged is some of the worst guys on the team were taking PEDs to try to move up the depth chart. THey were caught and suspended from the team.
The coach has the #1 team in the land. He is punishing people who violate rules. Why in the world would he lose his job? Sounds like he deserves a raise. Given the lack of NCAA drug testing, he easily could have looked the other way. He didn't.
The two other instances I've heard of EPO being in the NCAA (not named Khan) were similar. The coaches were OUTRAGED a team member was doping and got rid of them.
Coaches can't control what kids do in their free time but they can punish them if it's not good.
PS. I'm requiring registration to post in this thread once again moving forward. It will cut down on the volume of posts and cut down on wild speculation.
This post was edited 9 minutes after it was posted.
Notice how disciplined everybody including the Kenyan runners are in that video when they're doing five times 2400 meters in around seven minutes 20 seconds
I like Sudbury's coaching style - he's open to negotiation and asks the runners themselves if they're up for another interval. He really gauges how they're feeling so he's not a dictator - he's more like a democratic leader very nice coaching style.
I'm 99% sure that Sudbury had nothing to do with any athlete crossing the line and he should not suffer the consequences of that fallout.
Man. I really thought his timed strides were the key to their success
USADA could have lobbied Congress to change this, but they chose to lobby Congress to make laws about doping in Russia. Travis Tygart has a lot to say about Russia, but hasn’t lifted a finger to address the shadow anti-doping organization in his own backyard.
Yes, he is good at such distractions. Now he has China to whine about...
Now were hearing Brian Masau was caught at OSU with EPO?
I received a call from Dave Smith about your statement regarding Musau. He said the allegation regarding Musau is absolutely a total lie. He said Musau is in the AIU testing pool and is tested all the time. Oklahoma State called USADA and asked htem to test both Musai and Messaoudi so they could go to Worlds/Olympics . In at least one of the cases, the African country didn't want to pay someone to fly over her to test him. So Oklahoma State is footing the bill at like 800 or 900 a test. So Ok State is paying thousands a year to make sure their top athletes are tested out of competition.
I think it’s very likely Iowa State AD cleans house here. It’s not like Football or Basketball. It’s a non-revenue sport. A national championship Cross-Country team is nice to have, but absolutely not worth all the negative media this scandal brings. Not worth protecting the coaches.
This is just a terrible, terrible take. I don't know what's gone on but what has been alleged is some of the worst guys on the team were taking PEDs to try to move up the depth chart. THey were caught and suspended from the team.
The coach has the #1 team in the land. He is punishing people who violate rules. Why in the world would he lose his job? Sounds like he deserves a raise. Given the lack of NCAA drug testing, he easily could have looked the other way. He didn't.
The two other instances I've heard of EPO being in the NCAA (not named Khan) were similar. The coaches were OUTRAGED a team member was doping and got rid of them.
Coaches can't control what kids do in their free time but they can punish them if it's not good.
PS. I'm requiring registration to post in this thread once again moving forward. It will cut down on the volume of posts and cut down on wild speculation.
The coach needs to go:
a) Ultimately he is responsible for his team.
b) At best he is incompetent (not realizing that "some of the worst guys on the team were taking PEDs to try to move up the depth chart"). Or he did realize it and tolerated it. At worst he organized the doping.
c) Leaving him in charge would be very bad for ISU's reputation.
