You stated earlier in your post that there should be some eligible courses in the west, and that was all that I was saying. As for your reasoning on why D3 doesn't go that route, I don't disagree. I recall reading something that the Nationals location needs to be drivable by 40% of the D3 colleges. I don't know if that's true, but it makes sense as most don't have huge travel budgets.
Can we talk about the downfall of NCC? Did they have a single qualifier in any event at either track nationals this year?
NCC is done as an elite schoo in D# running, a slowly dying program. Carius is done coaching, Gramarosso is done. Great coaches and carried the program for years but I expect NCC to fall back to just being a good, 20s at nationals type program from now on.
any word on the pp boys? are they using their bomb of a track season to motivate themselves to reach new levels, or are they wallowing in their misery?
There should be some eligible courses on the West Coast given all the big races, but maybe the NCAA wants to save money on flights/minimize lost class time because most of the D3 schools are in the Midwest/East
the deal is, people don't bid. the ncaa can only pick from schools that bid for the meet. there is not a lotof nuance to it. there is not a conpiracy to avoid going west; west coast schools don't bid.
we keep going back to oshkosh and louisville because they bid.
we went to cms for track about 10 years ago and the committee said they hoped other schools out there would want to host...they had no problem with sending the meet west. but it hasn't happened...because it's a massive undertaking and you can pretty much give up on being a coach in a season you host ncaas.
1. PP 2. MIT 3. John Carroll 4. Williams 5. Washington St Louis
I would disagree on MIT being in the top 10 unless they show something special as their outdoor track efforts were pretty low. As for JCU and Williams, I think you have them reversed. Alex Philip is amazing, but he is only one person, and can not score negative points. Even if he wins (and that is actually "IF"), he probably only beats a Williams runner by 1 or 2 spots. He alone can't beat an entire team. Of the 7 JCU runners at a XC nats, Daily, Pierson, Miner, and Arnold are all gone. That means 4 of their 7, and more importantly their #2 is gone. Williams only loses Ryan from their top 7, and while he is a huge loss, I would argue that Tuohy is certainly an ample replacement as he is considered one of the favorites and certainly a top 5 (Ryan came in 4th last year).
At the end of the day, Williams top 6 returners ran 13:52, 14:00, 14:39.14:40,14:43, 14:46 and JCU was 13:58, 14:36, 14:42,14:44, and 14:47, 15:04. At least on paper, Williams has a lot more firepower on the front end, and is even stronger in the depth department. This of course doesn't include any recruits. JCU hasn't posted yet, but Williams is supposedly getting a sub 9 guy which should certainly make an impact.
1. PP 2. MIT 3. John Carroll 4. Williams 5. Washington St Louis
I would disagree on MIT being in the top 10 unless they show something special as their outdoor track efforts were pretty low. As for JCU and Williams, I think you have them reversed. Alex Philip is amazing, but he is only one person, and can not score negative points. Even if he wins (and that is actually "IF"), he probably only beats a Williams runner by 1 or 2 spots. He alone can't beat an entire team. Of the 7 JCU runners at a XC nats, Daily, Pierson, Miner, and Arnold are all gone. That means 4 of their 7, and more importantly their #2 is gone. Williams only loses Ryan from their top 7, and while he is a huge loss, I would argue that Tuohy is certainly an ample replacement as he is considered one of the favorites and certainly a top 5 (Ryan came in 4th last year).
At the end of the day, Williams top 6 returners ran 13:52, 14:00, 14:39.14:40,14:43, 14:46 and JCU was 13:58, 14:36, 14:42,14:44, and 14:47, 15:04. At least on paper, Williams has a lot more firepower on the front end, and is even stronger in the depth department. This of course doesn't include any recruits. JCU hasn't posted yet, but Williams is supposedly getting a sub 9 guy which should certainly make an impact.
Also not to hype my past team up too much, but Williams also had one guy run 8:27 indoors and another guy run 3:49 outdoors who aren't even on those 5k returners. Neither of them had spectacular xc seasons last year, but certainly add to Williams' potential depth.
I 100% agree that Peppard and Domitrovich will fit prominently into JCU's team this year, but they are already included in the above analysis. Their best 5k times are a 14:36 and 14:44. and while I can see the argument that they didn't run as fast as they could have since they focused on the steeple, I would also caution that steeple success does not always equate to 8k xc dominance. For one, its longer and at 3k, there are just as many 1500 guys who race up as 5k guys who race down. With both the JCU runners, they ran a lot more 1500 races than 5k's, and neither attempted a 10k. Thats not definitive proof, but they may not be longer distance type guys. Either way, when you look at Collett (came in 80th in XC), Patzka (didn't race XC) ,Dolan (came in 46th), and Sixth place Riley (didn't even make it out of regions), it easy to discount steeple success at the XC level. Thats not to say that Steeplers can't kill it on the grass. Kirkpatrick was 10th at XC nats for instance. But you need to take it all with a grain of salt. This year's XC season is shaping up to be one of the most competitive on record. When you look at the 5k in outdoor nats, it took a 14:17 to crack the top 20. Top 40 was a 14:30! The 10k was even more daunting. The 40th time was a 30:20. There were past years where that would have been top 8! D3 is getting much faster and there are at least 3 sub 9 3200 recruits coming in. Williams even has a 9:01 HS steepler on its incoming roster (By comparison, Domoitrovich was only an 8:58), and unfortunately, I don't think either of them is going to be in the top 15.
If I had to guess, I think it will take a sub 14:15 effort to crack the top 15 this year, and anyone with AA hopes will probably need to be sub 14:30. There are always surprises, but I would be shocked if Pomona doesn't put at least 6 in the top 40, and Williams at least 4. Peppard and Domitrovich might very well be sub 14:30 guys, and they might even have the endurance for the extra 3k, you would know that better than I, but top 15 in XC this year, would require some serious improvement from both.
You are 100% correct. I apologize. For some reason, the link on his steeple TFRRS does not show him racing XC, but he does have a second TFRRS page that does. Odd, but we all know TFRRS is not the most accurate. It doesn't really alter my above statement other than give another data point. He was 24th at XC and came in ahead of the 2 JCU runners by 5 and 8 seconds in the steeple in outdoor. So those two cracking the top 15 is still a stretch.
Why? Versus most DI schools, DIII has stronger academics, smaller class sizes, better balance with athletics. My DI experience was just ok (qualified for NCAAs but not much else to boast about, and academic experience was adequate at best). Coming out of HS I was caught up in the "glamour" of DI TFXC (haha) and ignorant about the tuition assistance I could have gotten from top DIII liberal arts schools with their billion $ endowments.
Pomona-Pitzer looked super strong today at the UCR Invite. Might as well hand them the title right now. CMS looked decent for the most part, Henry Pick (3rd last year at NCAA XC) was only 100th today, but looking at his past results he seems to start the season pretty slowly anyways. The rest of the team looks solid. UCSC wasn't too far behind CMS, they seem like pretty contenders for an at-large bid to NCAA's.
Pomona-Pitzer looked super strong today at the UCR Invite. Might as well hand them the title right now. CMS looked decent for the most part, Henry Pick (3rd last year at NCAA XC) was only 100th today, but looking at his past results he seems to start the season pretty slowly anyways. The rest of the team looks solid. UCSC wasn't too far behind CMS, they seem like pretty contenders for an at-large bid to NCAA's.
I wouldn't put too much stock in early season races. Either for team rankings or individual performances. It's hard to tell who is loading up vs tempo'ing it, or who is nursing injuries or in the middle of a huge training block. I know several teams have been ravaged by covid in the first week and are racing nowhere near full strength. Let's see how everyone does in Michigan or at Paul Short in a few weeks and that should show some indication of where these teams sit. The same goes for the Conn College Invite on October 15th. While its only D3 teams, basically every major player in the NE from MIT, Williams, Colby, CC, RPI, Middlebury, etc. will be there. Individually you've got Lindgren and Tuohy from Williams, Morris from Colby, Love and Carter from CC, Mah, Kearney and Aquaviva from MIT, and Lecky from RPI. All of those names will certainly be in the top 25 at nationals and many in the top 10. Its a fast course and similar to nationals in elevation and terrain to the national meet so should be a very exciting race to watch.
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