The ducks, how good?

trackcoach wrote:

Oregon is first and foremost a track & field team and that has been the case as long as I have been following them. Even in the years where they were good in XC it was becasue they had two or three expectional XC runners like Pre, McCheese, AlSal and Rupp, etc. and built around them with MD athletes who became good at cross. Oregon as a rule does not recruit long distance ruuners, perhaps there are one of two exceptions, but to get a full ride you will have to be a sub-4:10 miler no matter how well you ran the duce or cross.

Oregon is probably the only NCAA track program that actually earns money and Hayward Field is a track.

Were this "Around The Horn", I'd say +3. This pretty well sums it up. Winn, Fleet, etc. are all miler types. As Winn puts it, he is "pretending to be a XC guy right now". They have wheels, and Cross Country is helping them build a big base.

Oregon was not going to beat Colorado at conference. They were fairly close to beating them at Pre Nats but at Colorado's home base of 5400 feet altitude no one in the PAC 12 was going to beat the guys that live and train at 5400 feet.

Plain and simple.

Fun fact: the top three XC teams scored a total of 9 points at Outdoor NCAA's. Oregon scored 40. Make of it what you will. Oregon has Fleet, Stinson etc. smoking Colorado on the track.

Oregon was also 20th at XC nationals last year, and did not make it to NCAAs the previous year.

You're sort of continuing to prove my point. Oregon is more about mid-distance. Take Greer and Fleet winning titles.

Thread summary

OP: How good will the Ducks be?

Duck fan 1: They got the top recruits, they will threaten for the title

Observers: They get the top recruits frequently and rarely are able to get them to perform well in cross country

Duck fan 2: Well let's bring up their track success that's not relevant at all to the original point, how well they will do in cross country

Oregons track team does not "earn money." The operate at huge loss.

Do they sell some tickets? yes.

But they have a million dollar + operations budget and scholarships and salaries add more than a million more.

They don't sell that many tickets.

financial101 wrote:

Oregons track team does not "earn money." The operate at huge loss.

Do they sell some tickets? yes.

But they have a million dollar + operations budget and scholarships and salaries add more than a million more.

They don't sell that many tickets.

Their budget is closer to 5 million.

ender begay wrote:

Thread summary

OP: How good will the Ducks be?

Duck fan 1: They got the top recruits, they will threaten for the title

Observers: They get the top recruits frequently and rarely are able to get them to perform well in cross country

Duck fan 2: Well let's bring up their track success that's not relevant at all to the original point, how well they will do in cross country

I'm simply pointing out they aren't really about Cross Country. They're a team of fast track runners who are able to move up in Cross Country season and have some success. Mac Fleet-a miler-is competitive; where there are 10,000m runners from other schools whom he is beating.

When coming back and reading the thread, the entire thread, I realized "A Duck" had already posted my point about scoring at Outdoors.