This isn’t true. You can cut a scholarship athlete but unless the athlete leaves the university the money remains tied up. I mentioned this in another thread but all an NLI/scholarship agreement guarantees is the money from the institution and enrollment from the student athlete. There’s no language stating there must be a roster spot.
Middle class white Coloradans expect DEI for XC now? Wetmore was a great coach 15-20 years ago but times have changed. The NIL NCAA is now literally a business. Not having a roster that can bring in foreign athletes is pure stupidity. Those runners should have planned ahead and been ready to transfer since they knew a new coach was coming. Colorado has to compete with NAU for recruits. They’re attempting to set themselves up to do that once again. It’s ripping off a bandaid but necessary.
Gonna be a bit of a Carlson apologist here, but it seems like a lot of people speculating about things they don’t understand, don’t know, or are just making up stuff to stoke the fires. From my understanding, when Carlson went to Tennessee he was given a small amount of scholarship money and potentially some NIL money. The plan was to build a big roster of athletes on small scholarships and give people a few years to develop. Then the House v. NCAA case comes along and roster caps are imminent. At one point the rumors were that the SEC was going to have XC men’s rosters as small as 8-9. The UT administration asked him to start making some cuts in preparation for a future that would include smaller rosters, but more scholarship money dedicated to XC. Of course, he’s not going to cut people in his incoming recruiting class, but somebody has to go.
I have no idea if the guys at CU were cut or put themselves in the transfer portal because they were Wetmore guys and didn’t want to run for Carlson or some combination of the two. Obviously, a couple of those guys are pretty good. Good enough that I would assume Carlson would want them on the team unless there were other reasons. If cut, I assume the administration at CU is asking him to do the same thing that he was asked to do at UT. It is noteworthy how much larger the CU men’s track and XC rosters were than the women’s. That just doesn’t fly in this day and age. The Title IX folks are gonna be breathing down your neck to correct that! I assume that played a role in any cuts as well. Just the reality of college athletics.
For everybody saying that Carlson isn’t a developer. I heartily disagree! Yes, he’s a tenacious recruiter – that’s a very important part of the job and how he got started at Notre Dame. But, he has proven he can coach and develop talent. His teams at ND bought in and probably overachieved. He was only at UT for two years. Hard to judge him on that. His college coach, mentor, and father figure is Al Carius at North Central College (the DIII guys know who I’m talking about). Al is one of the most positive people in the world and a developer not only of runners, but young people. There is no way a guy who loves and admires Al the way Carlson does is gonna be a “bad guy.” Give him a few years at CU and then get back to m
I used to coach, usually these moves were dictated from up top. Not the individual “get rid of this kid or that kid” but usually we would get a number that we needed to be under and the athletes were numbers on a spreadsheet is all.
One year I was told to take the men’s xc roster to 9 which we did. Then the said we could get it up to 14 the next year. Well a new softball coach came in and cut half of their roster, meaning I had to go and tell 5 walkons we didn’t have the numbers any more for cross but they could try and walk on in the spring once softball got their transfers in.
Just guessing but I imagine a similar situation. Hey SC your can only have x amount of men. Make it happen
From the self proclaimed and famous interview “I recruit and develop Americans.” Sean Carlson has cut 9 American men from the Colorado roster, without an attempt to develop the athletes at all. Colorado is known for having their American runners being built and trained to be tough as nails.
Charlie Welch Alex Baca Benjamin Greene Nolan Hoffman Evan Charkut Stefan Haug Jack Nauman Jacob Culig Jake Derouin
Another power hungry coach that doesn’t care about his image of being a good coach vs buying a roster. I guess Carlson has decided to follow the wave of the foreign train. Unfortunately it seems the glory days of Covid are in the past.
What do my fellow Buff Alum think about this mass exodus of athletes from Colorado?
As of right now, 5 of the 2024 Tenn recruits that signed are in the portal. I bet they go to Colorado. Just a speculation
May I offer the following: As a walk on in the early seventies, I was told by a new hire/coach that I did not fit in his plans for cross country and track. I was cut.
I was angry, upped my mileage, and determined to prove him wrong. A month later, at the new coach's time trial I made the team. A little fire in the gut can reverse their CU future.
Early 70s? So you put in extra work to make it under 15:30 for the 5k and got your spot back?
From the self proclaimed and famous interview “I recruit and develop Americans.” Sean Carlson has cut 9 American men from the Colorado roster, without an attempt to develop the athletes at all. Colorado is known for having their American runners being built and trained to be tough as nails.
Charlie Welch Alex Baca Benjamin Greene Nolan Hoffman Evan Charkut Stefan Haug Jack Nauman Jacob Culig Jake Derouin
Another power hungry coach that doesn’t care about his image of being a good coach vs buying a roster. I guess Carlson has decided to follow the wave of the foreign train. Unfortunately it seems the glory days of Covid are in the past.
What do my fellow Buff Alum think about this mass exodus of athletes from Colorado?
Team hates this hire. Keep in mind that Wetmore was able to spot and develop talent. Especially among men, there are late bloomers who were not well developed (or even really coached) in high school. Getting those guys to add depth was the Wetmore skill. There was plenty of talent on the team to compete for titles in a couple of years (not saying they would win, but they would be competitive). Most of the guys on that list chose not to run for Carlson. He truly is a world-class a**hole.
Carlson was the 5th choice. Cornfield, Jenny Simpson, Joe Bosshard all turned down the job (and another alum whose name I won't mention). More than anything, I think that shows how deeply disrespected the CU athletic department (specifically Cory Hilliard) is at this point.
I don’t have any inside information other than what I heard about him from a couple ND athletes who stayed when he left (which makes sense to me - it’s not the Elon recruits following their coach to Duke but it’s basically the opposite academic wise).
He seems to have really changed since he went to the SEC. Much more of the “win at all costs” mindset - their sprinter coach’s son doped and I don’t think he was oblivious to that and obviously buying recruits with “pay to play” NIL
Hello Sean! Welcome to the message boards. How is boulder?
The only time I ever thought it was Sean’s post was when in 2019 after NXN someone posted as “realseanbrosnan” saying “stop saying mean things about me” after people started talking smack about him
If the SEC only allows 8-9 XC people we’ll see teams loading up on Kenyans to run for them
Culture is a good point but can you really create a culture from scratch? ND has a somewhat flawed culture in my opinion - some team success above all instead of valuing any individual success (Nuguse only won 1 title; it’s not like NAU when they’re competing for team titles yearly where I understand people would be more willing to sacrifice individual wins, or looking at Stanford for podium if you’re looking at a school with both individual and team success as well as an academic workload) - but if they can get people to buy in I can see why certain people would like it and how it’s easier to maintain that culture with them
Cllorado has a long history so I think it’ll be easier to do well. Boulder’s a nice enough town and at altitude
On the one hand, over the last 5 years especially on the men's side for CU, I have been a bit surprised at the level of recruit they've gotten. They got almost no blue chip guys in recent years aside from Mathison (maybe Vancil/Aschbrenner), and the rest of the spots were filled by in-state guys that wouldn't have gotten a glance from CU 10 years ago. It used to be that every so often a 4:20-25ish dude from CO got a small scholarship or snuck onto the team, but it was the exception. In the last few years it became more of the rule. While Wetmore was great at developing talent, you can't recruit mainly 4:20ish dudes and expect to compete with NAU and OkSt.
But on the other, I feel really bad for these guys, some of whom grew up near where I live and I know from local races (like Hoffman, who was a 4A state champion over some very, very good runners). While I don't know that they have the talent to be consistent scoring members of a top 5 nationals team, I think in the past, they would have certainly been able to hang around, and 1-2 of them may have ended up in the top 7. Hoffman, Derouin, Baca all deserved a little time to develop IMO.
I'm surprised Cornfeld would turn it down. He could live near Cranny and coach CU. Surprising if true.
Not at all surprised the other folks turned it down. They all ran for Wetmore and deeply respected the man. To see him done dirty by the school probably left a terrible taste in their mouth and accepting the job would be a slap in the face to their old mentor.