2025 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion

Is this the confirmed list of teams that are going to 45? It seems right to me. I would add Southern California and Kansas State to the list. Those two are confirmed 45 as well.

Schools going up in scholarship:

Most of the ACC, Big 10, SEC, Big 12

UNC, Duke, NCST, Florida, Texas, Texas am, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Texas Tech, Vanderbilt, Clemson, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Washington, USC, Michigan, Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, UCF, Utah, Arkansas, Oklahoma.
these are the ones I know of.

Looks like Sarah Smith at Texas will be taking over men's distance based on their coaching staff page on their website. Replaced Metcalf with Tyson, another sprint assistant.

45 full track & field scholarships - per gender - at Kansas State? With what money?

At Iowa State our AD is on the record that we can afford to pay the $20 mil. to student athletes for a couple of years and then, absent some major new source of cash (student fees? Legislative benevolence?) we’re going to become the University of Northern Iowa athletically. I think it’s safe to say that going from 30.6 track & field scholarships to 90 is not currently on his to-do list, and he’s a track fan.

Like maybe 2 or these teams have been confirmed. The rest of these teams. Not even close!!!

You’re a clown who hates on a program that needs help. Let’s see what happens when a coach who has ties to the university, is committed to growing in his career, and cares about the success of the program has a few years to improve things. Don’t sleep

On a typical D1 women’s track team with 18 scholarships right now, if even 9 of those pan out you’re probably a conference team champion. It’s nearly impossible to project how a 17 year old girl is going to develop. In conferences that guarantee scholarships, imagine what this will look like if you’re handing out 45. Unless the talent flows from programs that can no longer fund scholarships at all, this is going to be a joke. There is not enough D1 worthy talent, even with pre-screened 25 year old Kenyans, to justify this expansion in an age when anyone with a brain can see that there is far less money, not more, available for non-revenue sports.

People on letsrun sometimes have a jaded view of scholarships. There are only 8 all-Americans in an event, and conference scoring only goes so deep. So yes, there will be non scoring, scholarship athletes, on DI teams moving forward.

But there are also scholarship athletes riding the bench in other DI sports. A team of 45 means most team will have 30 non scoring athletes who are developing or stagnating (good teams less, bad teams more).

It may be that with the changes in DI that a woman may meed to run near or sub 5 in the Mile just to get recruited by a DI at the mid major level. But at the same time, just making the team is all a woman needs to do to get her tuition paid for.

The difference between revenue (football & men’s basketball) and non-revenue (track & field) sports is that, in revenue sports, one coach’s recruiting mistake is almost always another coach’s opportunity. Pretty much every men’s basketball player on a high D1 roster has another place to go to at least get a scholarship if it turns out they’re in over their head - because there are over 300 D1 men’s programs and pretty much every player is on full scholarship. In track & field if a scholarship athlete does not work out there is almost nowhere they can go and be on equal footing financially - because everyone can look at TFRRS - there is little gray area - and lower level D1 programs do not have nearly as many scholarships available as upper level. If the point is just to provide scholarships with little worry about team performance, that’s a nice gesture, but very few ADs will put up with that for long, so good luck with that approach if you’re the director or head coach.

Last time I spoke to Dave he told me the entire Big 12 was staying at the current scholarship, minus K State who are apparently going all in.

Crazy thing about all these hirings; majority of these programs suffering with lower scholarships would do better hiring a successful D3 coach to help recruit. So many D3 Coaches are the best recruiters in the nation doing it with no scholarships and majority expensive private college's.
Yet, a lot of programs will hiring a 25 year old ex D1 Athlete who’s copy and pasting their old workouts into some new program with 0 ability to recruit instead of the 30 year old D3 Coach who’s proven to recruit and train athletes.

The landscape of NAIA, D3, D2, D1 in terms of athlete performance are not as far apart as people thing at the end of it all, you tend to see better development at everything below D1 and that’s not to say it’s because coaching it better we all understand it’s easier to take a 10.6 guy and make him 10.3 than it is to make a 10.2 guy into a 9.99 so I’ll give it that, but still, tons of NAIA/D3 proven coach’s who can not only develop but recruit amazing athletes that fit a niche to be able to afford a high academic or high cost university would be so much better than majority of these hires who have 0 proven ability to do anything but relay on a scholarship or a pre-built name.

In addition to athletes already named I really do want to have faith in (Laura Muir, Faith, Nuguse, Vingegaard), mostly because they seem like genuinely decent people, I'll add Anna Kiesenhofer, who came out of nowhere to win the women's road race thanks to luck and grit during the Tokyo 2020 (really 2021) Olympics. One of the gutsiest performances ever, and just completely inspiring. Losing that would be tough.

Anyone heard anything about Hakon DeVries at Kentucky? August is around the corner.

He’s long gone. Replacement has been hired.

Yes, Sarah Smith is taking over both programs. I believe this is a way for them to cut down on staff expenses.

DeVries at Kentucky is still listed on their staff. What's up with that?

Michigan is going to have the max roster spots but only funding 1-2 more from last year.

I am also confused by the schools that are spending loads of money on bringing in an entire foreign roster (where one has to assume they also have to fund their academic side as well) rather than actually recruit and coach. This is the same with those who only take transfers. You are killing your alumni base. Saw it happen in other sports. It may seem like a quick fix, but it is a long-term death sentence. Those programs will either change or not exist in a few years. Nobody will care.

Those who figure out how to fully fund all scholarships will win the Olympic sports in the moving forward. It may take a few years, but they will figure it out.

A Chris Fox disciple

Adam Smith confirmed?!