Utah State or SUU?

I ran at one and was recruited by the other. Dude, focus on academics. If running disappeared tomorrow, where would you prefer to be in school? USU is significantly larger with more educational opportunities. SUU is great in chemistry and bio, USU is fantastic at engineering and education. USU probably has a more vibrant "student life", but if you are in ceder city I guess you could drive down to Las Vegas which some people might find fun.

USU is on the up and up. Every year they get better, and every year they adopt a more aggressive mindset. The coach is hungry, he wants to develop a nationally recognized program and they are well on their way. USU and SUU have on average, been pretty close the past few years. The difference is, it seems like SUU is a little bit stagnant, and USU keeps improving. Food for thought.

Training in logan is awesome. Today I was out in the morning cruising on beautiful canal trails shaded by fall foliage. In the afternoon I did tempo work on a flat road with no traffic. You are within 30 minutes of hundreds of miles of trails. Not going to lie, winters are not very fun at USU. Even though SUU is further south, because they are at a higher altitude they get bad winters too.

USU is going to have a stronger LDS feel than SUU. That is just how it is. If I had to guess, I would say that about 50% of the students come across strongly as LDS.

USU is part of a way better athletic conference, and that means more money, which means better stuff. Hey the bells and whistles arent everything, but they sure help. When I was at USU we got a nice dinner 3x a week, plus basically unlimited snacks. I doubt they have that at SUU. There is an incredible weightroom, great athletic training facilities, and the track and XC course are all within a 1 mile radius.

IDK is there anything else more specific that you would like to know?

If you want to support the other sports as well, you will enjoy that much more at USU than SUU.

I wanted to run at SUU at one point, Got in contact with the coach and realized I didn’t want to run at SUU.

I know a couple people that have a similar sentiment.

I’ve only heard good of USU. USU has better academics too.

Former runner on the SUU team here. Coach Houle is very hungry and stuck on the idea of wanting to develop a team that wins a national championship. He tells his dreams to all of his athletes, and encourages them to do the same to each other.

The team took 9th last year at nationals, several athletes soaring into the outdoor distance record books instead of just one like every year… for how is that stagnant? It would be a good idea to look at each team’s top runners and compare to what they did in high school, to see how each coach develops their athletes. I will say this, both are excellent at doing so, and one is eventually going to get BYU in the next few years. It will be exciting to see, would be awesome if both could. All I know is that their All-American in Cross last year didn’t break 9:10 in the 3200 or 4:20 in the mile in HS. Another guy who took 52nd on their team didn’t either, both from Cali so no altitude conversions to take into account there.

SUU has an incredible less amount of resources than Utah State, that person got that right. Which makes you wonder, if it’s more impressive that they have been able to do more the past 6/7 years on a consistent basis. Maybe that shows that the coach is able to really do a lot with his athletes having access to less recovery tools than most programs they compete with?

SUU is within 30 minutes we had access to roads 9,000 and 3,000 ft of elevation (plenty of roads in the mountains above near brian head and st George). Talk about a wonderland for gaining fantastic benefits of training without using a altitude tent. East of Cedar there are countless amounts of dirt roads to train on if you don’t want to drive far. Good mix of hilly and flat. Heard Portland came up for the majority of the summer to train there as well.

Alright, enough with that. I will admit this post was bias since I ran for SUU, but all are true statements. Best of luck to your decisions, I would encourage to look out of state as well. Hopefully these two teams rock it at Nationals and represent Utah well along with BYU in Florida.

Fairly good points so far on here. Here's my take as someone who knows both programs fairly well:

1. Let's recognize how impressive it is that BYU got 7th last winter, SUU got 9th and Utah St got 11th at the NCAA championships. That's very remarkable given how much of the talent that BYU sucks up in the state/area. Remarkable for a G5 program and incredible for a school called "Southern Utah" that doesn't put every scholarship into distance

2. Weather: Utah St is considerably colder. SUU is cold but not as cold and it's literally 45min from St George which is always warm.

3. Academics: SUU is solid in a few areas but Utah St is considerably better and will have significantly more options for you, especially when it comes to grad programs if that matters to you

4. Altitude: Utah St is around 4500' and SUU is about 5700' altitude. That may not seem significant but one is much close to the "ideal" live high elevation than the other and it might have some real world implications

5. Atmosphere: Utah St has a more vibrant student body and classic college experience, especially when it comes to football and basketball. However, small schools have some distinct perks. You just need to decide what you'd prefer.

6. Funding: Utah St is in a much better place in terms of funding that SUU. This is true with regards to the extra "perks" like snacks and food. However, SUU's budget is plenty if you're a distance runner. They're supported pretty well given the size of their school and that's due to years of success. I would argue against the person above when they said Utah St in a much better conference as the Big Sky is PLENTY strong in xc and by some metrics a stronger conference overall. Hard to separate the two. If you're talking football then yes, the Mountain West is stronger but don't underestimate the Big Sky as it is the premier football conference among the FCS conferences.

7. Coaches: I don't know if there is a larger difference between the two programs than this one. Coach Gulden is quieter but driven. His program somewhat takes the "err on the side of caution" approach to training which generally keeps his athletes healthy and improving over time. Coach Houle is the opposite. It's generally foot on the gas all the time. He's more animated and vocal. That works well for some people. As far as improvement is concerned, I would say Utah St will improve most people and by a good amount. SUU will either make or break you; you have to be strong to be there. Case in point, Cam Levins doing 150mpw in college. It worked for him, very well. It would break most. If it works for you, you'll get better at SUU but the risk is probably higher.

My 2 cents

Id agree with this. I looked at both programs and I was very interested in SUU for a while. I ended up training in Cedar city for a few months and you WILL develop aerobically there. It’s very hilly and high altitude, with lots of great trails and runner friendly roads. Cedar city is an awesome place and I’ll always think fondly of the time I spent there. Logan is awesome as well, and I have a couple former teammates running there.

As a couple posters have said, Houle is trying to create a championship team, and is looking for above par athletes, not on par athletes. You’ll need to be capable of running faster than a good amount of the people on the team if you want to secure a spot.

The guys on the team I know are awesome, driven people and there seems to be a really solid team culture.

coach houle cut my scholarship because I got mono and was taking too long to recover, sooooooo

beehive wrote:

Fairly good points so far on here. Here's my take as someone who knows both programs fairly well:

1. Let's recognize how impressive it is that BYU got 7th last winter, SUU got 9th and Utah St got 11th at the NCAA championships. That's very remarkable given how much of the talent that BYU sucks up in the state/area. Remarkable for a G5 program and incredible for a school called "Southern Utah" that doesn't put every scholarship into distance

Actually that is pretty impressive. BYU? 7th place is expected. SUU and Utah St. did very well when not as much is expected from them. I mean, BYU takes the top talent which leaves other schools, including UVU, to fight for everything else with SUU, Utah St, and Weber.

One other question. What are the indoor training facilities like at SUU and Utah St? What kind of indoor track do they have and is it available to all students?

If you want an indoor facility in Utah and you aren’t able to run at BYU I’d look into Weber. They have a very solid distance program and a 200m indoor track. I have a couple friends that run there and they love the program.

Bump. SUU qualified to nationals for the 7th time in 8 years without two key contributors from last year’s 9th place squad. Utah state got screwed over a tiebreaker and didn’t qualify. Doesn’t this disprove the theory that Utah state is on a upward trend compared to SUU? Who apparently is “stagnant”?

Once again SUU cruises in and punches a ticket to NCAA national championships while other Utah schools (Utah State and Weber State) barely missing out.

This man knows nothing. Same situation but I can tell you USU is absolute crap school and crap culture. Their coach is NOT hungry.

SUU has the best culture both on team and for school in the nation. Prepped me for a fully funded top 3 PhD program in my desired feild. Highly recommend.

jackiemoon wrote:

This man knows nothing. Same situation but I can tell you USU is absolute crap school and crap culture. Their coach is NOT hungry.

SUU has the best culture both on team and for school in the nation. Prepped me for a fully funded top 3 PhD program in my desired feild. Highly recommend.

I wouldn't say either Utah State or SUU is a particularly great academic institution, but Utah State is better overall. I make no comment about the actual running programs, as I'm not that familiar with them.

jackiemoon wrote:

Prepped me for a fully funded top 3 PhD program in my desired feild. Highly recommend.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

jackiemoon wrote:

This man knows nothing. Same situation but I can tell you USU is absolute crap school and crap culture. Their coach is NOT hungry.

SUU has the best culture both on team and for school in the nation. Prepped me for a fully funded top 3 PhD program in my desired feild. Highly recommend.

Also for someone who wants to make the appearance that they competed at SUU, I don’t really know how you’d have any knowledge about what the culture at USU is like or how hungry their coach is.

adidas5 wrote:

Once again SUU cruises in and punches a ticket to NCAA national championships while other Utah schools (Utah State and Weber State) barely missing out.

You are assuming the OP is male. SUU’s women didn’t qualify while USU’s women did.

jackiemoon wrote:Prepped me for a fully funded top 3 PhD program in my desired feild. Highly recommend.

Your field is clearly not English.

jackiemoon wrote:

This man knows nothing. Same situation but I can tell you USU is absolute crap school and crap culture. Their coach is NOT hungry.

SUU has the best culture both on team and for school in the nation. Prepped me for a fully funded top 3 PhD program in my desired feild. Highly recommend.

Judging from the username of the poster here, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume they are a woman. As such, I am receiving major "wasn't fast enough to make USU's team and is a salty b!tch" vibes. Especially when anyone who has met Coach Gulden can tell you he is about as hungry as they come.

Utah State will have way better facilities and support. You get unlimited trainers and go to the best meets. Also if you look at the team of the past 5 years, they have been better than SUU.

At SUU you will have to buy your own shoes, no locker room, and not have any big time sports. SUU can be great if you like running trails (which you can do at Utah State too) but will be in the middle of nowhere.

If you have a chance, go to Utah State. It's the better decision for your future.