Is Oregon's coach Ben Thomas doing a good job?

Hocker and Teare are mid distance runners, so while they will be good at XC I don't think they will be great regardless of coaching. In my opinion Ben Thomas is one of the best mid-d coaches in the country, college or pro. At Virginia Tech he would get good but not great recruits and make them great college runners. Now at Oregon he is getting the best recruits in the USA and making them world class. Basically to answer your question about XC, I think he is a good mid-d coach and gets those types of kids, which will inevitably lead to lesser performances in XC, as many of the best true distance kids will go to other schools, with good coaches, like NAU, BYU, CU, etc.

But that’s the thing. He’s an awesome mid distance track coach but he’s also the XC coach. You want to win every event regardless of your specialty. Or at the very least train to win and put forth a competitive effort.

Some schools treat XC like an afterthought which is disrespectful to the distance crew.

WWJohnMcDonnellDo?

BenThomasIsGood wrote:

Hocker and Teare are mid distance runners, so while they will be good at XC I don't think they will be great regardless of coaching. In my opinion Ben Thomas is one of the best mid-d coaches in the country, college or pro. At Virginia Tech he would get good but not great recruits and make them great college runners. Now at Oregon he is getting the best recruits in the USA and making them world class. Basically to answer your question about XC, I think he is a good mid-d coach and gets those types of kids, which will inevitably lead to lesser performances in XC, as many of the best true distance kids will go to other schools, with good coaches, like NAU, BYU, CU, etc.

Yes. There are cases of milers who can do it all like Joe Falcon, but most runners are specialists. I knew a sub 4 miler who could not break 31min in XC. That meant he struggled to make our top 7 in XC, but was the best miler in the history of our school. Our best 10K guys could not break 4:10.

Thomas's best results have been thru 5k with an occasional All American in XC at 10K. This may be due to the type of athlete he recruits, or it may be the type of work he prescribes as a coach. Whatever it is, you can't argue with his 800-5000 results. They are excellent from both VT and OR.

If you can't coach a handful of 9:00-9:20 four wheel drive type guys to NCAAs with a few All-Americans, you're not a very good coach. Getting someone just strong as hell for XC is maybe the most straightforward training out there.

Really ever since Vin took the job Oregon has struggled with cross country relative to the track. They won a couple titles early with true cross country guys like Rupp, Biwott, the moustache guys from California. But since then even the 5k-10k guys they get suck at XC. I think it's because the kids that go to Oregon are interested in the gear and the fancy buildings and are just inherently soft.

He's not as successful at XC because it's not a priority for most of his athletes or his"boosters". As other posters have suggested, most of the top recruits are mid-d focused and those that aren't mid-d still have a main focus on track. There's no Olympics or WC for cross country. Yes they still are a competitive team at cross country, but never at the expense of track. In a perfect world, thy would love to win XC and track, but if I was writing Cooper's training, making the next USA team is a year round focus.

BTW, it's my opinion that Oregon's XC team is majorly sandbagging this season and will surprise some people at Nats. Teare will be running for the win and the course suits him.

I specialize in dumb comments. wrote:

He's not as successful at XC because it's not a priority for most of his athletes or his"boosters". As other posters have suggested, most of the top recruits are mid-d focused and those that aren't mid-d still have a main focus on track. There's no Olympics or WC for cross country. Yes they still are a competitive team at cross country, but never at the expense of track. In a perfect world, thy would love to win XC and track, but if I was writing Cooper's training, making the next USA team is a year round focus.

BTW, it's my opinion that Oregon's XC team is majorly sandbagging this season and will surprise some people at Nats. Teare will be running for the win and the course suits him.

If you can't get your 3:56 milers under 24 min for 8k then there's a problem.

NAU, BYU, CU put nearly all their scholarships into XC. In contrast Oregon spreads it around to win in track. Gone are the days of a Arkansas that can be great in both. And they still put all their scholarships into just jumps and distance.

I believe that the powers that be made a huge mistake in siding with Johnson and not the Powells. Johnson's vision for the program as a sprint dominated one departs dramatically with the historically distance oriented plan followed for decades prior to his hiring. On the other hand having a sprint dominated team does bring synergies to the football team. It is also possible that the new NCAA rules will allow Knight and his company to find a way to fund expanding the roster to do both sprints and distance without all of the scholarships.

steeplepeople wrote:

I believe that the powers that be made a huge mistake in siding with Johnson and not the Powells. Johnson's vision for the program as a sprint dominated one departs dramatically with the historically distance oriented plan followed for decades prior to his hiring. On the other hand having a sprint dominated team does bring synergies to the football team. It is also possible that the new NCAA rules will allow Knight and his company to find a way to fund expanding the roster to do both sprints and distance without all of the scholarships.

They care about money not preserving the distance legacy. As you said the money is in football. Also you have to choose between competing for XC or track championships. Since it’s Track Town USA they chose track. Face the facts that only nerdy distance runners care about XC. They have a much larger and “cooler” demographic to focus on. Why? Because they need to sell those shoes with check marks on the side to middle schoolers.

steeplepeople wrote:

I believe that the powers that be made a huge mistake in siding with Johnson and not the Powells. Johnson's vision for the program as a sprint dominated one departs dramatically with the historically distance oriented plan followed for decades prior to his hiring. On the other hand having a sprint dominated team does bring synergies to the football team. It is also possible that the new NCAA rules will allow Knight and his company to find a way to fund expanding the roster to do both sprints and distance without all of the scholarships.

I agree, Oregon is not going to consistently out-sprint the LSU and Florida teams. Sprinters don't want to go up north to train in the cold and rain. Oregon has won Track Nationals Championships with just distance runners. They will never come close to winning with just sprinters. If they put 10 out of 12 scholarships in distance they could probably win cross country once every few years and track every other year.

There’s jumps, throws, and hurdles too. Oregon is actually balanced. LSU has sprinters. BYU had long distance. Oregon has it all like a track program should. It does hurt XC but it’s a different sport forced to share scholarships.

From the 90s wrote:

Gone are the days of an Arkansas that can be great in both.

That's because coaches are doing it wrong. Petros, while at Georgia, proved that there is a winning formula that still works if you apply it properly. The winningest coaches in NCAA history, McDonnell and Henry both used the same formula.

Considering that he has the highest paid, most juiced runners under less than zero academic pressure - he is doing a terrible job. Oregon should never lose a meet.

From the 90s wrote:

There’s jumps, throws, and hurdles too. Oregon is actually balanced. LSU has sprinters. BYU had long distance. Oregon has it all like a track program should. It does hurt XC but it’s a different sport forced to share scholarships.

LSU is way better than Oregon in the jumps LOL. Hurdles too tbh.

Oregon has arguably underachieved in cross country, relative to talent, since Galen Rupp graduated, while overachieving in the mile and 1500m. There is a reason for this. It is not just about scholarships. They get a lot of recruits in the distances with few scholarships, and they are very high quality recruits. Now, they have lost some really, really good recruits to going pro. I'm thinking of the huge effect that Lukas Verzbicas and Drew Hunter would have had on the program, and the huge loss from Cole Hocker turning pro so early. Verzbicas was a great high school runner, sub-4, 8:29, multiple xc national titles, and he left after a couple sub-par xc races when he was not in great shape because he'd turned back to triathlon over the summer before. He went pro in the tri and early on crashed badly and that was the end of his career. Hunter ran 3:57/7:57? but turned pro. Both of those guys would have challenged for multiple national titles. But Oregon's talent is more than adequate to get 5 guys well under 24 in xc. They just are not training them for cross country. They are getting them ready for the 1500/mile and 3k-5k. I would assume that they are doing lower mileage, shorter tempos, and a lot more speedwork than teams like NAU, BYU, and Colorado. But you have to give them credit for the unending sub-3:40 guys they produce, including a certain 3:31 first-time Olympian, who got the U.S. title by beating a 3:30 Oregon alum with multiple world/Olympic medals.

There is no excuse for Oregon not to be in the title hunt at ncaa XC every year even with a track focus.

This might be one of the worst takes of all time.

Chico state fan wrote:

This might be one of the worst takes of all time.

Have you seen the takes out there. Don’t say generic retorts just to sound cool.

Oregon’s history is on the track. Bowerman never took XC seriously.

steeplepeople wrote:

Johnson's vision for the program as a sprint dominated one departs dramatically with the historically distance oriented plan followed for decades prior to his hiring.

Counterpoint:

Ncaa wins at mile, 3K, DMR, 800, 1500 and 5K last year.