Why does the Universtity of Montana suck

It doesn't seem like Montana cares much about fielding competitive NCAA teams. It only offers five men's NCAA teams.

Too busy covering up sexual assault cases from the football team

I don't know anything about the state of athletics, or life in general, in the state of Montana. I do know that coaching athletic success in college is quite a bit different than doing so at the HS level.

At the HS level a coach simply needs to get the kids excited, work hard, establish a caring and fun but challenging culture, and success will follow. Almost all schools within a given state are playing on a mostly level playing field (i.e. classifications based on enrollment, etc...). Certainly there are always exceptions, but generally this holds true.

At the college level the above ideal isn't always possible because the playing fields are VASTLY different. I'm not just talking about D1, D2, D3, etc... Even WITHIN D1, for example, there are HUGE differences in funding, support and recruiting power (i.e. scholarships and perceived prestige)

Montana competes in the same conference as NAU, SUU, Weber St., etc... schools that from a distance perspective are ALL IN and aren't coming back - not to mention their XC region is STACKED. Montana is a small population state so they aren't going to generate the # of homegrown national level athletes to make them nationally relevant as a team. Even if they are fully funded, what is the perceived prestige they have over those in their conference and region?

And from a power event perspective if they ditched distance and went all in on T&F, how many sprinters and jumpers want to live and train in a super cold climate - in a conference and region that is distance-heavy?

I don't believe Coach (_________ - fill in the blank with who you think is the best coach out there) could make Montana that much better than what they already are. So I wouldn't put the blame on the coach; its simply how college athletics works at the present time.

There is a reason year in and year out you see basically the same schools, regardless of division, among the top in the nation or in the region. It is VERY hard to move into the top performing group of programs - it takes YEARS. Likewise, if the system is set up well, it is pretty difficult as a coach to mess things up where you fall out of a top performing group of schools.

Has U Montana replaced Clint May yet?

I don’t think they will suck this coming season though.

they will be the best team they had in as long as I can remember

Ever been to Pullman, WA? I would say that depending on the coach, his/her connections, ability to communicate and organize, fund.....a program could become VERY competitive. It might not look like what you think it should though. But they wouldnt suck.

I would also say that Montana St was impressive at the NCAA t&f meet with steeple, 1500, 400H so something is going on there. Their FB team played in the fbs championship game? Or came up one game short?

Pretty hard to build a program when the administration is telling you to continue to cut kids. You're absolutely right you'd think we should have a great program but its more than running. If the student athlete doesn't find the college offers what they need they won't attend. Another symptom happening around these young HS athletes is that they want to go to these powerhouse programs and understandably so. The reality though is unless they are really that good they won't be in the top 5-8 for their whole time there. So is it really that great to go to NAU and be the 10th runner for 4 years or U of M and be 1 or 2? You can't get them to see that. Recruiting is rough.

U of M sucked the coaching soul right out of Clint. Some of it was the pressures of D1 but there was more administratively that finally broke him down. That's all I'll say

That’s it? University of Montana or NAU?

Flyover state and sh!t academics

Harsh winters and nothing to do but drink. It is a tough place to remain disciplined.

Yes, definitely. Spread the word. Now please don’t move here.

It was merely and example pick any Distance powerhouse and then insert any non powerhouse university