NCAA XC Powerhouses. Who are they and why?

All places where football isn't the biggest priority on campus or in the athletic department or, if it is, simply doesn't see sustained success. So places where the AD makes at least a decent commitment to funding and ensuring success in non-revenue sports. Altitude also coincides with nice weather conditions for training through late summer and autumn. Stanford sees the same though at sea level. Having a good coach who is a cult of personality can certainly be a contributing factor.

At the end of the day, almost all of sports is about recruiting. From pee wee soccer to the NFL, raw talent trumps.

Convincing recruits you have the best coach or that altitude training is super important is ultimately more important than the benefit of those things, IMO. They matter, but it’s more important to get a pipeline of 5* runners because they think you have those things and to convince them they want it.

Obviously some schools get there with developing a foreign talent pipeline or having great academics, but for those schools it is still recruiting more than what is going on once they get there.

I’m not saying location and coaching don’t matter a lot, but just getting the talent is the biggest thing.

It’d be interesting to see a ranking of national championships based on who did the most with the least obvious talent coming in.

Not sure about that statement. There are only a few / handful of schools who have had very long term success in football (e.g. Bama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, etc.).

Arkansas, Wisconsin, Oregon...they take football very seriously. CU and BYU have national championships, Heisman winners, and decent runs at being among the elite. Stanford too.

You cannot separate coaching from recruiting. It's the same person.

CU might be at the top for doing the most with the lowest ranked talent coming out of high school.

Scholarships devoted to XC is a large factor. I can't think of many sprinters coming out of Colorado/Stanford/Wisconsin/NAU/UTEP... Arkansas and Oregon have probably had the most success in non distance events, but a result of that is a lack of depth in distance if their few good guys get hurt and you could say Arkansas hasn't been great for quite a while.

In general if you want a good track team you typically don't want a good cross country team. There are enough programs that go all in on cross country that distance runners are over-valued for scholarship and it's harder to get points out of them on the track.

What about all of the schools that aren't' very good at either?

NC State women now.

Because they had some athletes with stellar high school accomplishments join the team. Like Tuohy and Chmiel.

I actually want to give that to Rob Connor at Portland. He was consistently getting to nationals and placing top 10 with teams full of 9:20 guys. Never got over the hump to win a title, but has trophied and plenty of top 10-15 finishes.

Because of great coaches and great recruiting.

The top programs are usually created by something novel that the coach/administration does. They are typically ahead of the curve in what tactic they use. It's truly the genius of collegiate coaching. What can a coach do to separate their university from others to appeal to young athletes? Below I'm giving my view of how these dynasty programs BEGAN, not how they currently achieve success. Every coach since has just found creative ways to tweak the gravy train's route.

Arkansas - Developed a triple threat in three sports. Who doesn't want to join a team that wins several championships? McDonnell was a bit of a unicorn person and with a little Irish catholic values he created a great culture. He really focused on track and was able to build an xc dynasty in a region of the country that is atypical to the desirable distance runner mold.

UTEP - Allowed integrated teams, just like San Jose State back in the day (first ever integrated xc team to win championships). Cross Country was very white when these teams were winning championships.

Oregon - Nike, funding, polarizing coach like Bowerman. The legend of Pre and successful marketing of Pre. Everyone wanted to train where Pre trained and smoke meth with the locals.

Colorado - In the '90 when runners were scared to run real mileage and work hard, Wetmore came in and built an army of battle-hardened buffaloes at altitude (training at altitude was novel for collegiate programs). It has since changed over the years, but they were known for their huge mileage, epic workouts on famous mountain backroads. Oh yeah, and they let an author come out and write a book about them. Perfect mix of marketing and hard work. Wetmore is also a zen master.

Wisconsin - I don't know what was novel about Wisconsin besides they had a great recruiter as a coach and midwesterners are truly tough.

NAU - Smith figured out how to connect with the younger generation in a time when social media was growing. He is also a great talker, recruiter, passionate coach living at 7000+ feet of altitude and what high schooler doesn't want to train up in the sky? This is basically an updated version of what excited kids in the 90s-00s about Colorado.

Stanford - Well...perfect weather all the time at a highly selective university. Guess which athletes tend to be smart? Distance kids. Guess who can get them admitted at a prestigious school if they're fast enough? Stanford's xc coaches. Hire a competent coach and give them the top talent in the country and you'll see podiums most years.

YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY!!!

Have they even won a cross country conference title let alone national title?

NAU already had a great XC culture before Smith arrived. Ron Mann and Eric Heins had produced top ranked XC teams for years as well before Smith arrived to build on that culture.

You are right. I got carried away with my thoughts on NAU. Very good point and also true.

2018, explode

Putting a lot of money into it doesn’t mean a singular focus to essentially the exclusion of any and all other sports. Oregon can outspend CU because of alumni investment. BYU couldn’t even draw significant interest from a P5 conference for years and Arkansas is usually looking up at LSU, Bama, and even TAMU and Auburn, they’re historically (within a decade on either side of their xc wins) not singularly focused on football success. Neither are the others. It’s clear from the fact that none of these football teams finished the top 10 in final rankings with regularity for years prior to their school’s xc team wins. Wisconsin and Stanford are unique in P5 for their emphasis on support for almost all of their athletic department’s teams. This also explains why xc teams at Oklahoma, Bama, Ohio State, USC 😉, and Clemson are typically mediocre. XC coaches that actually want to build programs with expectations of excellence aren’t going to take a job where it’s clear they’ll have to fight to get and keep any meaningful support from the administration.

Oh great job! Congrats on your title!

This started with Bob Beamon, who saw what Don Haskins famously did with basketball, including friends of his from NYC. UTEP’s foreign pipeline actually started with Coach Wayne Vandenberg and the Kerrys: Ellison and Pearce. In those days (late ‘60s to early ‘70s) it was comprised of Australians, Europeans, and Mexicans. When Ted Banks took over in the mid ‘70s is when Africans began to be included in the mix.