Mike Smith NAU Coach

And Stanford will still beat them in 2023.

Stanford will still somehow find a way to lose to Nico and 4 9:30 kids Mike Smith turns into All Americans

If he beats Stanford in 2023, he deserves a black page.

However, he will also a Colin in 2023

boss i hope hes working on a training philosophy book

No.

Yea, it’s called, inherit a national championship team that happens to be at 7000 ft and recruit well. And don’t screw it up!

Every year they dominate, that excuse gets weaker and weaker. How many Tyler Days, Abdi Nurs does he need to produce to prove he can coach? Not to mention all of the huge talents he's gotten, that were training at an exceptionally high level in high school, that still showed significant improvement (Luis, Nico, and Drew Bosley come to mind). His biggest failure is what, Brodey Hasty? An XC All-American with a 13:42 PR? Certainly much better than what Stanford did with Principe, or what Texas did with Worley, or many other super-talents. They will win again this year, barring disaster. 2023 might be tough, but I'd bet on them over all the talent out of Palo Alto, because Mike Smith is a good coach.

Was his fake accent included as part of the deal

Not to mention Abdi and Grijalva both finishing top 11 at Worlds in the 5,000m with Grijalva just missing a medal. Rupp also could have picked any other coach in the country post Salazar but decided to go with Smith. Nike badly wanted him for the Oregon job too, but he turned them down.

Dude can flat out coach, everyone else in the running world can see it apparently except for "Earn it the old fashioned way".

Ok, Rupp was much better with Al Sal.

Is he still coaching Grijalva?

Rupp was entering the twilight of his career when Smith started working with him. And Rupp certainly smashed the field at the Oly Trials.

"Dude can flat out coach" should have been the end of this thread.

Don't you mean, "Rupp was much younger with Al Sal"?

I mean how old was Carlos Lopes when he won gold in the thon?

keep making excuses fan boy.

Prob making $250k/yr

The winning/attention definitely is good for the school.

Especially considering it already attracts granola/outdoorsy/active people.

Lol. NAU gets the best recruits. He may turn 4 8:45 dudes, or 4 top 10 footlocker dudes into AAs. But there has been exactly 1 guy (Nur) to not already be a stud when they got there, and become one.

I heard he has agreed to shift to his best Chapelle impersonation over the next year. Taking up smoking was a sticking point, which he won.

Is it a coach's job to turn non-studs into studs, or at the level of NCAA Championship-contender is the job to recruit studs and make them into even bigger studs?

His job, literally, is to recruit the 8:45 guys and top-ten Footlocker guys and to win with them. He does that exceptionally well.

I myself mentioned a second (Tyler Day). Peter Lomong was only recruited because of his brother (his mile PR in high school was 4:30) and got 8th at NCAAs in cross. Jack Shea went from 9:19 to 13:44. Cade Burks went from 4:19 to 3:42.

Not to mention, yeah, he does get 8:45 guys, and he's exceptionally good at turning them into college studs. That still takes a lot of coaching. Occasionally you get the rare talent like Hocker or Cheserek that managed to run top times off minimal high school training, but for the most part the guys running that fast are well-coached and train hard. It's natural to expect that they won't drop a ton of time in college. And yet at NAU, they do. Blaise Ferro went from 9th at NXN running for CBA, to 6th at NCAAs and 27:56. Matt Baxter went from 8:14/14:10 to 13:31/28:10. Drew Bosley went from 4:05/8:49 and 5th at FL to 13:25 and 13th at NCAAs (and he's still got two years of eligibility left). George Kusche was a 3:57 guy who sucked at cross at Nebraska, and after a year at NAU he's an XC all-american and also run 3:37. And of course everyone is highly familiar with Nico Young's incredible progression from high school record-holder to American U20 record-holder (and likely soon, collegiate record holder).

This should not even be a discussion. He develops studs, he develops projects, his average runner is a 13:45 guy. They get out-recruited by Stanford, UVA, and everybody else and still crush the field every year. And as long as Mike Smith is in charge, expect it to stay that way.