NAU XC rebuild

Las Heras is gone because he's out of eligibility.

Colin Sahlman, Prosser, Gorgas, Nyoak is a decent core to work with. All guys who can top 30 on a good day and drop a sub 30 10K, and NAU seems to have a lot of good days for their guys when it comes to XC nationals.

I don't think any of their current freshmen/sophomores and redshirts are going to contribute beyond maybe a 7th spot, they just did not have the results that their previous top guys had as 1st/2nd years. Most of them are like 25-26 minute 8K on the tough courses which is just not good enough for XC nationals. I think Jack Scherer might be the best guy out of the guys who have been out of the spotlight.

Their incoming freshmen guys could randomly pop off, but that's just a pure guessing game.

They are going to need 1-2 transfers if they want a chance at 2nd/3rd podium.

I see two possibilities.

1. Portal reload

2. mike smith pro group

Jack Scherer ran 23:42 (Hasty won in 23:18) for 8k at the Dave Martinez Classic in September. Zack Munson (8:52 hs) and Ford Washburn (8:59 hs) ran 23:18 and 23:24 there. So, those are three candidates. Aidan Barnhill ran a 4:05 or 4:06 high school mile but has not improved so far in track. Aidan Puffer was an 8:46 high school runner and Aaron Sahlman ran 8:03 as a junior in high school and won NXN xc as a senior, so there you have five additional potential contributors to the xc team, along with Santiago Prosser, Colin Sahlman, Kang Nyoak, and Corey Gorgas. They don't have a chance against Oklahoma State's current roster, but they have an outside shot at a podium finish if they can bring in some quality transfers/foreigners or that very rare commodity, the impact freshman in xc. The only freshman recruit I have seen for them so far is Clay Shively (4:05/8:50 as a junior), a strong xc runner, who just won a mile indoors in 4:00.47 at New Balance Nationals. I think that Shively is going to be a very good one but who knows what he'll do at 10k xc as a freshman, especially one with good speed (1:51 as a junior). His race strategy: "empty the tank."

Munson and Washburn ran 24:18 and 24:23-24, not 23:xx.

Shively ran 4:01 as a junior outdoors.

Clay Shively and Emmanuel Perez look like great prospects though 10K might be too much too soon. Unless they're phenoms I bet Smith redshirts them like he did Aaron Sahlman. future is bright, but next year will be lots of new faces and uncertainty.

I suspect some impact transfers.

It’s going to be hard for them to take down University of Kenya next year. They won NCAA champs and only losing one senior

They won’t even come close to doing that unless they go recruit the Kenyan national team just like Dave did last season. I don’t see Mike Smith going that route tho.

I'm going to chime in, if I could: it's not racist to call someone "Kenyan." They are Kenyan.

NAU has had TONS of international athletes in their dynasty, so they have no right to complain.

Dave Smith has more internationals on his team, but aside from Nico, Dave Smith's athletes have improved SIGNIFICANTLY more than NAU's, and that's without the benefit of altitude.

So if NAU tops Stanford at nationals, would it be a disappointment for Stanford?

Just wondering if all the scholarships on the women’s side (Churchill, Baloga, Upshaw, And recruits like Stutzman and Godsey) is also causing fewer on the men’s side and causing the rebuild? Just a thought.

Forgot about ruby Smee and gracelyn Larkin via the TP. From the TP: Churchill, Baloga, Smee, Upshaw, Larkin. That’s a lot of scholarships via the TP all in 1 year. Has to have an impact on the men’s side?

Only if it's a pleasant distraction. Scholarship funds are separate for men and women. 18 for women, 12 for men for all tf/xc. NAU put pretty much all in distance. Difference in school count due title9 and balancing football.

Maybe they were looking for the word xenophobic? I would still argue it was not xenophobic.

If the other schools don't want a future where you can purchase/import a roster of essentially professional caliber foreign runners, they need to vote to enact (or strengthen) international student limits on rosters as some other sport/league/age groups do for the development of their own regional talent (MLS, Canadian Major Junior Hockey, etc.)

Counterpoint, north American universities are drunk on international student revenue. NCAA would need to decouple from academic admission policies even further (I know, it's funny! because why are they even pretending they're linked at this point?)

There's also the debate about age limits that no one is in a hurry to have, but is dashed line connected to the future abuse of this issue. if championship success at all costs becomes the goal, recruitment be damned, why would you not pipeline east African 25 year Olds into your program? scruples aside.

"Ah yes, meet our new recruit Koody Wincaid"

NAU is in an interesting spot here because they're about to lose their entire core from the last 4 years all at once. Bosley, Hasty, Las Heras, Quax, and Young (who will almost certainly turn pro). They have just 1 returning xc All-American in Prosser, and only 2 others with NCAA nationals racing experience. Corey Gorgas (62nd in 2023) and Colin Sahlman (151st in 2022). I'm not sure people have grasped how big a reset this is going to be.