College Try-Out

Look at Tfrrs. What is their 3rd best 1500 and 5000 this season? If you run faster than that in a time trial, somebody will get cut.

Someone might be out for a cut. There might be spots reserved for the top athlete/s in a time trial. It might just be a spot for the top performer if someone quits or transfers out. It might be there is no spot, no matter how well you run. Who knows. If you're already set on attending, keep training, and show up ready to run your best. All I know is that you will likely have to beat a significant number of athletes, including those already on the team, for a spot.

What exactly a tryout looks like varies enough that it's useless to speculate until you hear more details from the coach.

The only thing you can safely assume is that you should be good enough to get onto the team the first day you set foot on campus. If there are truly no more open spots that means you need to demonstrate the capability to be an immediate impact such that it's worth cutting someone to bring you onto the team.

Get healthy and get training. You have a big summer ahead.

Basically this. Without being a tool, ask the coach if he has a summer plan for the team, or just mileage.

Find out of course when your school starts, but also when team arrives on campus; do they do an off-site camp, when and what time trial will look like. Perhaps ask nicely if you can run with team prior to the tryout in the ol CU Buffalo style. Keep in contact with coach over summer, say every 2weeks. Even if it's just 'still here, training going well'.

You never know, you could just be an injury away from making it.

Lastly, investigate also your options, if it does not go well. Is there's a club? Could you train with team, if not on roster?

Good luck to you. Odds in your favor.

nobosy is getting cut from the team because some guy comes and runs a 202.

Correct. That's why he has to look at Tfrrs. Guarantee 3rd best 1500 is 3:50.

Do stay in contact with the coach.

My experience with a tryout is it is a two week trail period... could be a time trial involved or not. You could ask the coach what he/she is looking for. Lots of NCAA stuff has to happen before a tryout is allowed (like a physical by AT). You can't train with the team without this.

And be prepared, if there are really no spots available you will likely have to be really good for a coach to cut someone from the team to make a spot available... it's not gonna happen if you are just better than one or two guys on the team.

Notice how he hasn't told us what the team's times are?

It's highly unlikely that any coach (at least one with character worth running for) will cut an established team member to make a scholarship spot for you in August. I guess maybe they could have a bad apple on the roster that they just need a good enough reason to ax, but as said already you'd need to come in and be immediately better than most of the guys already in the locker room.

What seems more likely to me is this tryout is to see if you're worth investing in as a walk-on and earn scholarship for the next year. It sends a strong positive message to a coach if you can put the work in on your own over the summer, and maybe you end up beating out some of the other guys in you class if they get lazy because they've already "made it".

angle 1: he has a policy of giving anyone displaying interest with solid but insufficient times a one-day/one-week/trial-length kick of the tires. you will then almost without fail get cut. this will likely be evident looking at times on TFRRS. if their times strongly suggest you don't belong, then you won't really have a chance. "i don't have room." he was blunt with you but he allows a little tryout.

angle 2: you ask about joining TF and give TF times, your times aren't up to his TF muster -- explanation above -- but he is curious if you are good enough to run XC. the coaches are often the same person. XC often has more room for distance runners. if so, your tryout will just happen to be this july or august -- when XC is starting. if you are getting a pity TF trial, that will more likely be in november, closer to that season. to me if someone says there is no room TF but come out for a workout, maybe it's a XC tryout. cause based on your times and what he said, you're not TF stuff to him. but maybe he's like, i could use some XC, and maybe after a season of training, you flower and he's like, dude, i want to see his track times now.

i mean, did he ask about XC? have you run it?

but a november trial, to me, would be more of a blowoff. you get a TF tryout, but there's no room.

angle 3: he has you in for the one-off workout then tells you to work out on your own and see what happens. you work out on your own, you get another one-off tryout next year. if you can improve, he gives you a longer look. if not, well, we tried.

i agree with the comment about showing up ready to rock, peak shape. if you have any chance, it's impressing him then and there. you may have zero chance as he even said. you won't know that til you show up. so you have to show up prepared to compete for a D1.

Nobody is talking about scholarships. The coach is going to see how fast he is. If he is better than 75% of the kids, one will be off of the roster. Teams do this all of the time. The other kid could still run unattached by getting himself to the meets.

No. A roster spot counts the same in XC as it does in each of the track seasons unless you are pointing out that indoor and outdoor count twice.

i agree on TFRRS. i would know what i am getting into. you can either look at "all performances" for events, or scan through the meets, XC or TF, and get an idea what the team runs. if you make no sense fitting in with how fast the team is, say, a bunch of 4:10 or less, and 800 runners do 1:50, that hints at one conclusion. if the team has guys running 1:59 and 4:25, then you're literally just shy of the roster, different possibility. excellent D1s will be the former. but some of the weaker teams/conferences might have some of the latter.

re roster spots, i know "scholarships" is one big pool between XC and indoor/outdoor. you would be correct there in the sense that if they have a scholarship for a sprinter, that's one not available for a XC dude.

but we're not talking scholarships. we're talking does he even walk on. in the walkon context i thought that's more to do with outer bounds on roster size. which NCAA does not dictate. that is usuallyt the collega and their idea how to meet title IX. that the school to comply with title IX will tell the coach, you can have "x" amount of XC, "y" amount of TF runners. i thought each of XC, indoor, and outdoor were separate title IX numbers. put differently, the XC and TF rosters are different kettles of fish. i mean, are you suggesting sprinters or hurdles or throwers count as XC bodies? no. no. no. likewise, any of the XC who don't carry over to TF. thus you can bring someone in for XC who is a no hoper currently for TF. different longer distance. more room. they might or might never see an actual XC meet but they might make the roster, train with the team, get to take photos in the uni, count against title IX, etc.

or, like i said, it could just be some mix of pity or he likes to give runners the once-over then send them off. the hint at that would be the margin between you and what they run in meets.

re "better than 75%," he said D1. he then said roughly 2/4:30. best schools he's double digit seconds slower (20-30' mile, 10' 800) than the worst runner on the team. worst D1 teams he might be in the neighborhood of the worst runner. small conferences, HBCU, patriot league, that kind of thing. if he checks TFRRS he figures out in a hurry if it's the former or the latter. if it's the former this is basically a pity tryout. if it's the latter, he's gonna be not much slower than the worst. in that context maybe he has a real chance.

last comment, but there are plenty of good academic D3s where you wouldn't have to beg your way on the track team, either from a sports or space perspective.

to me a lot of this D1 walk on obsession that manifests over and over, is kids who either didn't plan, didn't think about what they really wanted, or let the parents decide. "you know what i really wanted? was to run college track." ok, defer admission, apply to good academic schools with track for january entry.

You just don't know how bad the worst d1 schools are. Think bottom third of Patriot League.

I looked at Colgate. They have at least 7 guys much faster than the OP.

Not how it works at all.

Don't worry about "checking the right boxes" or "preparing correctly." Just grind and get better earnestly. If you do that and you perform well in your tryout then everything else will take care of itself.