Did Rupp Answer the question of whether he could have won the NCAA 10K today??!!!

doesnt matter cause hes not running NCAA track this spring.

First off that was one of the most exciting races of any kind that I've seen in a long, long time. I had goosebumps watching the two duke it out (and no I'm not gay).There was nothing Rupp could have done today, McDougal was not to be denied. What great gutty performances, weren't they out in 15:08 and back in 14:24 or something like that, wow! That race will go down in history as one of the best ever.Also, congratulations to the Duck men (Stanford women too but that was to be expected), running cross country the old fashion way, take it to them early. At 3k they had 82 points to UTEP's 157 and held on for 87. That was an agressive and gutty performance also. Nice to see that level of agressiveness on the college scene. Some of these other schools are going to have to throw away the playbook and go out with them if they want to win.All in all a great race that truely exceeded it's pre-race billing.

Winning a race without going all-out is a skill. Rupp didn't execute it properly that day. A million things can go wrong in every race. That's one of them.

xcxcxcxxx wrote:

Winning a race without going all-out is a skill. Rupp didn't execute it properly that day. A million things can go wrong in every race. That's one of them.

True dat, true dat.

Jefe in the CO wrote:

At 3k they had 82 points to UTEP's 157 and held on for 87. That was an agressive and gutty performance also. Nice to see that level of agressiveness on the college scene. Some of these other schools are going to have to throw away the playbook and go out with them if they want to win.

Yeah, going out conservatively and moving up later totally put the nail in Colorado's coffin last fall.

d10 wrote:

Jefe in the CO wrote:

At 3k they had 82 points to UTEP's 157 and held on for 87. That was an agressive and gutty performance also. Nice to see that level of agressiveness on the college scene. Some of these other schools are going to have to throw away the playbook and go out with them if they want to win.

Yeah, going out conservatively and moving up later totally put the nail in Colorado's coffin last fall.

It did work last year. How did it work today? I think Jefe's point was that the level is raising and that going out conservative and catching teams who will score 140 points is fine, but teams who are getting down to 60 or 70 points will not be caught so easily. Those teams will need to be raced and stuck with.

Colorado has won it 3 times with scores of 90, 90 & 94. It will take better than that to be catching Oregon who will be getting back to the scores of 50-60 that Arkansas and Stanford and Wisconsin have posted in the past 10 years. In fact, it becomes more clear to me that Colorado only wins if the teams capable of scoring those lower points blow up. I never really thought that they were winning with such high scores.

Rupp and Josh ran a great race. Galen allowed Josh to gap him and I think the effort to make up that ground, and what appeared to be a kick to far from the finish cost him the race. I have noticed that Galen at times appears to "fall asleep" in a race and leave a major gap to close. For example the Solinsky 5k in Eugene and the Stanford 10K race. Both of these young guys portend well for the future and I think it was a wonderfull race with real drama. Lomong may have also learnt to keep his mouth shut.Very exciting! Congratulations to Oregon winning first x title since 1977. Klotz. Mercado brothers also did amazing runs. The second place in the womens was fantastic also for Oregon. Vin is a happy man tonight!

I'm not implying that Colorado's tactics aren't successful. And thanks to your insightful post of stating the obvious it is very well documented. Moreover I'm implying that cross country running takes aggression as well as intelligence. Colorado's M.O. of going out conservatively and then picking people off is the intelligent way to approach a National Championship (especially if you train at altitude). Oregon going out hard and hanging on is an aggressive way to win a National Championship? Two of their 7 blew up. Could have easily been 3 out of 7 if it weren't for the Mercado's coming through in the clutch.I enjoy watching both tactics (Colorado’s win last year was awesome) but, for me, aggressive running is more in your face kind of stuff that is in stark contrast to the distance running physique.

d10 wrote:

Jefe in the CO wrote:

At 3k they had 82 points to UTEP's 157 and held on for 87. That was an agressive and gutty performance also. Nice to see that level of agressiveness on the college scene. Some of these other schools are going to have to throw away the playbook and go out with them if they want to win.

Yeah, going out conservatively and moving up later totally put the nail in Colorado's coffin last fall.

Maybe he thought they would tie...

Good posts tonight Jefe. I also thought today was great racing.

I think the biggest thing in all of this is weather, Colorado tends to win when the conditions are far from ideal. On these days you pay way worse for the mistake of going out too fast and not racing smart. Colorado takes advantage. Days like today you have to mix it up and get to the front to have a shot but as we saw with UTEP that doesn't always work. There is no tried and true formula that can guarentee the win every year.

15:08 and 14:14

Jefe in the CO wrote:

What great gutty performances, weren't they out in 15:08 and back in 14:24 or something like that, wow! That race will go down in history as one of the best ever.

..............................................................

That was an agressive and gutty performance also. Nice to see that level of agressiveness on the college scene. Some of these other schools are going to have to throw away the playbook and go out with them if they want to win.

I wouldn't say Oregon ran aggressive. The lead went out in 15:08. If the whole team had gone out in 14:40, you might have a point. Oregon ran smart and a pretty conservative race. The other teams ran scared and gave Oregon the win.