No more D1 Track regionals?

I just don't understand why this is even going on and on and on and on. Think about this:

DIII indoors and outdoors, DII indoors and outdoors, and DI indoors all have a system that works quite well - why don't we just stop making everything so freakin complicated and use it again? Makes tons of sense.

Some people will never be happy and will find fault in everything unless God opened up the skies and personally declared every National Champion, or maybe he'd put them on a stone tablet and a messenger will need to break the news to the well-represented but well-behind athletes/conferences/regions.

What is complicated about having a regional meet from which people progress to the nationals based on head to head competition? Sounds simple and straight forward to me.

It's not complicated, but it's not necessary.

Why don't we have a regional to the regional, we could call it the sub-regional. Then, we wouldn't want to look at any performance lists, no no no, so let's make a sub-sub-regional. EVERY single solution looks at times - regionals, 64/16, no-regonals. Even the almighty NCAA-basketball tourny looks at standards and records to even be considered. So, unless we have a season-long tournament which includes EVERY single Div. I runner, then let's just cut all the BS and only invite those who matter when it comes to the podium...... top 24!!!!

"But there's only a couple seconds or a half second from 24 to 64" you say? Well, it'll make everybody have their sh*t together won't it? If you're a top 10 guy at nationals, you shouldn't be worried.

Ok I have the answer...

THE TRACK AND FIELD BCS

this formula would consist of points based upon place on a descending order list, conference finish, and a average time for the year descending order list.

That way if I have the fastest time for the year I get one point, but if I was 5th at my conference I get 5 points, and my average time for the event ranks 18th I get 18 points. Giving me a total of 24 points. You had the 3rd fastest time, won your conference, and had the highest average time for the event you come out with 5 points. Mid-major man who won his conference was 50th on the descending order list and had the 65th highest average gets 116 points.

Those runners with the 8 lowest point totals make it to a one race national final. No regional meet and no rounds. The meet is over in one day and saves everyone money. There aren't extra races into the year to run our talented distance runners into the ground. Everyone can double as long as they have one of the 8 lowest point totals for multiple events.

Its equal to everyone, the whole season matters, and winning and losing at your conference matters too.

Win win win situation for everyone and everything

Why stop there. When you can have 3 consolation championships too where runners 9 through 16 compete at one, 17 through 24 at another, and 25 through 32 at a fourth.

Then after all 4 National meets are done the coaches can vote who they think the national champion at each event is.

the problem with the current system is the fact that the mideast and east regions each have more than 70 schools in each of them where as the west and mountain regions barely crack 70 schools combined. How many heats of the 100 did the mountain region have compared to the east?is that fair? how many heats of the steeple did the west and mountain have together ive heard the east had 3 or 4 last yr how could you possible think this is fair. At least this new system would make up for this dispairity

WIrunnerBOY wrote:

There's plenty of time in the summer to jog 16:00 5k road races and have our name published all over the front page of the local paper. I personally don't give a crap about all that; I'd rather have my friends/teammates congratulate me on my 13th place 28:54 then a full spread front page picture of me breaking the tape winning some crappy meet and having the article go on and on about how I won by 2 minutes and I'm the hometown boy.

Well, what I also said was:

"As for providing the opportunities for athletes to run fast, I agree with you 100% that this is important, and that's why I'd hate to see us lose meets like Mt SAC, Oregon, Stanford, or UW indoors. Those meets provide great opportunities to get great marks against strong fields in ideal conditions."

So what's your point? By the way, congratulations on your 28:54, if you did indeed run that. What I was trying to say is that our sport doesn't have much pull with university ADs and other decision-makers about funding, partly because we now place little emphasis on competition that they relate to... like dual meets with rival schools. If you want to act like that means I'm impressed by a 16:00 road race, fell free.