Does Rupp rank behind only the great Henry Rono as all-time collegiate distance runners?

seeing it right wrote:

how do the two international teams factor into this debate (and likely a 3rd this summer)?

Zero, they're outside of collegiate competition. In Rupp's case, he has skipped or not run to his full potential in college seasons in years where he has made international teams. Maybe Ritz could have made even more international teams if he was willing to slack off more while competing during the school year. Ritz made the senior team for world cross long course as a true freshman and ran 24th there, I consider that much more impressive.

Rupp Went Pro Before College wrote:

seeing it right wrote:

how do the two international teams factor into this debate (and likely a 3rd this summer)?

Zero, they're outside of collegiate competition. In Rupp's case, he has skipped or not run to his full potential in college seasons in years where he has made international teams. Maybe Ritz could have made even more international teams if he was willing to slack off more while competing during the school year. Ritz made the senior team for world cross long course as a true freshman and ran 24th there, I consider that much more impressive.

Ritz isn't a college legend. 1 title, 1 record 10000m which Rupp broke, that's it. I'm certain he tried to peak for 2004 Olympics, not NCAAs outdoors, whatever your excuses. Went pro early, can't be assumed to have done anything if he had remained as injury prone as he was.

World XC teams are easy to make, top 7 versus 3 (Ritz was 5th), with less competition because the odds are so bad at Worlds.

Red Glare wrote:

If my aunt had a package she'd be my uncle. What's that matter?

Record against your peers counts for a lot, maybe the most in considering greatness. If you can't even beat your peers consistently then you're not that great.

seeing it right wrote:

people mention Godfrey from arkansas, but imagine if Rupp was in college back then. might have a several more championships under his belt before his 4th or 5th year.

times have to play a part in this debate as well as the level of competition.

ooops i think you missed my point. to be clear the point was should the depth and talent of peers during a given period be taken into account/context? if you are a high schooler going for a state title in wyoming and you are a 9:10 3200 guy and the next guy is 9:24 than you are fairly easily a state champion. but is that state champion title really as valuable as a state champion title in california where 9:10 would put you in 8th and you'd need 8:55 to win it? in this case the titles are the same, but the peers are clearly not. there are a lot of smaller school or weaker state runners with 6-10 state champion titles that would get crushed by a guy from washington, illinois, california etc. with one state title to their name.

to me rupp has had some damn good competition during his time in college. cheseret was a 5th year senior when he kept galen from his first title (as a frosh or soph). and yet galen made an ncaa final a 28:30 race at that age.

mcdougal seemed to put everything mentally and physically into the ncaa cross season when he outkicked galen in a pretty phenomenal race. mcdougal was already a 13:20 5K guy at that point. forget that galen had an abbreviated season, since it was his own choosing to do world champs and knew full well that his cross season would suffer, but the point is he narrowly lost to a couple of the strongest runners to ever run in the ncaa.

if he were running in the mid-late 90's he might have had an easy time racking up titles so that's why i posed the question.