8th place last fall wrote:
Wait till you see Dave Smith's infamous run at the back in a group strategy in operation again.
I have to agree with this. OSU has the running talent to do well for sure. They had the talent a year ago.
But it was frustrating as heck to see every race, one after the other where they were all running together as a group - holding their best runners back and running the tail enders too hard. They even did the same thing in training! It was no wonder they crashed at NCAA's. My recollection is that they would not have been 3rd even if German had finished, which he didn't, so you can't go by that anyway. They got 8th. And one of the reasons was because him and Vail were way behind everyone else the first 8k of the race, which was totally stupid, especially for Smith to have German do that, and again they ran the same way all season! So they had no development. Plus they have two very talented Kenyans, who have not progressed at all under Smith, and were actually faster before they got there. German is the only one who has been doing really well and that's because he is so innately talented and does a lot of extra things on his own, against the wishes of Smith.
Past performance is the best predictor of future. I would like to see OSU come through, like they were expected to do a year ago. But I think unless Smith lets them train, get in shape and compete, they will be lucky to get anywhere close to top three.