Stanford has to be the favorite, yet, as last year’s debacle at nationals, the boys from Palo Alto must show up and run, the trophy will not be given to them from the onset. Their biggest challengers have to be the kids from Eugene, they can sweep the 1500 at nationals, yet XC separates the kids from the men. Will they be able to make the transition, if so, will it be enough to upset the cardinals. How about the boys from Berkeley, Tony Sandoval hasn’t veered away from recruiting milers, milers tend to die in 10K’s, good thing PAC 10s is an 8K track rolled out. Next up is UCLA, their new coaching scheme seems to be coming along formidably, yet, can they keep making strives on the biggest stage. What about Arizona State? Without Bethke leading the team, and ZVP sitting on the sideline(red-shirting), who will step up and lead the young talented Sun Devils to the promise land. Up north UW seems to be underachieving once again, this year seems to be a bit more upsetting though, the scrappy Wazzu kids might sneak up and beat there rivals. Finally UofA, should they just cut their cross country program and save their school thousands of dollars. Coach Lee seems to be running out of Kenyans that want to go there, Alabama calls first dibs on them now. Regardless of what happens, it plans to be an exciting race, we will see who shows up, who exceeds expectations, and who bombs it like usual. Here are my predictions…
1. Stanford- too talented and smart enough not to bomb it again.
2. Oregon- All those long nights and days in the altitude tents, courtesy of Nike, will only pay off for 2nd place.
3. CAL- The Milers will be in contention to go duck hunting, but the milers will die the last 1K.
4. ASU- Louie will work his magic once again, and the young talented team will show up and race.
5. UCLA- The Bruins will keep on making strides moving forward.
6. Wazzu- The kids from Pullman will arguably make the biggest upset, drilling their in state rivals.
7. UW- Metcalf and his debacle training regiments will once again lead his talented team to the trenches.
8. UofA- The KenyanLESS team looks for another year in the dump.