It's Time to Cut the Mizzou Cross Country Program!

So how many male runners will Mizzou bring to regionals? 5 again?

I'm guessing 3 ok guys and rest on crutches. Should be fun to watch. After reading previous posts, I'm sure they know that they can bring more than five.

bump

I just had to comment about the guy listing all the years of 5th and 6th place conference finishes (rubbing in an 18th place regional finish this year is a bit much). The problem with your logic is that 5th place is the BEST they've done in the last 10 years! 5th place used to be a BAD year for the program, now it's the BEST finish of an entire decade.

That's the difference we are talking about here, very low expectations and if too many people are happy with being middle of the road then the results will pretty much continue to be bad. Also, track 1500 meter times don't get you much respect in a topic about XC. XC is a 5 or 6 mile race, against the elements, with hills, uneven footing, etc... Not the controlled and boring environment of a track (except at Mizzou's windy-ass stadium!)

It takes a bit more coaching from the mental aspect I believe to help kids develop in XC. Also, who's to say all those guys that raced so many 1500s at Mizzou were actually 1500 runners? They may have gravitated more towards that event based solely on the knowledge that their coach was incapable of coaching successfully at any distance longer than that.

I sure hope the new coach can stamp his mark on the program starting next year. Year 1 can be tough to make much of a difference for a new coach. Look at Wilmes, the program was still very good his first year there until he really got into it. Hopefully the new guy can have the reverse effect.

Wow, I wonder if the real names were posted how many guys I know on this thread.

There are several problems at Mizzou. For one, as mentioned, they turn away good in state talent. I think this is an arrogance issue more than anything. I've known the inner workings of the program through friends, associates, assistant coaches, etc. for fifteen years and the bottom line is that they seem to have a false arrogance. Most years they aren't even the fifth or sixth best college team in the STATE OF MISSOURI.

Secondly, there are a lot of good D2 programs in Missouri that have a solid history of turning second tier kids (city kids particularly) into solid distance runners. Mizzou snubs them and they stay hungry cutting their teeth in "lesser" programs. I could name more than a few that have had successful running careers from modest D2 and even NAIA pedigrees.

The coaching is geared too much toward middle distance. Pigg was a little bit too mid-distance oriented, but with Wilmes it was a joke. We used to make the joke about, "Go to Mizzou. They turn race horses into donkeys." They have a very good track record of middle distance guys. Unfortunately, you can't run good 10ks off of 800m mileage. It's just common sense.

I hope they turn things around, but hey, it's Mizzou. Why should we expect anything better?

by "most years" you obviously mean "once every thirty years, when they redshirt more than half their roster."

Bump

they did well at louisville haha