Who Has The Biggest Upside, Verzbicas or Mudd?

Mudd for the 800 / 1500. Verzbicas for 5K and beyond.

Mudd. He has almost no downside. If he never does another thing running related, would most people even notice?

On the other side unless LV sets college records, makes the Olympic team, and earns a medal by his 2nd Olympics he will be considered a failure by most here at Letsrun.

Who will be the most accomplished 5 years from now? LV - no question.

Cheserek

Mudd

I don't think at this point we can really say who will have the better career. A lot can happen between age 18 and say 25. What kind of upside did Pat Porter have at age 18?

I see LV and Mudd as somewhat of a Ritz/Webb redux, ten years on. LV is currently the more accomplished, developed and aerobically strong, whereas Mudd is an explosive talent, possibly another Webb, but with a bit more humility and a sharper kick (which might be partly a result of his self-underestimation at this time). It is easy for me to see LV as sub-13:00 in five years as it is possible that Mudd could see sub-3:30 in the same span.

LV is a solid bet under Lanana, whereas Byrne has never had a talent quite like Mudd. It will be interesting in four years to refresh this thread and see where their paths have taken them.

Verzbicas, but barely. He's much better at his events (2 mile on up) then Mudd is at his events (800, 1600) right now, but he's also tapped into much more of his potential than Mudd has at this point.

Being from Indiana, I have to share pro-Mudd info though:

In an interview before the Brooks PR Invite in Feb 2011 , Mudd describes his progression:

"I grew up playing soccer and I switched over in freshman year to running full time and that took a lot of encouragement. To start off I was kind of a slacker. Then sophomore year I ran a 1:55 in a relay and I started picking it up after that. Junior year of cross country I was a lot more serious."

Mudd has fewer years of serious running under his belt. He is just starting to realize what his potential is. He has dropped his 1600 PR from 4:19 to 4:00 in one year and his 800 PR from 1:50.61 to 1:48.09 (with a large negative split for an 800). My guess is that trend will continue. How much? Who knows, but it will be fun to keep an eye on.

hoi polloi wrote:Webb, but with a bit more humility and a sharper kick (which might be partly a result of his self-underestimation at this time

I completely agree. He said in a post state meet interview that he was expecting the 1600 to be 4:08 at the FASTEST (his PR was something like 4:10 before and he ended up 4:03 in a sit and kick type race). That was only 2 and a half weeks ago and look where he is now. I think he's got a bigger upside than even he realizes.

Wow, Mudd going from 4:19 to 4:00 in one year is amazing.

Bump for interesting thread.

Mudd made 3:40 look easy this weekend.

Lukas.... yeah.

Tough to get an answer to who had higher upside at the time, though.

A couple years, this board would have been gaga for a freshman like Mudd running 3:40 a couple years ago. Lukas V. and Edward Cheserek numbed us fanboys to the rest of the crowd.

I think Mudd has the chance to become the best American-born 1500 runner ever. I say this because of his rapid improvement once he made running a greater priority in his life, his ability to kick at the end of the races (most recently displayed at Payton Jordan), and the competitiveness/racing ability he has displayed over the past couple years. He has that undeveloped raw talent and competitiveness of Andrew Wheating circa 2008. He'll have a tougher time in the 800 with guys like Andrews, Loxsom, Greer, and Jock. The sky appears to be the limit.

That might sound ridiculous, but predictions are fun. I might start a seperate thread and dig it up every time Mudd does something to support my prediction.

Mudd, by a landslide.

Has he run cross country before?

J.R. wrote:

Mudd, by a landslide.

Has he run cross country before?

Yeah, he came in 53rd at state as a senior. That may have been a slightly bad performance for him, but I doubt he would have been top 25 in the state at his best. His fastest time that I can find is 15:39, 31 seconds behind Futsum Zeinasellassie and 29 seconds behind 2 other national qualifiers.