;alsidrh wrote:
Ok, maybe I don't have a number for the range of the schools you are more knowledgeable about.
However, have you the numbers that schools like Nebraska are looking for? They are pretty much at the bottom of the Big 10 yet their standards for what they are interested in are pretty high. While I agree that schools like that are willing to recruit with those standards to build something that hopefully will be competitive, they are still at the bottom. Fact: Can't walk on there with numbers slower than I've indicated yet they are producing results lower than the standards you listed.
Thank you Almighty Karnack!!!
I was responding to what the OP was asking, you were responding with what seemed liked a definite answer, which was way off base. There are way too many variables as to what the walk on standards are, but as I said in my previous post, your times are way off for the AVERAGE DI school.
There are many variables as to how a coach does walk-on standards. The biggest is that many coaches are limited to a certain number of runners on the team. In my case, we were limited to 15 runners by the administration and we were always between 5 and 15 in our region. Our standards were 1:58, 4:25 and 9:40 and we were consistently a top 50 to 75 teams in the country, so well in the top 1/3.
Another huge variable is the type of conference that a team is in. Many coaches will only let someone on the team if they feel they can be competitive in that conference. For that reason, a bottom feeder in the Big Ten may have tougher walk-on standards that the top team in the Horizon league.
Another variable is the size of the coaching staff. Some cross country staff's have several full, part time and volunteer coaches, while others may only have one or two. It is easier to have more kids on the team with a bigger staff.
Budget could be another factor. Sometimes even the larger schools don't always have a huge budget for cross country and adding several walk-on's can increase the cost of operating the team.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that there are a wide range of walk-on times and a 4:30, 10 flat kid could at least walk on to dozens and dozens of D1 schools.