Southern Utah

SUU is not the greatest of choices. I know that a lot of people may think that it would be a great place to run because of Cam Levins. Trust me he did that all on his own. He was not getting the coaching he needed so HE was the one that decided to put on the miles and ramp up workouts. Their head coach is an average coach. Nothing great. Plus he has the struggle of recruiting against a top 10 program like BYU. He has the benefit of SUU not being a mormon school but thats not saying much. Take a look at the history of the track program. Cam Levins is all they have had that was good. Nate Jewkes is pretty good as well but has never won anything. So if you are going to SUU for the school by all mean it is a great school, but if you want to succeed in track/cross country maybe look somewhere else. If SUU is the best school that recruited you then by all means hit them up.

Dear Jared Franson,

Please be smart enough to not post online with an active email address. Just so the OP understands your point of view, you are at BYU and obviously have issues with the fact that SUU has a great program that now competes for top-level recruits with your beloved program.

1. Cam Levins added volume outside of practice, like most of the guys on the team do, but did the workouts by the book. Ask him if you don't believe me. Oh, you don't know him personally? Please stop repeating the lies your teammates have told you.

2. Jewkes is a very solid, 2 x NCAA xc qualifier, got 13th in outdoor in the 10k and still has another year to go. How many 9:30 3200m guys can say that?

3. The team has a history of HUGE development with most all of their guys. Just go down their roster and look up their high school times. Both men and women have made giant leaps since high school.

Why trust some not-so-anonymous coward online? Go look up their roster, then check out their high school times and then check out their times on TFRRS. Do some research for yourself.

Boom, roasted...

SUU's known for having a distorted view on how good they really are. They can talk a big game, but if you look at how many runners they've ever had that have been all-Americans, or have done anything outside of their weak conference, you'll realize they are more talented at running their mouths.

I’ve looked through their roster and the progression from high school to college of their upper classman is nothing special. Levins, Baumgartner and Jewkes are exceptions to the norm at SUU. If SUU is as special as they think they are, they would have had far more than a couple of all-Americans in the history of their existence. I can name many schools (even some within Utah) that have a far better history of developing non-superstars out of high school into all-Americans.

Alright so maybe they are real excited about their program. Who isn't? Nothin wrong with that imo.

Looking through there roster from last year they have a few sub 14:30 guys including Jewkes (14:03) and Ryan Barrus (14:02). Digging up their high school marks, none of them were much to look at in high school including one kid who was a 4:35 miler who now has ran 14:25 indoors. Not bad if you ask me! They just don't bring in the studs like the big name programs.

Plus their women beat BYUs women last year at the mtn region who have won multiple national titels.

A big-time program with a small-town feel is how I would describe the SUU team. They do a lot of great stuff on social media too, they are building one heck of a team and could really be on the upswing. Watch for this team to be at NCAA's on a consistent basis as a team, not just one or two individuals...

Stadium Status wrote:

A big-time program with a small-town feel is how I would describe the SUU team. They do a lot of great stuff on social media too, they are building one heck of a team and could really be on the upswing. Watch for this team to be at NCAA's on a consistent basis as a team, not just one or two individuals...

Coach Houle and the rest of the gullible SUU supporters have been saying the same thing for years. "We're on the upswing, watch out for us in a few years." Blah blah blah. I heard the same thing from Houle when he recruited me over a decade ago. He was going to have a team that was consistently qualifying for NCAA's and winning the mountain region. I fortunately wasn't convinced. A great program doesn't need to run their mouths about how great they are, or how great they are going to be. They actually go out and perform and let their results talking.

I'll tell you who is on the upswing, Utah Valley. Watch out for the Wolverines.

SUU is one of the weaker schools in the state in terms of Cross Country. They have to compete with BYU, Weber, Utah, and Utah State for instate athletes and they always end up losing. They do produce a good runner from time to time but really, they are not that good and probably will never be. They are middle of the pack in the Big Sky and that says a lot because the Big Sky is all NAU and Weber on the women's side. SUU doesn't play into the equations.

You should consider Weber State or Utah State instead. If you're really good try BYU.

All I know is that SUU has an individual national champion and puts together good teams on a consistent basis while having to deal with guys (and girls) leaving on missions like a revolving door. Accumulating a lot of talent at the very least this year... Tons of junior college guys

SUU is complete garb.

All these comments are from either suu runners - who love it, or other Utah colleges- who want to bad mouth Suu. Therein lies the problem... There aren't a lot of Utah colleges, but they are all pretty strong - with BYU at the top and then USU, Weber, SUU, and now UVU all fielding good programs. But instead of focusing on developing utah (and other) runners, they all just want to bad mouth each other and say how crappy the others are. Just shut up and run. And if you are looking into a school - go visit it, get feedback from current and past runners, and see if you can get some impartial advice as well.

They are in my conference and I have raced their guys a number of times. They put together a solid program and race well when it matters. I won't say I like them, since they are a conference rival, but I have nothing bad to say about them at all. Jewkes is the real deal, showed it when he dropped the field at outdoor conference in the 10k, nobody could move with him. It'd be a good program to run for, small school/town, but competitive conference (Big Sky) and good team.

Lot's of anon bashing tonight on letsrun.

So to recap. The coach at SUU has made some fast runners. But he is a terrible coach and the team will never be fast.

Makes sense.

Not Zach Emerson wrote:

Lot's of anon bashing tonight on letsrun.

So to recap. The coach at SUU has made some fast runners. But he is a terrible coach and the team will never be fast.

Makes sense.

You are correct, Houle has been there over 20 years. In that time span he's sent one cross country team to the NCAA championship and coached three all-Americans. I'd say he's not a good coach and will never have a good program. My definition of good program is the ability to either consistently get teams to the NCAA championships, or to consistently have all-Americans. He's had his fair share of good high school runners that never amounted to much under his program.

How about some more detail on CEDAR CITY, UT.....y'know - the "actual" LOCATION of SUU.

SUWHO? wrote:

You are correct, Houle has been there over 20 years. In that time span he's sent one cross country team to the NCAA championship and coached three all-Americans. I'd say he's not a good coach and will never have a good program. My definition of good program is the ability to either consistently get teams to the NCAA championships, or to consistently have all-Americans. He's had his fair share of good high school runners that never amounted to much under his program.

Why so inflammatory? You seem to have some kind of serious vendetta against SUU. Do you have something to lose if SUU is well spoken of on here? I wouldn't take the word of someone who seems to be very close to another program and has nothing to say but slander.

Here's where your logic is flawed: you claim that the success of a program is based on 2 criteria, 1) NCAA appearances and 2) All-Americans. Now, how hard would it be to rack up a list of both of those if you took over at Oregon? You could do a terrible job and STILL get a lot of both. Now, what happens when you take over at an under-funded, small regional university with no history of success whatsoever? Most small schools out there are absolutely stoked to just be top 5 in their small conference, anything to do with the NCAA meet is out of the question.

The signature of a great coach at a small school may not be in accumulating a huge quantity of AAs or NCAA berths. But if a coach takes a bad D2 school from absolute obscurity to the point where his team wins the Mountain region, gets a local kid to finish 3rd at the NCAA XC meet, all the way to having another kid win the BOWERMAN and 2 NCAA titles, then you know something very good happened over the past 20 years to make that change.

The true measure of a program is by looking at what the individuals do from entrance into a program until after they graduate. That's seriously the only objective way to look at it. Claiming that NCAA berths and AAs is what verifies a program is the way big-name universities cover their butts. Now, you can tell I'm a fan of what SUU has done but to come on here to just rip an up-and-coming program just shows insecurities in your own investments. This goes for all small schools out there; look what they have done with the guys they have brought in.

To the guy asking about Cedar City itself, I've always liked the place. Small town, not too small. 2 hrs from Vegas. College town feel which is cool. High elevation has to be a big selling point for them, being significantly higher than all the other D1 schools in Utah.

No idea about SUU, but I lived in Cedar City for 4 years. Not where I would want to spend my college years.

Agreed, Utah is not the place you want to go to if you're into partying and getting wasted every weekend. If you want to run real fast like Cam Levins or Nate Jewkes then Cedar City is where you SHOULD want to spend your college years...