old,butlovetorun wrote:
I did see that Wharton ran 25:07 at Wisco. I hope he can get back to where he was last year (38th at NCAA's). But is there enough time?
Sweatt ran quite well Saturday, and nobody else has really stepped up thus far,... so at this point, he looks like the obvious call for 5th man --assuming that Jim R's in pretty good shape by mid-November, and there's therefore a solid incentive to unleash Fisher.
If both Rosas are just fairly close to top form by then, and Fisher can give a 10K in line with what he already indicated for 8K, then this is still one of the best teams in the country.
Probably not good enough to challenge CO, but maybe good enough to beat everybody else.
If Saarel's okay, then Stanford would probably have to have everything fall near-perfectly to have a shot to challenge for the title.
(Both Rosas in not just good shape, but real peak shape, to give the Card a real shot at 3 in Top Ten,... a Fisher breakout, to get him not too far behind those three,... and probably at least one more to break out of the supporting cast, and push Sweatt for the 5 spot. (Keelan, Wharton, Leibold,...somebody would have to run a lot better than they have so far, to give the kind of depth they ended up getting at Nats last year.))
Obviously, the chances of all those things breaking so well are probably not too great.
Of course, CO hasn't shown any great depth beyond their Big 5 thus far either, as far as I'm aware, so any significant off-day from any of the five could open the door quite a bit.
If the Rosas are anywhere close to top form in two-three weeks, and Fisher's looking pretty good, I'd think they have to run him.
If you think you've got a legitimate shot to be on the Podium, and maybe an outside shot to win it all if the top dogs stumble, I think you have to try and seize it.