Can a recruiting class of 5 9:10 high school WIN NCAA

Thomas Curtin was 9:09.6 for 3200 in high school.

Pre nats champ over Ches

Southeast Region champ

Off day at Nationals but still finished 22nd

Virginia Tech gets a lot of 9:10 type guys every year. Should continue to make nationals as a team, but I don't see them getting top-5 even without a little more talent up front.

Another VT guy, Will Mulherin, was 28th at XC Nats in 2012. He was 9:31 in HS.

This is a team where the top 5 are seniors who ran 9:10 in high school. Can a group of 9:10 guys develop to be ncaa champions in 4 years?[/quote]

The current Princeton recruiting class has six under 9:08 and I'll guarantee they don't win nationals even with all of their other guys in the mix too. Lots of teams have recruiting classes as good as you're talking about.

Kanyeezus wrote:

This is a team where the top 5 are seniors who ran 9:10 in high school. Can a group of 9:10 guys develop to be ncaa champions in 4 years?

The current Princeton recruiting class has six under 9:08 and I'll guarantee they don't win nationals even with all of their other guys in the mix too. Lots of teams have recruiting classes as good as you're talking about.[/quote]

Interesting, but what could these guys do if they had real coaching/training?

One more thing to add is that any recruiter worth his salt will consider 1600 and/or 800 times.

9:10 guy who is 1:49/4:06 is different than 9:10 guy who is 1:54/4:14

No.

Given attrition, you'd probably need 4 straight classes of 5 x 9:10 to build a team of 7 guys that could win.

Better yet, 5 straight.

Even that would be a stretch, but it's at least possible.

No.

Syracuse was the \"9:10 guys going to take it all\" team until they got some actual stars like Justyn Knight.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

One more thing to add is that any recruiter worth his salt will consider 1600 and/or 800 times.

9:10 guy who is 1:49/4:06 is different than 9:10 guy who is 1:54/4:14

I agree. And how did they get to that point? High mileage? Far too many races for later development? Incredible workloads? All 9:10 high school runners are not equal.

Win? I think a team would be hard pressed to even make it .

Now if you had 4 years of it, you might make it. No way do you win it unless you are incredibly lucky.

The average 9:10 guy (if that's a true indication of his ability, not a footlocker #22 who runs 9:10) don't even place top 100 at NCAAs ever.

Sorry OP, but the answer is truly a simple no. For what it's worth, I was a 9:10 guy, and I had a terrible D1 college career. I also knew many other guys who were around 9:10 in high school. Some became pretty good in college, some did as badly as I did. But I don't think any ever got to the point where they'd seriously factor on an NCAA-winning team. I'd guess that if you tracked the next one hundred guys who have PRs of 9:08-9:12 in HS (as their best pr) and go on to run D1 in college, less than 10 would ever go on to finish in the top 50 at the NCAA XC championship. That might even be a generous number. Most would probably be on mediocre teams and never even make the meet.

Your team might still be very good, but you won't be NCAA champs with just that class.

rojo wrote:

Win? I think a team would be hard pressed to even make it .

Now if you had 4 years of it, you might make it. No way do you win it unless you are incredibly lucky.

The average 9:10 guy (if that's a true indication of his ability, not a footlocker #22 who runs 9:10) don't even place top 100 at NCAAs ever.

This team is 5x 9:10 guys running together for 4 years. No new teammates come in during that time.

With 4 years of solid training and progression I don't think it would be too crazy for these guys to run their high school 2 mile pace for 10k.

They would become 28:40 guys by the time they graduate. What can a team of 28:40 guys run at ncaa's?

They would definitely be in the mix to win.

rojo wrote:

Win? I think a team would be hard pressed to even make it .

Now if you had 4 years of it, you might make it. No way do you win it unless you are incredibly lucky.

The average 9:10 guy (if that's a true indication of his ability, not a footlocker #22 who runs 9:10) don't even place top 100 at NCAAs ever.

If a coach can't make a five 9:10 guys into the top 50 he's not a very good coach at all. To win nationals would be a asking a lot but to ffinish in the top five is doable.

For the record, I one of those 9:10 guys.

malmo wrote:

For the record, I one of those 9:10 guys.

My point exactly! What was your best finish at the ncaa xc championship?

No wrote:

Nope

So you don't think that a freshman class of five Michael Slagowsis could be turned into a potential XC championship team if that was the sole goal of the program?

Hypothetical Scenario wrote:

rojo wrote:

Win? I think a team would be hard pressed to even make it .

Now if you had 4 years of it, you might make it. No way do you win it unless you are incredibly lucky.

The average 9:10 guy (if that's a true indication of his ability, not a footlocker #22 who runs 9:10) don't even place top 100 at NCAAs ever.

This team is 5x 9:10 guys running together for 4 years. No new teammates come in during that time.

With 4 years of solid training and progression I don't think it would be too crazy for these guys to run their high school 2 mile pace for 10k.

They would become 28:40 guys by the time they graduate. What can a team of 28:40 guys run at ncaa's?

They would definitely be in the mix to win.

Very few guys run their 2 mile pace for 10k 4 years later. Sure it happens but it isn't some sure thing. I am guessing something like 29:00-29:20 would be more realistic.

But obviously you can win. You need to get guys like Brian Sell (dude didn't train in HS), Daniel Lincoln (no idea how he trained in HS but he was a 4:17/9:35 runner), Bobby Kennedy (Only ran like a 9:12 if memory serves. Of course he ran like a 4:05 mile), and so on. But obviously the odds of picking 5 of these type of guys is low. But realistically you aren't going to win nationals if you go 5 8:45 runners either. Your odds of having all 5 of them healthy at the right time is almost zero.

malmo wrote:

For the record, I one of those 9:10 guys.

Malmo was a 9:10 guy in another era. They're much more common now, and your average 9:10 guy isn't anywhere near Malmo's caliber. His 9:10 was also for a full 2 miles, so worth a couple of seconds faster for the more common 3200 that kids run now. To be abundantly clear, for the purposes of this scenario, you should not be picturing a team of 5 Malmos.

Portland was 3rd two years ago with one sub-9 guy on their team.

Really, is the collegiate system so lousy that a coach can't develop 5 9:10 guys into a top five team in the country? That is sad, too many of the so called top NCAA coaches just recruit older foreigners and make themselves look good that way.