Oficial NCAA XC Conference Weekend Friday Discussion Thread

Stanford and Oregon women do a horrible job.

These coaches are spoiled with unbelievable recruits every single year but Oregon is lead by a freshman and Stanford has 3 of their top 5 that are freshman. In 3 years it will be another group of freshman while these ladies will ALSO not develop.

Oregon MENS coaching staff should take a $1,000 per point cut in pay for every point they lose by. If you call your self a distance powerhouse you should be bragging about Cross not Track. Wetmore owns you.

Can we talk about byu getting their top 5 in the top 7. They had a spread of 16 seconds with their top 5. Now that is what I call pack running

former d1 coach wrote:

UCLA beat Oregon.

Can someone tell me why Oregon keeps getting every recruit in the country? Imagine if all of the 5th year seniors went to Colorado instead of Oregon.

Nike Kool-aid is all I can think of.

Wouldn't read too much into these results. Highly likely that Oregon trained through and is peaking for NCAA's.

Stanford w/Cranny takes 2nd today . . . which likely means 2nd at NCAAs . . . they performed very, very well today.

SaguaroWatch wrote:

Re: Pac-12s, running in 85deg heat w/20% humidity, resulted in lots of bonking, both men & women . . . CO bonked the least.

So in those conditions why did AZ State bonk?

Ouch. Another mediocre showing for Fisher. His transfer is one of the most puzzling decisions in some time.

Eyestone supporter wrote:

Can we talk about byu getting their top 5 in the top 7. They had a spread of 16 seconds with their top 5. Now that is what I call pack running

I second this. BYU was very impressive today, they beat a good Portland team by a large margin and I think will be on the podium in 3 weeks. Pack running is super effective for them considering their depth. It just doesn't make sense for them to do it any other way. That's something I think people forget, is that pack running isn't just something you do in a race it's part of a team culture every day at practice.

#fs wrote:

Eyestone supporter wrote:

Can we talk about byu getting their top 5 in the top 7. They had a spread of 16 seconds with their top 5. Now that is what I call pack running

I second this. BYU was very impressive today, they beat a good Portland team by a large margin and I think will be on the podium in 3 weeks. Pack running is super effective for them considering their depth. It just doesn't make sense for them to do it any other way. That's something I think people forget, is that pack running isn't just something you do in a race it's part of a team culture every day at practice.

Pack running is effective when you have four to five fast runners of similar ability.

Baptism of Fire wrote:

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Do you only follow the sport from September -- November? Look at how Oregon's guys do on the track and you have your answer.

So you're saying the culture at Oregon breeds soft runners? Very fast in track when the fields are small and the surface is perfect. Is this what happens when you get all the big recruits? They get babied?

Of course that's not what I'm saying. Runners go to Oregon because they see guys like Jenkins, Fleet, Greer, Geoghegan, Dunbar, Gregorek run fast and get pro contracts. Most professional runners are paid for what they can do on the track, not in cross country.

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Of course that's not what I'm saying. Runners go to Oregon because they see guys like Jenkins, Fleet, Greer, Geoghegan, Dunbar, Gregorek run fast and get pro contracts. Most professional runners are paid for what they can do on the track, not in cross country.

I don't like the rent-a-senior phenomenon.

Jenkins, Geoghegan and Gregorek were all developed elsewhere.

former d1 coach wrote:

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Of course that's not what I'm saying. Runners go to Oregon because they see guys like Jenkins, Fleet, Greer, Geoghegan, Dunbar, Gregorek run fast and get pro contracts. Most professional runners are paid for what they can do on the track, not in cross country.

I don't like the rent-a-senior phenomenon.

Jenkins, Geoghegan and Gregorek were all developed elsewhere.

I would normally agree, especially when it's ridiculous like New Mexico women last year.

But, I do like the fact that college athletes with eligibility control their own destiny. They don't have to ask for a waiver from their AD. They just go where they want.

I like that. I'm for the student athlete.

McGorty was the best distance runner on the track besides Ches last year and was top 10 in XC. I know at Wisconsin he pushed to hard too much early in the race and just didn't have a kick. I wonder what happened today. If he can get to where he should be at NCAAs, things will be interesting. I still think he could be top 5 (and thought 6-10 was a worst case scenario) but now he could also finish 10-20 spots back from Fisher and that's not good.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Ratcliffe taking 8th place!

That's insane! A freshman, in his first real season of cross country, finishing that high at PAC 12s is incredibly impressive.

We could be seeing some enormous things from him in years to come. He very nearly went sub-4 in HS, after all.

Tom Ratcliffe must be proud of his son.

He'll get with a few more races I think too, bets freshman in the nation I'd say, beat joe by like 25-30 seconds.

Hmmmmmmmm wrote:

McGorty was the best distance runner on the track besides Ches last year and was top 10 in XC. I know at Wisconsin he pushed to hard too much early in the race and just didn't have a kick. I wonder what happened today. If he can get to where he should be at NCAAs, things will be interesting. I still think he could be top 5 (and thought 6-10 was a worst case scenario) but now he could also finish 10-20 spots back from Fisher and that's not good.

Milt's been overtraining his ass and the plateau/regression has set in. College coaches suck.

And The Buffs get better at 10k as the Ducks do not, except Ches

Pac 12 thoughts:

CO

Perrin is better than I thought he was.

Forsyth and Klecker can both be closer to the 1-4 Buffs than they were today. CO still has upside with those 2.

Great run for Frosh Sage Hurta

Makenna Morley is doing very well under Wetmore

Stanford

I thought both Ratcliffe for the men and Aragon for the women would simply be mid distance specialists when they signed last year. I never thought they would be factors in XC and especially not as true frosh. Great job Stanford coaches.

Grant is still the man!

UCLA

Biggest surprise of the meet for me.

OR

I believed Maton and Anderson could finish 8-15 in this race. They need to step up if Oregon is going to be on the podium.

I agree on Aragon. She almost did too well. She's a real MD talent. She didn't have much of a XC resume in HS.

I hope Stanford knows what it's doing (see Cranny, Elise). I guess we'll find out during Track season.

Past My Peak wrote:

Milt's been overtraining his ass and the plateau/regression has set in. College coaches suck.

Some of it may be self imposed. He pushed to hard early for no reason at Stanford. But also, Milt has done a great job of making things come together at Nationals. I believe the year he coached Georgetown to win NCAAs, nova won the Big East. Last spring McGorty finished like 5th in the PAC 12 1500 with a 3:53 mile best, but was great at NCAAs. His season may turn around at nationals.