Will the new rule on NCAA seeding and entry will severely hurt mid-majors?

No. If anything it stops and hurts the big schools from lying and entering their distance kids who only compete a handful of times a year who bump out better and faster kids from smaller schools. If you are fast, you have nothing to worry about, you will be placed in fast heats.

Um, no. If meet directors at major programs are forced to seed with tfrrs, they simply won't allow mid majors into the meet at all.

You don't need a loaded section in perfect weather to run fast. Maybe you need that to run your PR time, but the NCAA is about racing.

You score points at conference by place

You make it to NCAA 1st round by being top 48, that isn't difficult to hit if you are the "real deal."

You advance to NCAAs based on place.

If you are in good shape, you should be able to line up anywhere, anytime and run relatively fast. You can run fast enough to put up a good enough time to get you in a fast heat later in the year.

If you are a mid-major, get a little creative and find some other fast people near you and set up a meet, if you REALLY need to get the qualifier.

This rule makes you be LEGITIMATE. not speculative, not guessing, not hoping, not wishing, not living in fantasy world.

"yes but what about......." NOPE, you have to earn it legitimately each season.

This is some delusional thinking.

First, this thread is not about "real deals" It is about mid-major schools. These are teams that have runners who have run, and could run, a top-48 time, but have only have one opportunity to do so: major meets.

Second, 90% of runners and 85% of coaches care about PRs. PRs get you into conference, get you seeded well in heats, and really are the only thing most athletes take away from their college running.

You can sing from your heart of hearts about racing, but be real. It starts with times.

This is a bad rule.It will not purify competition and competitive racing.

It wasn't perfect before, to be sure, but the NCAA faced a trade off of denying opportunity to the few runners who got squeezed out of an opportunity by seeding themselves legitimately, or denying opportunity to whole ability levels (those are good enough to run fast once to qualify for post season races, but not good enough to do it on their own at the front of a NT heat.)

This

Kills mid majors wrote:

Um, no. If meet directors at major programs are forced to seed with tfrrs, they simply won't allow mid majors into the meet at all.

Also please explain to me how this will not majorly hurt 10k runners from mid major and d2 programs? Is your solution to run a fast 10k early so you can run another PR 10k in late April(Mt SAC) so you can qualify and run again at the NCAAs?

You only need to get into the top 48 for outdoor. Cry me a river if you need special circumstances and rabbits to do that. You SHOULD be excluded from regionals if you can't get it done at a regular meet.

"At the Dempsey, our mission has been to have amazing races to qualify athletes to the NCAA Championships, help schools on the West coast fulfill Division I and II sponsorship, aid post-collegiate athletes, and provide opportunity to all our Husky athletes. This rule will push us to be much more selective on the front end of who we will accept. Our mission will shift to making sure we take care of the University of Washington and the Pac-12 teams first. This will make accepting other entries more difficult, and will limit our field sizes when it negatively impacts our athletes."

Email from Washington, for those who think this rule will help you get into big meets you are 100% wrong. They won't take the best athletes now, they will just deny your entry no matter how fast you ran and still accept their kids and their friends kids.

Its like March madness, everyone arguing about "who got left out." But forgetting that those who got left out weren't legitimate contenders. Your argument is for a small population of athletes. Coaches will figure it out, I promise you.

Set up a race. Find your mid major and D2 friends, and put on a meet in good conditions. If your guy is in good shape, then they will run fine. It will affect 10k runners from all levels the same. Looks like the majority of people will arrive at Stanford with No Mark. Therefore, the No Mark heats will be the fast heats.

Our sport is real simple. run the time, jump the distance, throw the mark and you advance. The way things are now, a coach can put in ANY performance they want for ANY kid. Then the meet director must be "on the look out." Is it legitimate for a meet director to have to verify EVERY performance of EVERY entry in EVERY event at EVERY meet when all of that information already exists. There is NO NEED to verify at ALL. To me that is a major victory.

It is amazing the opposition to this logical rule. Remember, if the current way was working, if it didn't have major problems for a large population of athletes, and programs, then it wouldn't be an issue. If coaches and meet directors had a legitimate handle on the situation, there wouldn't be a need for a rule.

For some reason, only in our sport, do we want an absence of rules so that we can do it "any way we want."

If by "negatively impact" means having to race against athletes of similar performance, then I certainly understand. I understand it is much easier to just be able to place YOUR team in any section you want for their benefit. That is only normal because it has been allowed to be normal. Doesn't make it right.

I also understand any university being able to invite or exclude anyone they want on the front end. If entry fees aren't the driving force, then having a smaller meet means a shorter competition. That is GOOD and exactly what many people are asking for.

If that means more athletes and more universities need to look for different racing options instead of all show up at the same 2-3 places on the same 2-3 weekends, then I see that as a positive.

I think the rule might be a bit too strict (I think indoor performances should be usable for outdoors, and maybe even performances from the last calendar year), but I agree with the premise of the rule. Having been on a team where the coach constantly exaggerated seed times, it is pretty shitty even for the athletes who are often in over their heads.

Teams from smaller conferences get the shaft anyway, at least this forces the hosting schools to play by the same rules and have legitimate entries of their own.

I'm wondering how this will effect meets that want to have pacers though. As well as the annual chase for fast DMR marks towards the end of the indoor season.

How do kids making their debut race at say 5k or 10k get seeded at Stanford or Mt Sac?

If Grant Fischer wants to run a 10k at Payton Jordan why should he get a seed time of 0.00 behind a kid who ran 29:50 at the first Stanford Meet?

The rule is ridiculous. The way they did it before worked just fine and people should be seeded based on their potential not on what they have run previously. You train to peak at the end of the season and build your fitness at the end of the season. Of course this hurts distance runners the most who can't race a lot and do muliple 10k's. Sprints can open the season with a 60m, 200m, and 400m and already have their marks set. Throwers are good to go as well. This hurts distance runners more than anybody.

I too think there could be some tweaks. I think there should be a 365 day window. And I think relays may need some different consideration, because you can run more than 1 team and a slow B team "getting in some work" at the end of a meet shouldn't get a good lane based on university A teams time.

The rule is far from ridiculous. Grant Fisher, in a No Mark heat with other fast No Mark people will be fine. And Grant Fisher in his first 10k will run fast even if he is running solo (because he is fast), which will give him his time for future use, qualify him for NCAA Prelims, qualify him for fast section at conference etc.

Seeded by potential? Who decides that? That is what got us into this mess to begin with.

This will be good for the 10k. Now meets will have to occasionally have one instead of just flying everyone to Stanford for a fast time.

Yes, this is bad for mid-majors.

As pointed out, mid-majors have one shot to run a fast 10k/5k/whatever.

If you are from the south (TX, Louisiana, etc.) you have very few opportunities to run a fast 5k/10k because the weather sucks most of the time. Don't believe me? Go on TFRRS and look up the fastest 5k's run in the south.

A few years ago University of Texas tried to do it at Texas Relays. They had individuals liek Lutz and Dohner who were top 10 in the country types, they barely pulled off a regional Q. While others who were top 50 in the NCAA in XC, couldn't get a regional standard.

It also hurts those who are in the far northeast who have snow and can't afford to travel.

So if you have a sub 14 kid in TX, and can only compete at Stanford once, you have to run a low 14 minute 5k, by yourself in TX heat and humidity just to get into Stanford to give yourself a shot to qualify.

It's even worse indoors. What if you can only go to a banked or oversized track once? So you expect some sub 14 5k guy to run a 14:10 on a flat 200m track by himself just to run fast enough to get into Washington?

The rule needs to be expanded to allow indoor meets to count for outdoors, and for times from the previous year to be used all year.

I fail to see how this rule changes any thing other than it makes it harder for people to lie and put their mouth on a time they haven't ran yet. If they're worried about making it to nationals in the first place they're probably not in any position to win let alone even be a podium contender. But of course we have the little guy crying about their participation trophies again

sleeks42 wrote:

I fail to see how this rule changes any thing other than it makes it harder for people to lie and put their mouth on a time they haven't ran yet. If they're worried about making it to nationals in the first place they're probably not in any position to win let alone even be a podium contender. But of course we have the little guy crying about their participation trophies again

Let me spell it out for you...

If you have an indoor All-American who runs 13:30 for the 5k. He can NOT use that time outdoors to get into meets.

He can not use his 5k time to get into a good 10k.

Or better yet. Let's take a 28 min 10k guy, who redshirts a year. Come the next year, he has to run a 10k to get seeded into Stanford. Just to get a seed into the fast heat. He could have run the world record in the 10k, and he can't get into the freaking fast section of the stanford 10k...

Please tell me how this is logical. Please.

Its logical because you are talking about small exceptions, also known as the vocal minority.

Be logical, what will Stanford look like with this rule. Won't EVERYONE be in the same boat? Won't they ALL arrive with No Marks? Therefore, odds are there will be fast people in EVERY No Mark heat. How many good people do you need to run fast in perfect weather?

And Stanford is just one regular season meet. We need an absence of rules so that people can do "whatever they want" for the purpose of getting into a "desirable" heat at a regular season meet such as Stanford?

If you are a 13:30 guy, how slow are you going to run if your coach asked to you line up on a Wednesday night for a 5k time trial? YOu make it sound like these All Americans can only run fast if they are surrounded by an entire field of all americans. Like they are going to turn back into a pumpkin if there are some 14:10 guys in the same heat, it will make them run 13:55, like they have a disease.

What I'm saying is simple. Sorry, it's not an exception when you are looking at half the country.

The mid-major sprint programs who can only escape the North East once, will have to run their 10.5's in horrible conditions. Sounds like fun.

The entire south will have to find 10k's in shitty conditions or else show up with no mark, hoping to get into the meet (Get into stanford or Mt. Sac or whatever with no mark? Good luck!)

Meanwhile, power 5 schools can travel to great weather, great meets, give their athlete an early shot at running fast at Washington indoors or another fast track.

So, the "haves" will find a way to get seeded times.

if you are fast, you are fast wrote:

Its logical because you are talking about small exceptions, also known as the vocal minority.

Be logical, what will Stanford look like with this rule. Won't EVERYONE be in the same boat? Won't they ALL arrive with No Marks? Therefore, odds are there will be fast people in EVERY No Mark heat. How many good people do you need to run fast in perfect weather?

Why would you want to split the talent at Stanford? The "no mark" heats will have a mix of 28:30 guys and 29:30 guys. Instead of having a heat where all 20 guys are trying to run as close to 28 as possible you take lets say 7 of those guys with no marks and separate them from the field and water down the quality of the fastest race..