State of Pac-12 Men's Cross Country

SupremeTeam25 wrote:

But by and large, the California kids that end up at schools like the University of San Francisco, Saint Mary’s College, Santa Clara University and the University of Idaho are recruits that Cal would not have given the time of day to in high school. Not being able to seal the deal with the best runners in your backyard is one thing, but losing to a team featuring your programs rejects is different.

This^. No college in the state does less with CA High School state medalists than Cal.

ASSTCOACH wrote: a historic track stadium

It’s historic (by virtue of being old) but by no means a draw. It’s a jarring concrete-slab bowl with a piss colored track. Not exactly the picturesque facility like Hayward Field.

EdwardsStadium wrote:

ASSTCOACH wrote: a historic track stadium

It’s historic (by virtue of being old) but by no means a draw. It’s a jarring concrete-slab bowl with a piss colored track. Not exactly the picturesque facility like Hayward Field.

...and for the fact that a former mile world record was set there.

Arizona & Arizona State out there thinking “thank god we avoided this melee since we at least have competitive track and field teams & made it abundantly clear we actively strive to suck in cross country…& letsrun is tired of just hating on Bernard!” lmao.

For Cal, its not just cross- country. They underperform in track as well and its been that way for over 20 years. There is too much bay area talent in sprints and distance for them to be as mediocre as they have been for so long.

rhimby wrote:

It's a good question about Cal and UCLA. Are they not allowed to recruit or something? How hard is it to throw some cash at one of the hundreds of 9:10 or faster 3200m runners in California?

Maybe they are getting 9:10 california guys, but a 9:10 California guy is not equal to a 9:10 Minnesota guy. The weather is so consistently great in the high population areas of California giving people great opportunities for fast running, and they're at sea level. In a lot of the country the weather is terrible most of the track season and finally gets nice in May when the season is pretty much over, or if you're down south it's hotter than blazes by April and May and too hot to run fast 3200 times. Point is if a runner can run 9:10 in Orange County it's not as impressive as a runner who runs 9:10 in Alaska, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, North Dakota, Maine, and the list goes on.

This is a great point. I am from the upper Midwest, and my fastest high two mile was indoors when I flew to a major indoor meet to run a prep race - 9:05. Once you get warm weather, you typically focus on an event for the state meet, Golden West (back in the day) and so on. I ran 4:08 in high school, but thought I was a better two miler - not so much because I was aerobically very good - I was not - but at the high school level I just had far more speed than the average two mile guy. No regrets - but weather did make a difference. I ran a 4:16 mile on a cinder track in 40 F degree windy weather. I regretted not being able to replicate that intensity in a bigger race at the end of the year - it would have been a splendid result for me. College coaches by and large know this - I recall Matt Lane at William and Mary and it was clear that his high school performances from the far north were but a marker for tremendous achievement to come.

Wow. You guys are on to something. That must be it. CA 9:10 guys aren't as good as 9:10 guys from any place else and CA guys who run 9:10 are the only ones who Cal/ucla recruit. That must be it. hahahahahahah

balanced budget wrote:

It's really just time that we all bite the bullet and balance out the scholarships so we can get back to a fair fight for cross country teams and a fair fight for track teams. We're just all playing different games on different playing fields and it's a disaster.

If only this could actually happen!

Wow. You guys are on to something. That must be it. CA 9:10 guys aren't as good as 9:10 guys from any place else and CA guys who run 9:10 are the only ones who Cal/ucla recruit. That must be it. hahahahahahah[/quote]

Soooooo many issues, first 9.10 bros basically grow on trees and cal can’t even get them anymore and when they do they are socal kids running 90 miles… to be fair to cal it is tough to recruit an out of state 8.55 or even 9.10 kid because they can’t really offer them much money and the program/school is such a mess that those kids don’t want to come to cal when they can go other great schools.

15_50 wrote:

Wow. You guys are on to something. That must be it. CA 9:10 guys aren't as good as 9:10 guys from any place else and CA guys who run 9:10 are the only ones who Cal/ucla recruit. That must be it. hahahahahahah

Just looked at UCLA's roster, 18/25 of them are from California, and a few others are from Oregon/Washington. Only like two are from places with less good weather. So ya, maybe they're recruiting a bunch of fare weather runners who put up decent times in great running conditions, and they get beat by teams who have recruits who either ran faster or the same in less ideal conditions.

There's a reason all NCAA teams show up to California to run races, it's because you can run the fastest times more consistently there than showing up at Drake Stadium or Kansas Relays of the old days. Therefore a high school kid running 9:10 in Orange County is not as good as a random 9:10 kid from Nebraska who ran it solo in the middle of nowhere between two tornados at 1,000 foot elevation (1,000 foot elevation does slow you down about 1 second per mile compared to sea level)

You forgot to add the part about swarms of locust.

And no running at 1000 ft doesn't slow you down about a second a mile... ( like there's a difference between a 9:10 guy and a 9:12 guy anyway)

Please explain how a 9:10 guy from CA can go to some school back east and run well? Did that guy all of a sudden become mid-west tough?

But, yes, you are certainly on to something that must be it... CA 9:10 guys aren't as good.

The truth is there are many reasons why Cal/ucla are not running well right now... (notice the words 'right now')