Better first year: Sean Brosnan or Jerry Schumacher?

off the top of my head I can name several individual qualifiers for UCLA in recent years. If youre talking regionals they had George Gleason in the 15, Arturo Sotomayor in 8 or 15?, Peter Herold made regionals in the steeple last year, as did Tavella for the women. For nationals they've have Austin O'Neil in the Steeple not too long ago, Robert Brandt (who got 4th in the 10 his senior year) and double qualified indoors, and even Julia Rizk qualified for the 1500 individually as a true frosh. Nick Hartle I believe was a multiple time qualifier for them in the 800 as well.

I hope Brosnan takes them in the right direction and builds a good distance culture there, but UCLA has had quite a few of individual distance qualifiers in recent years (plus a DMR not too long ago indoors with several of the names above)

I’m confused by this comparison and, in general, other threads commenting on Brosnan’s tenure at UCLA. Isn’t Brosnan just an assistant coach? How much credit should an assistant coach get compared to a head coach?

He’s the head distance coach

These are a few good examples, but its still been very rare. Going to nationals doesn't just happen and won't just happen because you say you want it, I don't care how fast you have run or what you are capable of. I think Brosnan would say the exact same thing. He expects more from this team.

How you do know about the inner workings of the team culture?

Is this a serious thread?

Oregon went from 24th to 14th at NCAA’s and has landed probably the top recruiting class in the country with 2 junior year sub 4 milers and some other studs.

UCLA didn’t improve from a team that didn’t even come close to making NCAA’s and landed a grand total of ONE recruit who was a long way from being a game changer.

I’m not even sure how to make an analogous comparison, but one team made a massive leap in both performance and building their team for the future and the other has done nothing significant in either are. This really has to be a trolling attempt and not even a particularly good one.

Oregon is a perennial powerhouse coming back from an incredibly disappointing year, they are expected to bounce back a little bit. UCLA may not be on the national level, but they moved up notably within the pac 12 this year.

Tell me this is a joke.

Both have the knowledge and passion to create great distance programs. Jerry will always have the advantage in name recognition of his school and in resources...which is a big reason he had a superior first fall.

Moved up notably from 6th to 5th? Very impressive (that was sarcasm).

Oregon is coming back from a disappointing year because they brought in one of the best coaches around.

Tell me in what world UCLA made a big improvement this year. They aren't even back to the 2019 level of UCLA mediocrity.

For being "that guy" he was 45th at pac 12s

But it’s clear Jerry had a superior first fall.

Excuses, excuses. The question was, who had the better first year and it’s not even close.

Why are there so many fanboys on this damn message board? FFS

Got to give props to Schumacher, he did clearly have the better first year and any arguing that is unreasonable but what I will say is that I'm excited to see what UCLA brings in coming years. Like others have said Oregon has been much better known for Olympic caliber athletes, and attracts a hell of a lot more talent through the name and through the money. I'm sure many of you are aware that as a state school, UCLA offers nothing to recruits which is big turnoff for many. His one recruit is definitely above average but nothing near as currently talented compared to the Oregon recruits. BUT like with the Newbury Park team, they were not immediately a national talent his first year and Nico was not a superstar when Brosnan first arrived. I'm sure in the coming years as he develops athletes overtime the school will draw more attention and see more long term than immediate success in comparison to Oregon under Schumacher.

All I know is their XC performance was awful. Everyone got worse and the team finish was the worst in at least the last 20 years. I’d say his tenure thus far has not gone well. Maybe they trained through XC to focus on track? I doubt it, but we’ll have to wait for track before making any decisions on his first year.

To be fair, Sean had bigger fish to fry, or I should say, brushfires to put out, namely the epic Young/Sahlman rift back at the old ranchero. His chances of eventually getting into the revolving door of Stanford distance athletics depends on keeping these athletes focused!

College coaching is predominantly about recruiting. This discussion is pointless until you get through AT LEAST one class. As others have noted, the advantages Oregon has over UCLA skew this conversation too.

Well, the question was who had a better first year and you're right, it's predominantly about recruiting. It wasn't even close. Oregon's recruiting class is loaded. From milesplit, "Now, Birnbaum will join fellow high school sub-4-minute miler Connor Burns and Dan Watcke, as well as girls distance talents Lily Cridge, Katie Clute, Ella Thorsett and Kate Peters as members of Oregon's elite 2023 recruiting class."

UCLA has Ramses Cortes and ........?

You tell us the criteria. Like, specific measurables.

We will apply the criteria.

Then we will tell you that it was Schumacher by a country mile.

Oregon also appears to be winning the recruiting game, so in the future it might two or three country miles.

On a serious note though, I have posted that it is WAY too early to judge Brosnan, or anyone else who takes a job within months of a season. I think that two or three recruiting classes later will be a more fair time to analyze college-coaching performance, at the earliest.