Why BYU Is Our No. 1 Team Today

Why BYU Is Our No. 1 Team Today

This past weekend we saw the unexpected in NCAA cross country action.What we thought was going to be an epic battle between pre-season No. 1 Stanford and No

Sep 26, 2016 by Gordon Mack
Why BYU Is Our No. 1 Team Today
This past weekend we saw the unexpected in NCAA cross country action.

What we thought was going to be an epic battle between pre-season No. 1 Stanford and No. 2 Syracuse was not the case. Instead, Stanford decided to rest three of its top seven (Sean McGorty, Grant Fisher, and Alex Ostberg), and out of nowhere No. 14 BYU stole the show, upsetting a full-strength Syracuse team.

Here were the reactions from the three head coaches…
Syracuse head coach Chris Fox said it was a punch in the gut that they needed:



Stanford head coach Chris Miltenberg said he's never run his guys in these type of conditions before:




BYU head coach Ed Eyestone said it was too early to anoint BYU as the number one team in the nation:



Our reaction…
BYU is the No. 1 team in the NCAA right now:

It's important to look at the UVA results in the right perspective. Without McGorty, Fisher, Ostberg, and NCAA mile champion Henry Wynne of Virginia in the results, we truly don't get a full understanding of who beat who. Also, Campbell's 1-2 punch of Lawrence Kipkoech and Amos Terer most likely won't be part of the team scores come November. Thus, we removed all the teams except for BYU, Virginia, Stanford and Syracuse from the results, and added the four missing athletes' probable finishes.

PL ATHLETE YR SCHOOL
1 Sean MCGORTY* SR Stanford
2 Justyn KNIGHT JR Syracuse
3 Grant FISHER* SO Stanford
4 Nicolas MONTANEZ SR BYU
5 Clayton YOUNG SO BYU
6 Henry WYNNE* JR Virginia
7 Colin BENNIE JR Syracuse
8 Philo GERMANO JR Syracuse
9 Jonathan HARPER JR BYU
10 Rory LINKLETTER SO BYU
11 Garrett SWEATT SR Stanford
12 Brent DEMAREST JR Virginia
13 Iliass AOUANI SO Syracuse
14 Brayden MCLELLAND FR BYU
15 Zach HERRIOTT SR Virginia
16 Mike MARSELLA SR Virginia
17 Daniel CARNEY SO BYU
18 Sam WHARTON JR Stanford
19 Alex OSTBERG* FR Stanford
20 Kevin JAMES FR Syracuse
21 Mitchell BRIGGS SR BYU
22 Chase WEAVERLING JR Virginia
23 Lachlan COOK FR Virginia
24 Will LAUER FR Stanford
25 TJ HORNBERGER SO Syracuse
26 Alex CORBETT FR Virginia
27 Griff MOLINO FR Syracuse
28 Jack KEELAN JR Stanford

The resulting score:
42 BYU
50 Syracuse
52 Stanford
71 Virginia

In our eyes right now, the order of these results should be reflected in our rankings. This isn't necessarily our prediction of who would win the national championship today or in November. Oregon, Arkansas, Georgetown, or Northern Arizona may well do that; Syracuse or Stanford might too. But none of those teams have accomplished as much as BYU has this season. BYU beat the preseason top two teams and likely would have beaten them even if they ran full-strength squads. That's more than any other team in the nation has done so far to earn the No. 1 ranking.

FULL SAUCONY FLO50 RANKINGS HERE