Men's Pac-12 Preview: Title rematch and the unsolved case of Eric Jenkins

Oct 30, 2013 by Mitch Kastoff

Where there’s a title bout, there’s a rematch. The number one team in the country Colorado Buffaloes claimed the victory at the Pre-National Invitational and saw their rank rise from the second spot to the top of the USTFCCCA Coaches’ National Poll, but their work isn’t done. Far from it.

Click here for the Pac-12 individual and team projections

Colorado is looking for their third straight Pac-12 title, but as always, life isn’t very easy in the most top-heavy conference in the nation. Just like in Terre Haute, the Buffaloes will have to fend off #4 Oregon (who kept their ranking from the prior week) and #13 Stanford (who had the biggest net-gain after they rose 16 spots). Add in #25 Washington and this turns into an Ol’ Rocky Mountain Shootout.

Men’s Team: Home-field advantage is a real thing

5,335 feet. That’s the elevation of Louisville, CO, where the Pac-12 Championships will be held. While everyone else in the conference was hoping to gain some advantage over Colorado, the thin air makes Colorado’s road to a title a little easier.

Though Stanford did some preseason high altitude training in Mammoth, CA, the edge most certainly goes to the Buffaloes. But if we ignored the fact that some guys will be gasping for air at the finish, Colorado still looks like a bonafide winner.

Let’s look at the top team. While they may have already unveiled Ammar Moussa and pulled Ben Saarel and Zach Perrin’s redshirt, Colorado still have bullets in the chamber. According to cubuffs.com, Hugh Dowdy will make his return to the squad since his 15th place finish at the Rocky Mountain Shootout. He's an x-factor.

We scored out the meet (below) and even without Dowdy or the recovering Jake Hursyz (who we thought would pull a Joe Bosshard and just run Pac-12s and Nationals), Colorado will still win. They’re that good--even coach Dave Smith said that they’re number one team in the country.

If Colorado seems unbeatable, can any other team do anything to win?

That’s where the mysterious Oregon team enters the conversation. While Colorado has slowly been suiting up some of their studs, Oregon has to yet to present their biggest offseason acquisition: Eric Jenkins. We cannot confirm various rumors from Eugene, Ore. about Jenkins’ status, but if he does run, it makes things interesting.

Consider the following: Based on Wisconsin and Pre-Nats, we originally scored out Pac-12s without Jenkins, Dowdy, or Hursyz. Colorado wins. If we insert Jenkins and he finishes 11th and breaks up Colorado's pack, then Oregon will win 48 to 50.

Place   Name                School
1       Aaron Nelson        Washington
2       Edward Cheserek     Oregon
3       Lawi Lalang         Arizona
4       Sean McGorty        Stanford
5       Morgan Pearson      Colorado
6       Ben Saarel          Colorado
7       Erik Olson          Stanford
8       Jim Rosa            Stanford
9       Parker Stinson      Oregon
10      Mac Fleet           Oregon
11      Eric Jenkins        Oregon
12      Blake Theroux       Colorado
13      Pierce Murphy       Colorado
14      Connor Winter       Colorado
15      Nick Hartle         UCLA
16      Jake Leingang       Oregon

Keep in mind, this is assuming that all of the Buffaloes run at a similar “effort” to their race in Terre Haute. We wouldn’t bet on that being true. We also didn’t include Dowdy because we don’t know what kind of shape he’ll be in, but if he’s traveling with the squad this weekend, you can make sure that coach Wetmore included him for a reason.

There’s also the case of what coaches were calling the most “underrated” team in the NCAA - Stanford. In the last two years, Stanford has been a perennial bridesmaid after finishing second to Colorado in 2011, 46 to 53, and runner-up last fall, 49 to 82. If you take a peek at our projections below, you’ll see that we have them finishing just six points behind Oregon in third.

They’ve finally released their freshman stud Sean McGorty, so what else can they do to jump Oregon and maybe finally challenge for the win?

In what seems to be a common trend in the Pac-12, Stanford has yet to race one of its top athletes as well. While he may get confused every so often with his brother, Joe Rosa has yet to race for Stanford this fall.

How important is this Rosa twin? Last year at Pac-12s, Joe was Stanford’s top finisher with a sixth place finish. We can only assume, like Hursyz and Jenkins, that Rosa has been injured for the duration for the season and has been running in the Alter-G / underwater treadmill / crushing it on the ElliptiGO to make it back for conferences.

Will he run this weekend? Honestly, no idea.

Prediction: Stanford’s hypotheticals aside, it’ll again come down to Colorado and Oregon. Who’ll come out on top in this Terre Haute title defense? We say Colorado.

Men’s Individual: Even after Wisconsin, how can we not go with Lawi Lalang?

UA likely to shut down NCAA's top distance runner Lawi Lalang for Pac12 and NCAA cross country finals. Calf injury. Back for spring 5k, 10k
— Greg Hansen (@ghansen711) October 30, 2013

In his two cross country seasons at Arizona, Lawi Lalang has won two individual Pac-12 titles. If you would have asked us two weeks ago if he’d collect a third crown, we would have thought that that was a rhetorical question.

~~But after his disappointing 13th place at the Wisconsin adidas Invitational, can we pick him for the win in Louisville, CO? Yes.~~

~~After his race at Wisconsin, Lalang told Flotrack that he had only been training for two weeks. 23:35 off of two weeks of training? That’s reassuring.~~

What’s more is that when we merged the results from Wisconsin and Pre-Nationals, Lalang’s race bodes well for Pac-12s. Hypothetically, if Lalang ran Pre-Nationals that weekend instead of Wisconsin, he would have finished in-between Edward Cheserek and McGorty. That puts him third in our projected scores.

~~With two more weeks of training under his belt, Lalang should be able to jump two more spots to take the win. Still, a rising Lalang should be worried about a few other studs.~~

In what might be the sleeper of the season, Washington’s Aaron Nelson deserves some more love. After taking wins at the Sundodger (23:50.5) and Bill Dellinger Invitational (23:54.0), Nelson finished fourth at Wisconsin in 23:26.

Who is this guy? Because he’s running out of his mind.

The junior is a 3k steeplechase and 5k specialist, who ran personal bests of 8:52.03 and 14:30.12 (respectively) last spring. Going further back to last cross country season, Nelson finished 158th at Wisconsin (24:29.9), 49th at the NCAA West Regional (30:31.1), and 25th at Pac-12s (24:14.5).

Now, on paper, he’s in the running to win it.

What about the other possible picks? Cheserek has been incredible for the Ducks as he’s lead the squad in each of his races this fall. Fellow freshmen studs McGorty and Saarel were a step behind Cheserek in Terre Haute, but might have learned a thing of two from that race and they'll try and keep it close this weekend.

But before we start to even think about picking Saarel, there’s the unheralded Morgan Pearson. A transfer from Duke, “Papa Mo” was Colorado’s fearless leader his with 7th place finish in 23:39.4 and put our Google skills to the test during the race because we couldn’t put a name to the face leading the chase pack.

Even in his post-race interview, Pearson admitted “... I don’t even think you guys know that I’m on the team or you don’t know who I am...”

This would have been our quote of the week if coach Mick Byrne hadn’t told us to “never underestimate the heart of a Badger.” We applaud all of the frankness.

Prediction: ~~Just like how we like Colorado’s chances to capture a third straight Pac-12 team title, we like Lalang’s odds to do the same in the individual race.~~

Aaron Nelson is having a dream year. With no Lalang, why not pick the Washington junior? Well, the thin air is holding us back from making him our choice. Don't be surprised if Pearson or Saarel (maybe Theroux) enjoy the altitude too much and take the win in front of the home crowd.

Note: The following projections are based on the results from Wisconsin and Pre-Nats.

Individual Projections

Team Projections

Place   Name                School
1       Aaron Nelson        Washington
2       Edward Cheserek     Oregon
3       Lawi Lalang         Arizona
3       Sean McGorty        Stanford
4       Morgan Pearson      Colorado
5       Ben Saarel          Colorado
6       Erik Olson          Stanford
7       Jim Rosa            Stanford
8       Parker Stinson      Oregon
9       Mac Fleet           Oregon
10      Blake Theroux       Colorado
11      Pierce Murphy       Colorado
12      Connor Winter       Colorado
13      Nick Hartle         UCLA
14      Jake Leingang       Oregon
15      Michael Atchoo      Stanford
16      Garrett Seawell     Arizona State
17      Daniel Winn         Oregon
18      Ammar Moussa        Colorado
19      Meron Simon         Washington
20      Sam Macaluso        Arizona
21      Izaic Yorks         Washington
22      Ryan Herson         Arizona State
23      Matthew Melancon    Oregon
24      Garrett Sweatt      Stanford
25      Garrett Baker-Slama Arizona State
26      Steven Schnieders   Arizona State
27      Aaron Beattie       Washington
28      Sergey Sushchickh   UCLA
29      Daniel Herrera      UCLA
30      Andrew Gardner      Washington
31      J. P. Slater        California
32      Bernie Montoya      Arizona State
33      ANDREW GONZALES     WASHINGTON ST.
34      Thomas Joyce        California
35      Ferdinand Edman     UCLA
36      Collins Kibet       Arizona
37      Daniel Wong         Arizona State
38      Zach Perrin         Colorado
39      Blake Nelson        Washington
40      Patrick Douglas     UCLA
41      Jordan Locklear     California
42      Leland Later        California
43      Kenji Bierig        Arizona
44      Tyler King          Washington
45      Jeramy Elkaim       Oregon
46      Jeff Bickert        Arizona State
47      JOHN WHELAN         WASHINGTON ST.
48      Justin Brinkley     Stanford
49      Jonas Legernes      Arizona
50      Zack Torres         UCLA
51      Sumner Goodwin      Washington
52      TODD WAKEFIELD      WASHINGTON ST.
53      Jacob Smith         Washington
54      FORREST SHAFFER     WASHINGTON ST.
55      Tyler Stutzman      Stanford
56      Matthew Beer        Arizona
57      Thomas Valente      Arizona
58      Michael McCabe      UCLA
59      Jeff Schaefer       California
60      Seamus Land         California
61      Dylan Hopper        Arizona
62      Ryan Norton         Arizona State
63      Travis Thorne       Arizona
64      CONNER JOHNSEN      WASHINGTON ST.
65      Edward Trim         California

Place  School           Points
1      Colorado         42
2      Oregon           50
3      Stanford         55
4      Washington       98
5      Arizona State    121
6      UCLA             145
7      Arizona          204
8      California       212
9      WASHINGTON ST.   255