2021 D1 Indoor Top 25 Rankings (Men): Update #1

Was not ranked in our last update.
 

First number indicates how much the individual has moved in the rankings.

The second number indicates where they were ranked in our last update.

Our TSR #25 spot was essentially a "pick your poison" kind of deal. There were a handful of names who we could have put here, but Ponder was the fastest sub-four miler who hadn't been ranked. At that point, we felt like it was only appropriate to give him a spot.

Admittedly, other names have either taken down better competition or have shown more consistency/progress, but there hasn't been enough of those results to really make any major declarations about someone's consistency or progression.

So, for that reason, we're giving the newest 3:59 miler a nod for our TSR #25 spot.

There have been a ton of exciting 800 meter performances over the past few weeks, but Missouri's Chris Conrad has been the one who has slowly been inching his way up the national leaderboard. After an early-season loss to the Ole Miss duo of Franklin and Smulders (where he ran 1:49), Conrad came back the next weekend and ran 1:48, losing only to the elite Iowa State trio of Gomez, Lagat and Roomes.

Conrad has been going up against some big-time talents as of late. That, however, hasn't stopped him from staying competitive in his last two races, running fast times and making minor improvements in each of those instances.

For that reason, we gave him a spot in these rankings.

It's very easy to get distracted by all of the incredibly fast times and superstar names making their debuts. However, Gilbert Boit is flexing some respectable range and has put together a few of the best races of his career.

A few weeks ago, the Arkansas ace ran 4:02 for the mile and came back a week later with a personal best of 7:53 for 3000 meters. Boit wasn't among the top finishers in either race, but 4:02 and 7:53 before the month of February is awfully impressive. I'm not sure how many distance talents who aren't listed in our rankings could have done that in the past month.

It is really hard to not like Baylor Franklin right now. He took home a big win in his season debut over teammate Everett Smulders and Missouri's Chris Conrad en route to a personal best of 1:48. A big win and fast time were great, but could he do it again?

The answer to that was "yes" as Franklin beautifully maneuvered around Arkansas' Kieran Taylor in the final moments of the Razorback Invitational 800 meters. He ran an excellent tactical race, took home yet another win and secured a small personal best (1:48.59) in the process.

All signs are pointing upwards for Franklin and we can't wait to see what else he has in store.

Has not yet competed during the indoor track season.
 

We expected Beadlescomb to be a major factor in the men's 5000 meters this year, and that could certainly still happen. However, a 4:13 mile debut wasn't anything exciting and not seeing him at the BIG 10 XC Championships now has us a little concerned.

 We're not going to overreact to anything that we've seen lately, but we're hoping that Beadlescomb toes the line for a 3k or 5k in the near future.

Has not yet competed during the indoor track season.

Peralta was the 400 leg on Oregon's DMR which set a national record of 9:19. On that relay, the Oregon sophomore split 47 seconds before handing off the baton to Charlie Hunter. Other than that, Peralta has been quiet, although we would expect him to toe the line in the 800 meter relatively soon. A 1:48 seems plenty realistic in his debut.

There's not much we can do with Perretta's ranking right now. He made his season debut in the mile with a modest time of 4:11, but that resulted in a win. His ideal event, the 800 meters, is the main race that we're waiting to see from him.

Gosh, Smulders has been on fire as of late. After running a personal best of 1:48.75 (800) in his season debut and most recently running a personal best of 3:58 (mile), I'm not sure you could find anyone in the NCAA who has been better in both the 800 and the mile than Smulders (unless you count Charlie Hunter's 1:47 split in the DMR).

Either way, Smulders has clearly elevated his fitness to a new level, shown off exciting range and is experienced enough to navigate nationally competitive fields. We don't know what his ceiling is, but it doesn't look like he's slowing down any time soon.

Yes, Suliman did drop in our rankings, but let's not act like splitting 2:53 for 1200 meters and then coming back the next day to run 7:54 for 3000 meters is anything bad. Those are very strong times and one could argue that Suliman's best races are the 800 meters and the mile. There is plenty more to come from the Ole Miss veteran in the next few weeks.

Cooper Williams has continued to do Cooper Williams-like things this winter. The Indiana veteran has won back-to-back 800 meter races, producing a pair of 1:48's in both instances. That consistency and ability to run fast times in both instances is encouraging, but we're waiting to see how he handles a more competitive field (potentially in a championship setting) before we get a greater idea of where he sits in the NCAA hierarchy.

When Gomez transferred from Notre Dame de Namur to Iowa State, I figured it would take him a year or two before he became a nationally competitive name. Truthfully, I didn't even think that him being a national qualifier was ever a guarantee.

However, what the newest Cyclone star has done over the past few weeks has been incredible. In his season debut, Gomez ran a massive personal best of 1:47 for 800 meters to beat out his highly accomplished teammates, Festus Lagat and Roshon Roomes (who were running unattached).

Gomez would later go on to validate his breakout performance with an incredible 2:49 split on the 1200 meter leg of Iowa State's DMR. While many fans of the sports were distracted by the fact that Oregon sophomore Cole Hocker split 2:49 and helped the Ducks earn a new collegiate record, many failed to recognize that Gomez was actually the leader through the first leg.

I'm not sure that we're ready to call this redshirt sophomore a national title favorite, but gosh, he seems awfully close to being an All-American lock.

Has not yet competed during the indoor track season.

Could you imagine being a 3:56 miler, but not being "good enough" to get on your team's best DMR lineup? Well, that was essentially what happened at the Razorback Invitational this past weekend. The Ducks ran a 9:19 collegiate record in the DMR on the first night before Brown eventually ran 3:56 in the mile on day two.

Regardless of his place on Oregon's roster, Brown's 3:56 performance is huge. He's been a talented sub-four miler for years now, constantly racing against the best competition and often posting some top-ranked marks. He still needs to be better on the national stage, but this 3:56 time signals that Brown is in a new tier.

We'll be honest, we just weren't sure what to expect from Mario Garcia Romo this winter. His breakout 2020 cross country season was extremely exciting and we had every reason to believe that he was going to be an improved runner on the track.

Still, translating cross country success to the track is never a guarantee. Plus, even if he did improve, it needed to be by a lot if he was going to get ranked.

And of course, that is exactly what happened.

Garcia Romo proved this past weekend that his breakout cross country season was no fluke. He split an outstanding 3:58 on the anchor leg of Ole Miss' DMR and came back the next day to run a 17-second personal best in the 3000 meters (7:48) in a field that consisted of elite-level distance stars.

It is absolutely crazy to me that a guy who just ran 2:23 (1k) and 3:58 (mile) in the first two races of his season somehow drops four spots. That, however, is just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Kemboi had a solid cross country season, but it wasn't his best. That left us unsure as to what we should expect from him this winter on the indoor oval. However, any minor concerns that we had about Kemboi have since been swept aside. His speed has never looked better and the mile field that he took down en route to his 3:58 was better than some people realize.

It's possible that the Arkansas ace wouldn't have dropped in our rankings (as much as he did) if ran in that loaded 3k field this past weekend, but he's still a top talent and could be plenty dangerous in the future.

I have to give Wesley Kiptoo some credit. In a field loaded with elite 3k stars, Kiptoo wasn't afraid to push the pace (very briefly) against Cooper Teare, before the Oregon star took over. That tactic didn't necessarily work out in Kiptoo's favor, but a 7:48 personal best was super impressive.

Even though Kiptoo's surge didn't pay off, I like the fact that he made his move when he did. His greatest chance of winning that race was to start his move earlier than everyone else in an effort to take a fast finishing kick out of his competitors' legs. It didn't work out, but he showed off a very subtle tactical decision that I'm not sure many people picked up on.

We knew that Hedeilli was a talented guy. We saw him post a handful of fast mile and 800 meter times last winter and he was one of the few men capable of qualifying for Nationals in both distances.

However, the Texas Tech senior clearly entered an entirely new level this past year. In a season where the men's 800 meter national title seemed to be wide-open, Hedeilli seemingly took advantage of that fact and has since made a case that he should be favored for NCAA gold.

In his season debut, Hedeilli dropped a mind-boggling 1:45 for 800 meters. Even without the small altitude conversion that he received, the Algerian middle distance star still would have broken the 1:46 barrier.

 After running 1:47 this past weekend, it's hard to argue that Hedeilli isn't for real.

Of course, the questions now become whether or not he can do that on the national stage and whether or not he can still come out on top in a tactical race. We don't know everything about Hedeilli -- he's still a bit of an unknown in some cases -- but 1:45 is nothing to sneeze at, especially since the next fastest time in the NCAA right now is a 1:47.

This admittedly doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right that a guy who just ran an altitude-converted 7:47 for 3000 meters is only moving up one spot in our rankings. That, however, is the case for Conner Mantz.

The men's 3000 meters is unbelievably deep this year (just like it was last year) and despite 7:47 being a super fast time, it doesn't make Mantz any more of a title contender or any less of a title contender than he was before.

We knew that this Oregon sophomore was the real deal, but we didn't realize that he was this good. Running 7:46 on the indoor oval, barley losing to Cooper Teare and beating out superstar names like Kiptoo and Garcia Romo is quite the statement. After running 2:49 for 1200 meters the night prior, we have to begin asking, "What can't this guy do?"

TSR #5 admittedly seems high for Hocker, but only because he's so young and because he has made such a tremendous leap in fitness. In terms of his times, consistency and who he has beaten, Hocker is plenty deserving of a top-five ranking.

In our meet preview, we suggested that a 3:56 mile was within reason for Hunter's debut and truthfully, I think most knowledgable fans felt like that was a realistic expectation. However, what we did not expect was Hunter blowing away a field which included Reed Brown and Everett Smulders en route to a monster time of 3:54. That mark now sits at NCAA #4 all-time for the indoor mile.

Not only that, but Hunter also split 1:47 on Oregon's DMR the night before! Clearly, the Australian superstar is clicking on all cylinders.

At this point, we need to start asking whether or not Hunter is the favorite for the national title. Yes, Yared Nuguse has seemingly dominated that exact distance over the past few seasons, but if Notre Dame goes all-in for cross country, is there anyone who could realistically stop Hunter in the mile? Honestly, I'm not sure that there is.

This is usually the part of the analysis where we question how Hunter will fare in a tactical race, but a 3:54 mile might make that argument moot. We'll wait and see, but Hunter is now amongst the NCAA's most elite distance runners.

Has not yet competed during the indoor track season.

Has not yet competed during the indoor track season.

We're pretty much splitting hairs here. Grijalva and Nuguse could still be in the conversation for the top spot in our rankings, but they haven't raced on the indoor oval yet...and Teare has.

And honestly, even if they had run, Teare would have probably been ranked at TSR #1. Splitting 3:54 en route to a DMR national record and then coming back the next day to beat an elite 3k field with a time of 7:46 is wildly impressive.

We'll still need to see how Grijalva and Nuguse run later this season, but Teare has set the bar unfathomably high right now.

Mario Garcia Romo (Ole Miss)

Everett Smulders (Ole Miss)

Jason Gomez (Iowa State)

Baylor Franklin (Ole Miss)

Cameron Ponder (Furman)

Chris Conrad (Missouri)

Gilbert Boit (Arkansas)

Allon Clay (Texas A&M)

Abdi Nur (Northern Arizona)

Theo Quax (Northern Arizona)

John Rivera (Ole Miss)

Sam Tanner (Washington)

Ben Veatch (Indiana)

Matthew Schadler (Indiana)

Abdi Nur (Northern Arizona)

Theo Quax (Northern Arizona)

John Rivera (Ole Miss)

Ben Veatch (Indiana)

Matthew Schadler (Indiana)

Cruz Culpepper (Washington)

Andrew Jordan (Washington)

Blaise Ferro (Northern Arizona)

Yusuf Bizimana (Texas)

Sean Torpy (Miami (Ohio))

Charlie O'Donovan (Villanova)

Jack O'Leary (Iona)

Bashir Mosavel-Lo (Virginia Tech)

Sven Cepus (Texas Tech)

Juan Diego Castro (Oklahoma State)

Casey Clinger (BYU)

Allon Clay (Texas A&M)

Owen Likins (Texas Tech)

Evan Dorenkamp (Penn State)

Colton Johnsen (Washington State)

Karl Thiessen (Tennessee)

Davis Bove (LSU)

Brandon Tubby (North Carolina)

Brendan Herbert (Texas)

Brandon Miller (Texas A&M)
 Kieran Taylor (Arkansas)

Samuel Voelz (Notre Dame)

Ryan Raff (Northern Arizona)

Dan Schaffer (Binghamton)

Emmanuel Cheboson (Arkansas)

Abdullahi Hassan (Wisconsin)

Hudson Kugel (Wisconsin)

Aaron Wier (Furman)

George Duggan (Portland)

Crayton Carrozza (Texas)

Nico Young (Northern Arizona)
 Leo Daschbach (Washington)
 Thomas Ratcliffe (North Carolina)

James Sugira (Eastern Kentucky)

Frank Hayes (Ohio State)

Aidan Tooker (Syracuse)

Luke Houser (Washington)

Alex Stitt (Oklahoma State)

Eliud Kipsang (Alabama)

- Sam Tanner has been outstanding this winter, running 3:54 in the mile...in New Zealand. Based on his recent performances, TSR didn’t initially expect Tanner to return to Seattle this winter. However, TSR has since been informed that he will return. Once he returns to the indoor track, and presumably runs well enough to earn a ranking, he will be placed back in our Top 25.

- Our "Just Missed" and "Honorable Mentions" lists may seem a bit long, but that will likely change in our next update as we get a greater idea of who is actually racing this winter.