2022 Cowboy Jamboree Preview (Men)

Written by Gavin Struve & Garrett Zatlin

Storylines are abound in the first truly nationally competitive Division One cross country meet this season. Already one of the higher-end regular season meets, the Cowboy Jamboree got significantly deeper this year with the addition of numerous national powers.

The depth and firepower among both the teams and the individuals in this field is to the point where this early-season meet is nearly on the level of Nuttycombe or Pre-Nationals.

The top-seven ranked programs in our TSR preseason rankings are all converging in Stillwater, Oklahoma this Saturday with five other squads ranked in the top-20. And while most teams will be running at varying levels of strength, we should still expect to see a heavyweight showdown and plenty of important results.

This Saturday, all eyes will be on the Northern Arizona men, the consensus preseason No. 1 team around the NCAA, but not necessarily an infallible squad, either.

That’s especially true as two runners ranked as TSR preseason top-50 individuals (Colin Sahlman and Brodey Hasty) will not be suiting-up for the Lumberjacks this weekend, nor will Theo Quax who recently won the Coaching Tree Invitational in an impressive effort over his teammates and Georgetown's Parker Stokes.

And yet, it still feels like NAU is favored for the win this weekend.

The Lumberjacks elite scoring duo of Nico Young and Drew Bosley will both be in contention for the individual meet title and will be supported by veteran All-American George Kusche. On paper, that's a lethal top-three that might be the best scoring trio in the field thanks to a few absences on other teams.

But even with that firepower, the Northern Arizona men will need big performances from a few of their more unproven pieces to take home the win this weekend. That scoring support may come from Santiago Prosser and Kang Nyoak, a duo that placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively, behind Quax last week.

Fifth-year senior Ryan Raff could also play a role in this field. He has sneaky-good times on the track when converting down to altitude and he also has tons of experience.

None of these backend lineup options need to be superstars for Northern Arizona, but they do need to stabilize the scoring and limit excessive point totals. If they can do that, then NAU should win this race.

Of course, winning this meet won't exactly be easy.

Both of the top challengers to Northern Arizona's national title hopes in November will also be contesting this race, but neither team will be at full strength, either.

Host Oklahoma State is missing superstar low-stick Isai Rodriguez and fellow All-American Shea Foster. Luckily, they have two other proven stars lining up in Alex Maier and Victor Shitsama, both of whom are returning All-Americans.

The Cowboys could theoretically match some of NAU's top scorers with their own low-sticks. However, with Rodriguez and Foster both out, OSU will need Ryan Schoppe to be near his absolute best after a couple of up-and-down cross country campaigns followed by great track results.

But even in a scenario where Schoppe is running like an All-American, the Northern Arizona men would need to crumble fairly significantly on the backend of their lineup in order for Oklahoma State to beat them. For the Cowboys, they'll need their supporting cast, specifically Rory Leonard, to step up and emerge as a top-end scorer.

We should note that earlier this week, Jon Gault of LetsRun quoted Oklahoma State Coach Dave Smith who said, “We might lose one,” regarding a potential varsity athlete.

Smith goes on to say, “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet…People have made mistakes, put it that way.”

The team listed immediately below the Cowboys in our preseason rankings, Stanford, will be fielding two-thirds of the best scoring trio in the NCAA.

Ky Robinson won’t be joining Charles Hicks and Cole Sprout on the line this Saturday, but the Cardinal may still have the edge over the Cowboys with just one top scorer missing rather than two. The supporting cast of Thomas Boyden, Devin Hart and Evan Burke could each have a major opportunity this weekend to prove themselves as critical scorers for a team that may be one or two pieces away from a national title.

And although current rookie Gavin Sherry isn't racing, fellow freshmen Callum Sherry and Zane Bergen are. The Stanford men have often had grand success with elite-level rookies early in their NCAA careers. That could be the case for one of these men on Saturday.

If NAU can’t replicate their next-man-up approach that they have successfully displayed over the last few years, then they could be starting out its season with a loss to Stanford. Depth will ultimately be the biggest determinant between these teams given that their firepower effectively cancels out each other’s upfront scoring.

But winning for Stanford and Oklahoma State, while certainly the goal, isn't necessarily the end-all be-all. Both the Cardinal and Cowboys will likely be aiming to develop the backend of their lineups and begin experimenting with different lineup combinations before championship season begins.

And in a larger field such as the Cowboy Jamboree against elite competition, this feels like the perfect time to do said experimenting.

Stanford and Oklahoma State have the best chances at topping a full-strength NAU squad at the national meet, but they aren’t the only other teams capable of winning this race on Saturday.

The Lumberjacks’ Mountain region compatriots, BYU and Colorado, will be fielding something closer to what’s expected to be to their full varsity group throughout the rest of the season.

Admittedly, the Cougars are missing Aidan Troutner, someone who is more of a backend backend varsity contributor, but his absence should be negligible in this opening meet. Casey Clinger will be in contention to win the race as an individual while both Christian Allen and Brandon Garnica should at least be in the mix for top-20 spots.

For BYU, the theme of this race is very similar to that of NAU, Stanford and Oklahoma State. They have some of the best firepower in the field, maybe even outright, but their depth will ultimately decide how far they go on Saturday.

And with an 8:20 steeplechaser in Kenneth Rooks and a 28:37 (10k) runner in Joey Nokes, this will be a huge opportunity to see what their potential on the grass could be later this fall.

Meanwhile, Colorado boasts one of the nation’s most impressive rosters in terms of depth, and the reigning PAC-12 champions arguably aren’t missing anyone from their expected varsity contingent given that Kashon Harrison hasn’t raced on the varsity squad in nearly three years now.

The Buffaloes have a strong cast of interchangeable parts with fringe-low sticks in Andrew Kent, Austin Vancil, Brendan Fraser, Charlie Sweeney and Seth Hirsch. This squad could (maybe) earn a surprise victory if two names from group emerge as true top-10 low-sticks (in this field) and the other top squads struggle to piece together a smooth five-man lineup.

And out of all of the teams in this field, it feels like the Colorado men probably have the highest floor -- and that's a good thing! We don't really see them having a poor race, even if someone in their top-five has an "off" day.

In terms of scoring insurance, the Buffaloes have plenty of it. Saturday, however, will largely be a race to see how much upside this group will have in 2022.

A team that may have just as much upside and as much untapped potential as any in the country is the Washington men.

Brian Fay is a megastar talent who still seems to be realizing his true potential as he enters his second year in the NCAA. Not only that, but the Huskies behind him have a number of men behind him who had monumental breakout years on the track.

If every Washington runner manages to reach their full talent potential as early as Saturday, and that's admittedly a big ask, then it may make their TSR #7 ranking appear conservative.

Even so, the Huskies have been more of a middle distance power over the years and have finished outside of the top-12 teams at the NCAA XC Championships for three straight seasons. While there is no denying that Green, Waskom, Houser and maybe Isaac Green will be better this fall than they were in 2021, suggesting that everyone will be firing on all cylinders this weekend feels somewhat unlikely.

And yet, it's the unknown upside of this team that makes us wonder...who could they take down on Saturday? What needs to happen to the top teams in these fields in order for an upset to occur?

But perhaps a safer pick, largely in terms of historical expectations, may be Tulsa, although Coach Steve Gulley’s group is known more for peaking at the national meet.

The Golden Hurricanes boast a triumvirate of All-American-caliber men with Isaac Akers, Cormac Dalton and Michael Powers. On paper, that has the potential to be one of the best scoring trios in this field if everyone is running at their absolute best on the same day.

But again, this team historically peaks in the postseason.

And for as good as that three-headed scoring trio is, we still have questions about the backend scoring behind them. There’s plenty of talent throughout this Tulsa lineup, but the team's supporting cast is unproven and this likely won’t be an early-season meet where a national power can cruise to a win without solving its lineup questions.

However, the Cowboy Jamboree could at least give us (and Tulsa) a greater idea of who will fill out the second-half of their varsity lineup. This is a field with plenty of recognizable names, meaning that we'll be able to have a fairly strong gauge of Tulsa's fourth and fifth runners depending on who they beat (and don't beat) on Saturday.

So where do the Wake Forest men fit in?

The Demon Deacons finished a surprising 10th at the NCAA XC Championships last fall and are slated one spot higher in our TSR preseason rankings. They’re set to enjoy the complements of their full lineup on Saturday, headlined by two-time cross country All-American Zach Facioni and somewhat comparable depth to Colorado.

Unlike many of the top teams in this field, we actually feel pretty good about what Wake Forest has in terms of depth. They have tons of lineup options and everyone on this team seems primed for a great season.

However, we do have questions as to who will join Facioni near the front of these results as another true low-stick. While guys like Tewalt, Las Heras, Martinez De Pinillos and Vanoppen have been fantastic on the track, we haven't seen enough from them yet to say that they'll definitely be All-Americans come November.

And if Wake Forest wants to be competitive in this field, then they'll need to boast a lineup structure that can match (some of) the low-stick efforts from other top-10 teams in this field.

We would likely be having a similar conversation about the Gonzaga men, one of the top breakout candidates of the fall of 2022, in a similar vein. However, the Bulldogs will be without front-runner, James Mwaura, this weekend.

Instead, teammates Wil Smith and Yacine Guermali will look to step up and lead a sneaky-deep team on Saturday. While we don't expect Gonzaga to pull off any upsets thanks to the absence of Mwaura, we do think that there is a lot of opportunity for growth in this race if you're a backend varsity runner.

Mountain region stalwart Air Force is in a similar camp as Gonzaga. They'll be without their projected second scorer, Nick Scheller, on Saturday. However, low-stick Sam Gilman is one of the most underrated talents in the country. And when you remember that this team still ran fairly well without Scheller last year, it's hard not to be optimistic about Air Force on Saturday.

And how about Harvard? The Crimson occupy a similar range in the rankings (11-17) and are fielding two All-American individual talents in Acer Iverson and Graham Blanks...but there's a catch. A heavy chunk of Harvard's varsity entries for the Cowboy Jamboree can also be found in the Battle in Beantown entries.

We don't know what that means for Saturday, but it is something to monitor.

Texas is another top-25 squad missing a couple expected backend pieces. It's a similar story for a Furman team that will be without Cameron Ponder. And heck, we haven’t even gotten to perennial nationals qualifiers such as Syracuse, Ole Miss and Princeton yet! Each of those programs are in a bit of a rebuilding year, but should be plenty competitive this weekend. Watch out for Kentucky, a top-half SEC program, too.

It’s wild that a team could finish outside of the top-five at this meet and realistically be in podium contention at the national meet. In fact, it may be even crazier that you could find yourself outside of the top-15 at the Cowboy Jamboree and still qualify for the NCAA XC Championships at this same course in November.

All things considered, most of these lineups aren’t far from full strength. While the results, especially at this point in the season, should not be interpreted as a tell-all of each team’s ability and prospects, this race will serve as a decent indicator of the hierarchy at the top of the NCAA to start the year.

The individual race is wide-open, and we’ll get a good look at the expected, or at least early, lineup structures for some of the nation’s top teams. With so many nationally elite programs competing, it will be interesting to see how some recent elite recruits fare and if they can earn top-seven spots among loaded rosters.

I see Stanford taking the team title as NAU swapped All-American level scorers for two younger unproven guys while the Cardinal, even sans Robinson, theoretically has more depth than meets the eye.

The Cowboys may drop a bit on their home course, being overcome by the depth of a less-talented team like Colorado, or even Washington, without two top-end scorers.

Six men are strong contenders for the individual title, but don’t be shocked if someone outside that group pulls an upset. Hicks gets the nod as one of the most consistent nationally elite runners.

Teams

Individuals