Gavin Struve
Jul 24, 202217 min
Additional commentary and edits by Garrett Zatlin
If you were to see this list a year ago, Strintzos would be the name who, at the time, appeared to be the most out of place in this group. And no, that’s not just because he’s currently the last name on this elite list of our top-10 runners.
But after the 2021 cross country season that the Villanova star had last fall, he more than belongs here.
Strintzos has been competitive since joining the NCAA, but took a major step up in his performances a year ago. For instance, take a look at his 2019 cross country season. That year, he was 8th at the BIG East XC Championships and then 142nd at the NCAA XC Championships.
Then, in the 2021 winter season, he won the BIG East cross country title and settled for a very solid 66th place at the national meet. But then, something changed...for the better.
Strintzos qualified for his first national meet on the track (in the 10,000 meters) and later went on to have a stellar cross country season, peaking at the perfect time and flexing his aerobic dominance to the rest of the NCAA.
Strintzos placed 3rd at Paul Short, took home the victory at the Princeton Invitational, secured silver at the BIG East XC Championships and later placed 2nd at the Mid-Atlantic XC Regional Championships. Those were all very good results and although he was facing limited competition that season, it felt like Strintzos was in line for his first All-American finish.
But what came next left us at The Stride Report stunned.
Strintzos completely blew our expectations out of the water when he placed 9th at the NCAA XC Championships, ultimately putting together one of the best postseason peaks of year.
Despite his big result, that 9th place finish doesn’t necessarily feel like a fluke. Instead, it feels like something that we should have seen coming. In fact, Strintzos’ 66th place finish at the winter national meet feels like the biggest outlier when reviewing his recent performances.
Strintzos has already proven that he belongs with the illustrious names of this section on the grass, but he’ll have quite the challenge trying to improve upon his 2021 cross country national meet performance. It's also hard to rank someone who might be running in relative anonymity for much of the regular season.
Still, don’t let this Wildcat ace fall off your radar. If he builds on his potential even further, then he could be a top-five name come November...or better.
Bosley may only be the third-ranked* runner on his own team (sorta), but don’t be fooled, every other program would love to have this Northern Arizona star as their low stick.
The fourth-year runner has massively exceeded expectations, even as a top-flight recruit, and has been a reliable force throughout much of his career, almost like a higher ceiling version of teammate Brodey Hasty.
It didn’t take long for Bosley to earn his first All-American honor as he followed up a 2019 BIG Sky Conference individual title with a 22nd place finish at the NCAA XC Championships, shockingly finishing as the Lumberjacks' top scorer as a true freshman.
The 2020-21 academic year cross country season did not treat him as well, but Bosley was by no means bad as he finished 15th at the Oklahoma State Invitational, 8th at the BIG Sky XC Championships and then 62nd at the winter national meet.
Luckily, he was quick to return to form last fall, running like a metronomic low-stick with gradually building momentum through the regular season and postseason. Bosley would notch highly-impressive finishes of 5th at the top-heavy OSU Cowboy Jamboree, 6th at Pre-Nationals, 1st at the BIG Sky XC Championships and then a phenomenal 13th place at the NCAA XC Championships.
Bosley backed up his fantastic cross country credentials in his collegiate track debut this year as he secured a torrid PR of 13:25 over 5000 meters, earned All-American honors on the indoor oval in that event (by placing 8th) and later flashed some speed with a 3:39 PR for 1500 meters.
It would be a mistake to overlook Bosley due to recency bias since he didn’t qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships or because he’s not the top runner on his own team.
Entering his fourth year in Flagstaff, Bosley has all the markings of a top-10 runner in the NCAA. With the exception of the 2021 winter cross country season, this NAU ace has been super reliable and has proven to be closer to the likes of Nico Young than teammates Brodey Hasty and George Kusche.
Ky Robinson, an Australian superstar, is in a similar situation as Drew Bosley. He’s the third-ranked runner on his own team, but is very much deserving of individual praise and acclaim.
In fact, one could make a viable case that Robinson holds the most upside of anyone in the top-10. The Stanford ace has amassed multiple All-American finishes and shown immense range across the long distance events, excelling in the steeplechase, the 5000 meters, the 10,000 and in cross country.
Now, he stands at a pivotal point in his development where he’s no longer a youngster. His NCAA career is likely already halfway over. However, he has little left to prove beyond ascending to the plane of being one of the NCAA’s few true title contenders.
In fact, depending on who you ask, he might already be there.
Robinson took a short while to get revved up during his winter 2021 freshman cross country campaign, but proved to be a very effective runner and scorer upon doing so. The Cardinal star placed 4th in the FSU Winter XC Classic “B” race, not even breaking 25 minutes. He later placed 34th at the competitive Battle Born Collegiate Challenge.
But then Robinson caught fire, building a postseason peak with an 8th place finish at the PAC-12 XC Championships and a very solid 46th place at the NCAA Winter XC Championships. The Stanford star later rode that wave of success to an All-American finish in his true freshman campaign by placing 6th in the steeplechase at the NCAA Outdoor Championships with a current personal best of 8:32.
And if you thought that Robinson's freshman-year build up was a fluke, then his sophomore campaign would tell you otherwise.
Robinson ramped up in a similar way last fall, placing 23rd at the FSU XC Open before securing a series of eye-catching finishes at Nuttycombe (7th), the PAC-12 XC Championships (4th) and the NCAA XC Championships (14th).
But Robinson's progression was far from over, using his impressive kick to earn a runner-up finish in the 5000 meters at the NCAA Indoor Championships as he set a PR of 13:20. He couldn’t replicate that finish at the outdoor national meet, but he still excelled, finishing 4th at the national meet across the same distance.
Earlier that spring, Robinson displayed commendable versatility with a silver medal in the PAC-12 steeplechase as well as massive 27:47 PR for 10,000 meters.
In theory, that latter mark points to potential for improvement on the grass for Robinson, even after he finished amongst the top-15 spots at the national meet as a sophomore.
It feels like a safe bet to place Robinson in the top-10 of these rankings, and it would be far from a shock if he finished higher. However, largely by virtue of his youth, this Stanford ace has not yet had a truly elite cross country result that makes him a title contender or puts him above the following men.
Although, admittedly, that will likely be a different later this year. After all, there is far more to like about Robinson than dislike. And now that we think about it...what is there to dislike?
While he hasn’t finished on the proverbial podium with a top-three finish at any national meet, Clinger is likely as solid of a true low-stick, especially in cross country, as you’ll find in the NCAA.
The high school NXN champion was 24th at the 2017 NCAA XC Championships and then returned three years later after his mission trip while barely missing a beat.
The 2021 winter cross country campaign saw Clinger turn in an excellent regular season which culminated with a highly impressive 13th place finish at the NCAA Winter XC Championships. He then turned to the track and flashed unrealized speed with a 3:38 PR for 1500 meters as well as a 13:24 mark for 5000 meters.
Clinger was again excellent during the fall 2021 cross country season as he finished toward the top of multiple stacked fields such as Roy Griak (4th), Pre-Nationals (8th) and the WCC XC Championships (3rd).
While he wasn’t considered a title contender at the time, Clinger still finished amongst the top-10 as he turned in his best race of the season, and likely of his college career, with an 8th place run at the NCAA XC Championships.
This BYU veteran appears to be in line to jump up a few more spots this year, especially after a track season which saw him run outstanding times of 13:23 for 5000 meters and 28:16 for 10,000 meters. Clinger would finish amongst the top-12 in both events at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
This long distance juggernaut has as much, if not more, familiarity than anyone else with racing at the top-end of the NCAA cross country ranks and could look to turn that into a top-five finish this year.
Clinger may not have the same upside that a few other names in this section have, but that's not to say that he doesn't have any upside at all. His reliability as an elite scorer is a major reason why we have him ranked at TSR #7.
The most heralded recruit of Stanford’s vaunted 2019 rookie class, Sprout has been better than advertised (which is incredible in and of itself) after quickly joining the NCAA’s top-tier of distance runners.
Sprout flew out of the gates in his first season, quickly acclimating to the jump up in distance from the high school 5k to the 8k and 10k distances of collegiate cross country.
The Cardinal youngster went on to place 5th at the FSU Winter XC Classic, 9th at the Battle Born XC Challenge, a massive 4th place at the PAC 12 XC Championships and then 15th place at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
Then, this past fall, Sprout was arguably even better in the regular season, placing 3rd at the FSU XC Open and later 6th at Nuttycombe. Those results were fantastic, although Sprout would ultimately downgrade in the postseason by placing 8th at the PAC 12 XC Championships and an uncharacteristic 81st place at the NCAA XC Championships.
Of course, his times on the track proved that Sprout's 2021 fall postseason results weren't anywhere near his true talent.
A pair of electric track seasons reaffirmed our beliefs that Sprout belongs amongst the NCAA’s elite on the grass and that his fall 2021 national meet performance was an outlier (and it wasn’t even that bad).
Sprout ran 7:43 for 3000 meters on the indoor oval and won a PAC-12 title at that distance. However, he fared slightly better at the indoor national meet in the 5k. He ended up an All-American in both of those events and nearly broke his PR in the latter with a 13:25 mark.
During the spring, he stepped up to the 10,000 meters and ran an otherworldly time of 27:42 for 4th place in a loaded field at Stanford’s home meet, the Payton Jordan Invitational, before matching that finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships and narrowly missing All-American honors in the 5000 meters.
The 10,000 meters on the track is not always directly translatable to the cross country course, but fortunately for Sprout, he has already proved to be an elite cross country runner in the regular season and the postseason.
Sprout gets the nod over teammate Robinson for having beaten him in all but two cross country races and showing marginally more success over 10,000 meters. Yes, Sprout's 2021 fall postseason could have been better, but his performances on the track were overwhelmingly impressive.
And if Sprout was able to do all of that in just his second year in the NCAA, then what can he do when he's considered a veteran upperclassman?
Nico Young was the golden goose of the nation's 2019 recruiting class, one of the best prep runners in recent memory and has long been heralded as the future face of NCAA distance running.
Now, in the fall of 2022, this could be the season to fulfill the extremely lofty title expectations that were placed on him since day one.
Young quickly exceeded nationwide hype as a true freshman placing runner-up at the Silver State Collegiate Challenge and Battle Born Collegiate Challenge during the winter cross country season. In those races, he lost only to future national champions Conner Mantz and Abdi Nur.
As good as those performances were, Young outdid himself by placing 4th at the NCAA Winter XC Championships. It was one of the best top finishes for a true freshman in recent memory, in just his third collegiate race and first-ever 10k, no less.
That aforementioned hype understandably crescendoed entering last fall’s cross country season after Young blazed a 13:24 mark for 5000 meters in his debut track season. That PR ultimately qualified him for the US Olympic Trials.
One can only imagine where TSR would have ranked Young despite the fact that the top-three men from the NCAA Winter XC Championships were also returning in the fall.
While Young's fall 2021 cross country season should still be categorized as excellent, Young couldn’t quite top his first NCAA cross country season. He placed 4th at the Cowboy Jamboree, secured a 9th place at Pre-Nationals and then 2nd at both the BIG Sky XC Championships and the Mountain Regional XC Championships before finishing a still-excellent 11th place finish at the national meet.
Somehow, after a “lower” cross country national meet finish, Young's stock seems to be just as strong as it was going into last fall. That, of course, is thanks to his slew of fantastic performances on the oval.
The NAU megastar flashed some laudable speed during the winter months with a 3:56 mile. He later placed 3rd at the NCAA Indoor Championships in the 5000 meters and then 7th in the 3000 meters (despite a fall).
Then, on the outdoor oval, he ran 13:11 for 5000 meters, results which stands at NCAA #3 all-time. He later replicated his bronze-medal finish at that distance at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Young has seemingly been a few steps away from an individual NCAA title his whole collegiate career, but even moreso these past couple of track seasons. Still, after a (very minor) step backwards last fall, Young couldn't quite be ranked much higher than this.
Still, don’t be phased by his TSR #5 ranking (which is actually two spots higher). Young is ranked here because the following men have placed just slightly higher than the younger Lumberjack ace at prior national meets thus far.
Don’t be shocked if that changes this academic year.
The highest profile distance running transfer to date of the new transfer portal era, Jacobs will have a stab at winning an individual national title at two different schools in a five-month span.
That may have seemed a bold, if not incredulous, statement a couple months ago. But after Jacobs became the NCAA champion of the 10,000 meters on the track in early June, our thought process has shifted.
In our minds, that’s a distance and an accolade that’s very translatable to the cross country course.
Fortunately, Jacobs already has produced outstanding results on the grass. While he didn’t race on the grass until his second year, Jacobs quickly found success after a few ramp up meets. And that build up came after he was part of a national title-winning DMR squad as a true freshman.
In 2019, Jacobs posted a solid 15th place finish in his debut cross country race at Joe Piane and a comparably pedestrian 83rd place at Nuttycombe. However, Jacobs later tightened the screws on his aerobic fitness and earned a 5th place showing at the ACC XC Championships before posting an excellent 29th place All-American finish at the NCAA XC Championships.
The next fall (and winter), Jacobs improved to 3rd place at the ACC XC Championships and then finished a solid 23rd place at the Silver State XC Challenge before improving on his prior year’s national meet performance by finishing 20th at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
Fast forward to the fall of 2021 and Jacobs continued to improve. He was 5th at Pre-Nationals, runner-up at the ACC XC Championships and ultimately 10th at the NCAA XC Championships.
And if you look closely, Jacobs' career-long progression on the grass should roughly put him in this portion of our rankings. However, his track success is what gives him an edge.
The eventual 2022 indoor and outdoor track seasons brought even more success for Jacobs leading up to the 10,000 meter national title. Jacobs ran 13:14 for the indoor 5k and finished one spot out of indoor All-American honors in that same event. He also won an ACC title with a 7:49 mark for 3000 meters and ran 3:57 for the mile.
And of course, who can forget the fact that Jacobs was a 10k national champion? The former Notre Dame superstar had a good enough cross country resume to be in this top-five conversation, but a national title victory gave him an edge that we hadn't seen from him before.
Jacobs checks a list of all the tools and accolades necessary to be a NCAA champion on the grass. He holds several All-American finishes on his resume, boasts long distance track success and has flexed promising middle distance speed.
Depending on who you ask, Jacobs may be the most complete runner in these rankings.
Jacobs' may not be the current (or clear) favorite to win the national title on the grass, but NCAA gold would be far less of a surprise than his breakout 10,000 meter title was a few months ago.
*Editor's Note: The Stride Report inquired about Wildschutt's cross country eligibility prior to the publication of these rankings. In those conversations, we were told by Adriaan that he was deciding between coming back for cross country and turning pro. Despite the uncertainty and without knowing when clarity would come, The Stride Report had to make a challenging decision about whether or not to rank Wildschutt. In the end, we opted to keep him ranked, at least for our initial preseason rankings. We felt that it was better to add someone and later take them out instead of omitting them despite there being an off-chance that they could have returned. Wildschutt has since shown on his Instagram that he is now a member of Hoka NAZ Elite. As a result, he will be removed from our rankings during our next update.
Before laying out Wildschutt’s title candidacy, we should get across the point that it’s unclear whether he’ll return to the NCAA.
That being said, Wildschutt absolutely deserves a top-three placement in our TSR individual rankings given his long distance firepower. While his championship tactics have occasionally come under question, few distance runners have displayed the raw aerobic strength that Wildschutt has.
The distance veteran appeared at several NCAA Championships early in his career for Coastal Carolina, but he took on new life immediately after transferring to Florida State.
Once with he was with the 'Noles, Wildschutt placed 3rd and 1st at two winter 2021 cross country meets which FSU hosted. He then placed 4th in the 5000 meters at the NCAA Indoor Championships and runner-up at the NCAA Winter XC Championships days later.
In the span of a couple months, Wildschutt vaulted himself from perhaps a fringe top-50 distance talent to a top-10 runner.
He later followed up those results by snagging the last All-American spot in an all-time NCAA 10,000 meter on the track. Wildschutt then turned in an elite regular season last fall. He won the FSU XC Open, secured the win at Joe Piane, finished 2nd at Pre-Nationals and later won an ACC title as well as the South regional title.
Wildschutt later finished 6th overall at the NCAA XC Championships. That was a solid result for someone of his caliber, although many of us believed that he had more in him.
And sure, perhaps his races leading up to that national meet implied Wildschutt could finish slightly higher or contend for the title. However, another top-10 national meet result backed up his regular season and as well as his runner-up performance at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
Wildschutt's most recent track campaign made us more bullish about his cross country prospects as he ran 13:09 on the indoor oval, finished 4th in the 5000 meets at the indoor national meet and finished as the top collegiate in a historic Payton Jordan 10k field with a 27:38 mark before finishing as an All-American at that distance later in the season.
Should Wildschutt return, he’ll be primed to compete for his first national title after a handful of close calls. However, actually delivering on his unreal title-winning potential is going to be a challenge (as it would be for most elite runners).
For that reason, he settles in at TSR #3 in our rankings.
A lot of what we could say about Charles Hicks would be essentially be us repeating certain points from earlier in this section about his teammates. Even so, the Stanford superstar has exceeded high expectations and has shown an enviable aerobic capacity while having great success on the oval and the grass.
And when you think about it, he hasn't been to far out from winning NCAA gold.
Hicks raced many of these aforementioned ranked names in his inaugural collegiate season when he placed 6th at both the FSU Winter XC Classic and the Battle Born XC Challenge before earning a truly eye-popping runner-up finish at the PAC-12 XC Championships. He went on to earn All-American honors in his first national meet by finishing 14th at the 2021 NCAA Winter XC Championships.
While many thought that he was at his best on grass (and he certainly may be), Hicks quickly established himself as an elite runner on the oval with a 7th place run in a stacked 10,000 meter field at the 2021 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Last fall, however, was the best indication yet that Hicks firmly belongs in this range (and at this spot). He never finished outside of the top-four in any meet as he took 2nd place at the FSU XC Open, 3rd at Nuttycombe, 1st at the PAC-12 XC Championships, 2nd at the West Regional XC Championships and then 4th at the NCAA XC Championships.
And here's a fun fact: Hicks is now the top returner from that national meet.
Yes, a few other men in this top-10 did beat him at the winter national meet, but Hicks is a dramatically different (and better) runner now than he was last year. Despite a minor hiccup during the winter months, Hicks has been consistently elite for the past year across all three season.
Over the last seven months, Hicks posted times of 7:43 (3k), 13:24 (5k) and 27:40 (10k) with an All-American finish in both seasons -- all of which seemed to fall right in line with Hicks’ progression as an endurance-based star.
Hicks feels like one of the safest bets to be in our top-10 rankings. He consistently delivers, has shown that he can win a national title and is almost-guaranteed to earn a top-five national meet finish.
Hicks may not be everyone's pick as the national title pick, but he might be the safest pick.
And for that reason, he's ranked at the very top with the eventual removal of Nur.
*Editor's Note: The Stride Report inquired about Nur's potential to go pro prior to the publication of these rankings. We were told that Nur had not yet decided what his future plans would be and that there was a possibility that he would return. Without knowing when clarity would come, The Stride Report had to make a challenging decision about whether or not to rank Nur. In the end, we opted to keep him ranked, at least for our initial preseason rankings. We felt that it was better to add someone and later take them out instead of omitting them despite there being an off-chance that they could have returned. Nur has since announced that he is going pro and has signed with Nike. As a result, he will be removed from our rankings during our next update.
He may not be the top returning cross country runner based on past results, but there’s little doubt that Nur will be the most dynamic and most potent distance runner in the NCAA should he return and table his professional career for a year.
While he’s had slightly more success on the oval, the grass is where Nur first made his name as an invaluable cog in Northern Arizona’s lineup. In his 2019 debut season, Nur placed 2nd at the George Kyte Classic, 5th at John McNichols, 9th at Nuttycombe and 6th at the Mountain Regional XC Championships before earning a 33rd place run at the national meet, a result that seemed to accurately reflect his solid regular season.
One could maybe argue that Nur's regular season was slightly better, but generally speaking, it’s hard to be upset with an All-American finish from a redshirt freshman.
Nur was again a factor early and often during the 2021 winter cross country season as he placed 7th at the Oklahoma State Invitational and later finishe 5th at the Silver State XC Challenge. He then won both the Battle Born XC Challenge and the BIG Sky XC Championships which led to a 7th place finish at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
With that national meet result, Nur's stock now soared significantly higher. He even came fairly close to his first national title that ensuing spring when he earned bronze at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 10,000 meters with an outstanding mark of 27:42.
Last fall brought even more success as Nur placed 3rd at the Cowboy Jamboree, 4th at Pre-Nationals and 4th at the BIG Sky XC Championships before replicating his 7th place finish at the national meet from the winter postseason.
Still, it was the 2022 track seasons where Nur truly became a household name. He ran marks of 3:36 (1500), 3:55 (mile), 7:40 (3k) and 13:06 (5k) as he won two national titles indoors (3k and 5k), set an NCAA record in the outdoor 5k and qualified for the World Championships at that distance.
After a historic track campaign paired with his established cross country excellency, it seems to us Nur is the obvious choice for TSR #1.
If Nur doesn’t return, well, the title race will not only be more open than it was already set to be (especially with last year’s top-three all graduated), but that title would be more wide-open than it has been in recent memory.