TSR's 2022 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #16 North Carolina Tar Heels

Few teams in the NCAA have been more fun to talk about than the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Ever since the introduction of Coach Chris Miltenberg in 2019, the former Stanford coach has completely revamped this program. On both the men's and women's sides, the Tar Heels have evolved from being a modest program in the middle of the ACC to a true national-caliber contender.

But after years of elite-level recruiting classes and promising developments, 2022 will be the year where we expect this still-young UNC group to take the next step upwards.

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Last fall, all eyes were on UNC. Not just because of their exciting young core, but because of their superstar freshman, Parker Wolfe.

The Tar Heels' first true test of the season came at Paul Short where they faced the likes of Villanova, Princeton and Utah State -- three teams that had all proven to be nationally competitive in recent seasons.

In that race, true freshman Parker Wolfe would immediately translate his high school success to the collegiate level, earning a huge 5th place finish to lead his team. Not far behind him was Michigan graduate transfer and teammate Jack Aho, a two-time All-American who finished 8th overall. John Tatter placed 10th, giving UNC three men in the top-10.

With second-year freshman Will Coogan placing 14th and current veteran Marshall Williamson placing 19th, the Tar Heels appeared to have a fairly balanced lineup. While their scoring five certainly held gaps, the UNC men did just enough to earn the win...but not by much.

Villanova sat behind the Tar Heels by just one point, 56 to 57.

In the end, it was UNC's ability to close out their scoring five faster than the Wildcats that ultimately gave them an edge.

Two weeks later, Nuttycombe would be the next challenge for North Carolina, a meet that was far greater in size and in competition level. How would a fairly young team respond to the mass field of talent in front of them? How would they handle their major test since the pandemic?

For the most part, not well.

Parker Wolfe continued to hold his own, placing 24th overall and giving North Carolina a respectable front-runner. Aho and Tatter also recorded solid results, placing 76th and 86th, respectively.

Through three runners, UNC was far from exciting, but they were still holding strong and were fending off any excessive scoring.

However, from there, gaps began to form. The final scorers placed 126th and 133rd overall, inflating a team score that had limited firepower to begin with. And in the end, the Tar Heels had to settle for a less-than-ideal 18th place team finish.

Still, there were a few silver linings.

Freshman Parker Wolfe seemed to do well in a larger field, their top-three scorers appeared to be fairly stable and the team's final two scorers weren't so far back that the gap was impossible to fix.

Fast forward to the ACC XC Championships and the North Carolina seemed to perform exactly how we thought they would.

Wolfe (7th) and Aho (9th) had their best races of the season up to that point, giving UNC excellent scoring potency. But from there, the gaps were significant.

Second-year talent Patrick Anderson was the team's third scorer in 26th place while the final scorers placed 35th and 36th overall.

Despite the depth behind Wolfe and Aho still needing to improve, UNC was able to salvage a 4th place team finish. They were just six points behind Wake Forest and a comfortable 24 points ahead of Florida State.

All things considered, it was actually a fairly decent team result.

The North Carolina men would later venture to the Southeast Regional XC Championships, replicating results that were somewhat similar to their ACC performances. In fact, none of the Tar Heels' top-five scorers finished more than five spots out from their conference meet finish.

In the end, UNC would tally 99 points, well behind Wake Forest and Furman.

As a result, the Tar Heels were at the mercy of the Kolas calculator.

Luckily, North Carolina would get a bid to the national meet, being one of the final five teams advancing to Tallahassee.

Once they reached the national meet, the Wolfe-led UNC program had what was arguably their best race of the season.

Wolfe landed a huge 28th place All-American finish while Aho kept things steady at the front of the lineup with an 89th place finish. Patrick Anderson was solid with a 107th place finish and the final two scorers still ended their race in the top-165 overall places.

In the end, UNC had a lineup without too much backend scoring and a true high-octane low-stick. And despite being the 26th team to qualify for the national meet, the Tar Heels concluded their season with a highly encouraging 18th place finish.

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There are likely a lot of people who will see this ranking and start a riot that the Tar Heels aren't ranked higher -- and honestly, we kinda get it.

This may be one of the five most exciting teams in the country this year. They have a near-endless army of high school megastars, an individual standout in Parker Wolfe, an iconic distance coach and promising improvements with each passing season.

What's not to like?

But if you look at last year's results, it's clear that there is still plenty of work to do in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The Tar Heels were working with very limited depth in 2021, they are losing a very reliable secondary scorer in Jack Aho and despite one year passing, this team is still super young.

And if an 18th place finish at the 2021 cross country national meet was the best result of the fall season, then placing North Carolina at TSR #16 in our rankings seems fair.

The good news, however, is that this team returns six of their top-seven from the national meet, brings in another outstanding recruiting class and even adds two highly underrated transfers with excellent upside.

The incoming graduate transfers of Connor Lane (formerly of Stanford) and Ben Fleming (formerly of Virginia Tech) could be game-changing for UNC this fall.

Lane, a former Stanford athlete of Miltenberg's, is reuniting with his coach and is bringing his 13:42 (5k) personal best with him. On paper, the distance veteran brings tremendous value to Chapel Hill this fall...except he has almost no cross country experience to speak of.

For whatever reason, Lane has rarely toed the line on the grass. In fact, according to Stanford's roster (his TFFRS link is currently broken), he hasn't competed AT ALL since the winter of 2020.

We have no idea what to expect from Lane this season. However, if his 13:42 mark can be replicated and then translated to the grass, then Lane could end up as a legitimate top-five scorer for this team in 2022.

Then we have Ben Fleming, the former Virginia Tech standout own owns a dynamic resume. His marks of 3:59 (mile), 7:49 (3k flat-track converted), 13:57 (5k) and 8:31 (steeple) standout amongst most of the transfers in the NCAA this summer. His times even lead us to believe that he could be much better on the grass this fall compared to 2021.

And if that were to happen, then Fleming could potentially fill the hole left behind Jack Aho.

Fleming finished 25th at the ACC XC Championships, a result that would have made him the third scorer for the Tar Heels that day. In fact, if you put put him into the 2021 ACC results as a UNC runner, then Coach Miltenberg's squad would have taken down a strong Wake Forest team by a few points.

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As we look at this year's returners, Wolfe stands out as the obvious best name on this team. There's admittedly not a whole lot to talk about with him, but he's arguably one of the more valuable front-runners in the NCAA this season.

That's because there is still room for him to improve in some larger fields, meaning that he probably has another 10 to 15 points in him that he can drop.

However, when it comes to the rest of this lineup, that's where the greatest uncertainty lies.

This group is incredibly deep and they have numerous lineup options. But trying to figure out the order of these men and how good they'll be is admittedly a challenge when crafting these rankings.

Patrick Anderson, for instance, was a star in high school and has proven to be a fairly effective scorer in his first two years as a collegiate. He was 26th at the ACC XC Championships last fall and ended up running huge marks of 13:37 (5k) and 28:54 (10k) this past fall.

That 5k PR is a big deal, especially if it fully translates to the grass.

We have every reason to believe that Anderson can be better than last year. Of course, that's just speculation. While we have no reason to doubt Anderson's abilities, we still need to see him actually deliver on that cross country potential.

Other guys like John Tatter (13:40 for 5k), Will Coogan (13:56 for 5k), Jesse Hunt (3:39 for 1500 meters), Marshall Williamson (8:47 for 3k steeple) and Ethan Strand (4:01 mile) have all shown flashes of promise on the grass, Tatter especially.

But for as good as Tatter was at times, his season 2021 cross country ended after the ACC XC Championships when he faltered to 68th at the national meet. That was surprising to see, especially when you remember that this guy was a top-three scorer at both Paul Short and Nuttycombe last fall.

The rest of these returners are simply too talented to not step up and close the scoring gaps from last year's lineup. Their success on the track was very encouraging and the youth-driven upside of guys like Strand and Coogan is hard to look past.

Heck, we haven't even mentioned Class of 2021 high school superstars like Judson Greer, Sully Shelton, Colton Sands and Crawford Hope.

Greer is the main name who we'll be watching this fall. He hasn't toed the line for UNC since joining the team, but with personal bests 8:49 (3200) and 14:34 (5k XC), the Texas native could be a sudden breakout star in 2022...if he runs.

Don't forget, Greer was someone who finished 26th at the 2019 NXN Championships and then came back a week later to place 5th at the Foot Locker XC National Championships. He would go on to win the Texas State XC Championships as well as the XC Town USA Meet of Champions during the pandemic-altered 2020 season.

Of course, we can't end this article without talking about North Carolina's top-tier recruiting class, something that we've grown accustomed to seeing each and ever year.

While this year's distance-centric recruiting class may not be quite as top-heavy as the Tar Heels from the Class of 2021, it's arguably just as deep.

Gitch Hayes has run 4:05 in the mile, 8:59 for 3200 meters and was 17th at the 2021 Eastbay XC National Championships.

Aiden Neal has run 4:07 in the mile, 8:36 for 3000 meters and was 7th at the 2021 NXR Southeast Regional XC Championships.

Will Soule has run 9:07 for 3200 meters and won the North Carolina State XC Championships last fall.

Walker St. John may be the best recruit in this entire class with personal bests of 4:05 for 1600 meters and 14:30 for 5000 meters on the track. He also ran 14:42 on the grass en route to the 2020 Texas state cross country title and then won the title again in 2021.

Luke Wiley has run 8:31 for 3000 meters, 9:01 for 3200 meters and 14:48 for 5000 meters on the grass.

Dylan Look is more of a track specialist, but has run 1:52 for 800 meters.

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When you put the pieces of this puzzle together, one has to believe that North Carolina will be better in 2022 compared to last fall. There is simply too much upside, too many returners, too many transfers, too many improvements and too high of expectations for UNC not to deliver big results over the next few months.

But remember, placing 18th at the national meet was arguably their best result of the 2021 season. And the only teams that they beat throughout the regular season all fell behind the Tar Heels at the national meet.

Depth was also a challenge for this team last fall and removing Aho from this lineup in 2022 leaves the Tar Heels with only one proven low-stick (on the grass).

Ranking the men from Chapel Hill is a delicate balancing game where we reward their unreal upside, but acknowledge the challenges that they faced last fall.

And although this ranking seems fair, we're not sure if it's right -- those are two different things.

Because there may not be a single team in the NCAA with the amount of upside that the North Carolina men hold going into the 2022 cross country season.

And that's a scary thing to think about if you have to toe the line next to them this fall.