TSR's 2022 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish

What Coach Sean Carlson built at Notre Dame was beyond incredible.

The Irish-turned-Volunteer distance coach took a once-mediocre distance squad and turned them into a modern day powerhouse, producing numerous superstars, overseeing one of the nation's best cross country teams and landing many of the NCAA's strongest recruiting classes each and every year.

But now Carlson is gone, and so are many of the men who gave this team an elite identity over the last few half decade.

Of course, it would be a mistake to simply write this team off. While many of last year's top scorers are gone, there is still a very strong nucleus of top-tier talent in this program, enough to keep the Fighting Irish in the podium conversation later this fall depending on who you ask.

So buckle up, ladies and gentlemen.

The newest era of distance running is about to begin in South Bend, Indiana.

* * *

All eyes were on the Notre Dame men throughout last fall. The Irish were fresh off of a monster runner-up finish from the NCAA Winter XC Championships back in March. They had six men earn All-American honors in that race and all of them were returning in the fall.

On paper, Notre Dame had the potential to legitimately challenge the Northern Arizona men for the national title in November.

The Irish's first test of the 2021 fall cross country season actually came on their home course. At the Joe Piane Invitational, numerous nationally-ranked teams would toe the line to test their early-season fitness on the flat five-mile course.

However, the Irish opted to field a very small handful of their top men.

Matthew Carmody was the star of the show for Notre Dame. After having a small breakout year in the winter and spring of 2021, the rising distance talent posted a very impressive 4th place result in the loaded field.

That was a very encouraging performance, one that would have made Carmody a true low-stick on 98% teams around the NCAA.

But after Carmody, the scoring stability of this lineup began to erode. No other Notre Dame scorers finished inside the top-50 overall spots. However, the combination of Solomon, Seitzer, Cozean and Kreft closed out the scoring as a collective group, going 54-70-78-80, respectively.

The Irish would finish 11th overall, but this lineup wasn't anything remotely close to their actual varsity group. Carmody, however, showed his team that he belonged in their actual top-seven.

Notre Dame's next stop was Pre-Nationals, a large national-caliber meet hosted in Tallahassee. And although the Irish still didn't have their full top-seven, they did field a good portion of their best varsity lineup.

Dylan Jacobs and Danny Kilrea thrived as expected, providing excellent firepower at the front of this lineup with finishes of 5th and 17th, respectively. Those were strong results, but the Northern Arizona men were able to counter Notre Dame's 1-2 punch fairly easily.

After Jacobs and Kilrea crossed the line, the gaps in their team's top-five began to grow increasingly larger. Winter cross country All-American Andrew Alexander settled for a modest 51st place finish while veteran Anthony Russo finished 57th as well. Cozean closed out the scoring in 73rd place.

The Irish would finish 5th overall in the final results, 30 points ahead of 6th place Texas.

Admittedly, it was an underwhelming performance for a Notre Dame squad that had significantly beefed up their lineup in comparison to what they had at Joe Piane.

Still, this group was without All-American standouts like Yared Nuguse and Josh Methner. Jake Renfree, another winter cross country All-American, simply had a bad showing while Joe Piane star Matthew Carmody didn't toe the line, either.

With three projected varsity runners not toeing the line and a fourth runner simply having an "off" day, it was hard to look into Notre Dame's performance at Pre-Nationals too closely. Coach Carlson, after all, was never too eager to have his men at full strength during the regular season. Historically, his teams had always peaked for the postseason.

Sure enough, Notre Dame thrived at their next meet, the ACC XC Championships.

There, the Irish handled a very deep field with ease.

Jacobs returned to the grass and thrived with a runner-up result. Meanwhile, Kilrea built upon his Pre-Nationals performance to earn a fantastic 4th place finish. Nuguse was the team's third scorer in 5th place, scoring potency that other teams in the field couldn't come close to matching.

With Methner placing 10th and Carmody placing 11th, the Notre Dame men had all five of their scorers cross the finish line before any other team had their third runner finish the race.

Three additional Fighting Irish men, Alexander, Renfree and Russo, earned top-20 finishes of their own. Any of those three men would have been top-four scorers for any other team in that field, including a Wake Forest squad that went on to earn a 10th place finish at the national meet a few weeks later.

After scoring 32 points in one of the deeper conferences in the country, Notre Dame didn't just look good, they looked scary good. Another runner-up result at the national meet was well within their reach and maybe, just maybe, they could give NAU a run for their money.

But after winning the Great Lakes regional title with ease, the Irish had to settle for a much more modest result in their season finale.

At the NCAA XC Championships, Jacobs was once again incredible. His 10th place finish was fantastic, giving the Irish top-10 scoring potency that they most certainly needed if they wanted to compete with the other podium contenders.

However, the rest of this Notre Dame team needed to be closer behind Jacobs if they wanted to have a shot at truly challenging Northern Arizona. But after Danny Kilrea earned a promising 31st place finish, that would be the end of the Irish's individual All-American haul.

Carmody would thrive in his second national meet showing ever, finishing 49th overall, but no other Notre Dame runner finished inside the top-115 overall results. Former winter cross country All-Americans like Nuguse, Methner and Alexander simply had tough days while Renfree didn't even toe the line in Tallahassee.

In the end, the Irish faded to 9th place overall.

And that would be the end of the Carlson era for Notre Dame cross country.

* * *

Where do we even begin?

How do we possibly break down this roster and evaluate it?

Well, I suppose the best idea is to get the bad news out of the way first.

One of the best distance coaches in the country is no longer with this team. And with him, he brought Notre Dame's top scorer, Dylan Jacobs.

Not only that, but former All-American standouts like Yared Nuguse, Danny Kilrea and Andrew Alexander are all gone and won't be returning to South Bend this fall. Backend veterans like Anthony Russo and Zach Kreft are no longer with this team, either.

To put it simply, we just saw one of the biggest mass exoduses of talent from a single program in recent memory. Trying to argue that Notre Dame is still going to be a top-five program this fall is just not possible with so much firepower now gone.

Does that mean that they can't be a top-five team in October and November?

Of course not, they most certainly can return to that tier. But in terms of what this team has right now, trying to make that kind of justification in our summer rankings isn't currently feasible.

And yet, here we are, ranking Notre Dame at TSR #8, one spot better than where they finished at last year's national meet.

When it comes to firepower, the Fighting Irish still have a handful of top names, many of whom were mentioned in our preseason individual rankings. The returning trio of Josh Methner, Matthew Carmody and Jake Renfree could be one of the most lethal 1-2-3 scoring combinations in the country this fall, but only if everyone consistently runs to their full potential.

Methner was fantastic over the last year. While he did struggle at the cross country national meet in November, this is also the same guy who finished 36th at the winter national meet in March of 2021. He went on to run incredible times of 13:32 (5k) and 28:40 (10k) on the track, eventually qualifying for the national meet in the latter.

By pure mistake, Methner was erroneously omitted from our top-50 preseason rankings. Based on his recent track success and his past 36th place cross country All-American honor, Methner was almost definitely robbed of a top-50 ranking.

That, however, may be because Methner's resume on the grass doesn't hold the best consistency. In his two races last fall, Methner's best finish was 10th at the ACC XC Championships. He placed outside of the top-115 at the national meet and didn't race at the regional meet.

His winter cross country season was better, but he was still on the fringe of a top-50 ranking.

But regardless, when Methner is racing at his best, he is undeniably an All-American talent. His consistency will need to improve, but unlike a few front-runners on other top-ranked teams, we don't have to speculate about his talent. We know for a fact that he's one of the better distance runners in the country.

And then there is Matthew Carmody, one of the more pleasantly surprising breakout stars of the past year.

Carmody showed plenty of promise during the 2020-21 academic calendar, but he really broke out in 2022. He ran 13:27 for 5000 meters on the indoor oval and then 28:34 for 10,000 meters at the outdoor national meet last June. He is currently ranked at TSR #39 in our preseason individual rankings.

Despite never being an All-American, Carmody is probably the most reliable low-stick that this team has. Not only has he been a consistent presence near the front of this lineup, but he has gotten even better on the track.

There's a very real chance that he ends this season as a top-25 runner in the NCAA.

We then come to Jake Renfree, a third-year distance runner and former high school star who was extremely difficult to gauge after the fall of 2021.

After earning a shocking 22nd place All-American finish at the NCAA Winter XC Championships, Renfree took to the grass with high expectations placed upon his shoulders. However, when he toed the line last fall, he didn't seem to have his fastball.

Renfree was 161st at Pre-Nationals, 16th at the ACC XC Championships and 46th in the Great Lakes region. He didn't toe the line for the national meet.

The once-young Notre Dame talent did rally in the spring to run a 13:58 personal best for 5000 meters, but his All-American honor from March of 2021 seems like an isolated result.

This third-year sophomore was listed in the "Just Missed" section for our preseason individual rankings, but that was largely based on his lone All-American finish. If he can somehow replicate that elite fitness in 2022 on a more consistent basis, then Notre Dame will (probably) have a top-five scoring trio in the country.

* * *

Now for the rest of this lineup.

Incoming graduate transfer Kevin Berry, a breakout distance runner with Princeton last year, is expected to be the fourth runner in Notre Dame's lineup this year.

Last fall, Berry made promising improvements, finishing 11th at Paul Short, 41st at Pre-Nationals, 3rd at the Ivy League XC Championships and 11th at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships. He did, however, struggle quite a bit at the national meet.

Those results were encouraging to see, but what Berry did on the track is what truly put him on our radar. The Tiger veteran ran 7:56 (3k), 13:37 (5k), 28:55 (10k) and 8:58 (steeple) between the winter and spring months.

Those are outstanding upper-echelon marks. In fact, one could argue that with those personal bests, Berry could be even better in 2022 than he was last fall. That's why we have him listed as an "Honorable Mention" in our preseason individual rankings.

But even if Berry doesn't improve and simply replicates the same caliber of last year's results (minus the national meet), then this incoming veteran should be the perfect fourth scorer for Notre Dame.

And then there's everyone else.

Trying to figure out the fifth scoring spot in this lineup isn't an easy task. On paper, there are multiple men who could fill that role for numerous reasons. In fact, there's a good chance that we don't see the same fifth scorer on this team for more than two meets.

Returners such as Robbie Cozean, Carter Solomon and Carter Cheeseman are all key names to watch. These former high school stars hold elite potential and have shown scattered glimpses of scoring potential throughout the last few seasons.

Cozean, for example, was 73rd at Pre-Nationals in his first collegiate cross country season. Solomon, meanwhile, ran 13:52 for 5000 meters this past spring. And then there's Cheeseman, a guy with a limited college resume who has still run 8:07 (3k) and 14:13 (5k).

One of these men is due for a breakout season, we're just not sure who it will be or when it will happen. But if just one of these men deliver on their full potential, then maybe this fifth and final scoring spot won't be as much of a concern after all.

Heck, we haven't even mentioned Tom Seitzer yet!

Not only did this Missouri native emerge as a scorer in early-season meets like Joe Piane and Pre-Nationals, but he also ran 8:42 in the steeplechase this past spring, ultimately qualifying for the outdoor national meet.

If Seitzer's steeplechase success is any indication, then he'll absolutely be a top-seven contributor this fall. In fact, he might be the best candidate for that fifth scoring spot if his steeplechase prowess is as transferrable to the grass as we think it is.

It's a very similar story for Josh Schumacher, the long-time Stanford veteran who is joining the Irish as a graduate transfer.

Despite being a former high school star, Schumacher had a fairly quiet racing career with the Cardinal. But the veteran began to show extremely encouraging signs of progress this past spring, running 13:49 for 5000 meters.

Historically, cross country has been Schumacher's best season. If he can carry over his exciting momentum from the oval to the grass later this fall, then he could be one of the biggest sleeper names in the country come October and November.

Of course, we can't end this article without talking about the incoming freshmen -- and there's a lot of them.

Ever since coming to Notre Dame, Sean Carlson has been known as one of best recruiters of distance talent in the NCAA. And luckily for the Irish, he left his former team prepared for the future with one of the best incoming rookie classes he's ever assembled.

And that's extremely high praise when you look at some of the past recruiting classes he's brought in.

Just like the Stanford women, there are too many accomplished recruits in this Notre Dame freshman class to offer paragraphs upon paragraphs of analysis for every single name.

We do, however, have some group-wide stats to offer.

The incoming Irish rookies include Daelen Ackley (MO), Ethan Coleman (WA), Sam Rich (SC), CJ Singleton (PA), Gabe Hinrichs (INE), Izaiah Steury (IN) and John Schuler (OR).

Between those seven freshmen, six of them have run under 9:00 for 3200 meters. Ethan Coleman has run 8:49 for 3200 meters and Steury has run 8:08 for 3000 meters, a time that converts to 8:43 for 3200 meters.

Over 5000 meters, whether it be on the track or during cross country, five these seven freshmen have run 15:00 or faster. Of those five men, four of them have run 14:47 or faster.

This level of talent is almost overwhelming for one freshman class. As far as depth is concerned, this is probably the deepest group of high school stars that Carlson has ever recruited.

In our eyes, Steury has the best chance of being a top-seven runner this fall, especially after running 8:08 for 3000 meters. But honestly, most of these men are talented enough to be varsity contributors if they acclimate to the collegiate environment faster (and more effectively) than their peers.

* * *

Putting the Notre Dame men at TSR #8 feels like a very fair middle ground when looking at this team's ceiling and their floor going into the 2022 cross country season.

They lose numerous All-American superstars, but still have three men who could realistically be All-Americans this fall. Those three men have shown inconsistency at times, but at least we know that they have actually produced top-tier results before.

It's not clear who the next few men in this lineup will be, but at least Notre Dame has plenty of options, including an elite-caliber recruiting class.

Carlson's departure is brutal, but Chris Neal is a solid coaching hire and Matt Sparks is a veteran coach who may be assisting with the men's team in addition to the women's group.

Notre Dame has some work to do if they want to quickly recover from their countless roster casualties. Still, this team is too talented to not be in our top-10.

And we have a feeling that the Fighting Irish would agree.