TSR's 2023 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #12 Villanova Wildcats

NOTE: Earlier this summer, The Stride Report reached out to nearly every team that was considered for a possible ranking this summer. While we did receive numerous responses and great clarity, we did not get a 100% response rate. On rare occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.

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Click here to see our "Just Missed" & "Honorable Mention" teams

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The Wildcats were a very pleasant surprise last year. So many of their men had the best cross country seasons of their careers. The youngsters stepped up, the veterans were reliable and some firepower was still present even with their top ace not being at his best.

But a large handful of Villanova's scorers from last fall are now gone, leaving multiple gaps in their projected lineup for the upcoming months.

And yet, with the names who they have coming back, a couple of new additions and their rising youngsters, this BIG East program could end up being just as good in 2023 as they were last fall. It also didn't hurt Villanova that a handful of other top teams around the country have also experienced heavy departures as well.

* * *

After being ranked at TSR #25 in The Stride Report's 2022 preseason team rankings, the Villanova men toed the line at the Paul Short Invite. There, they would face the North Carolina men as well as Utah State, Georgetown, Duke and Providence.

In that race, sophomore Liam Murphy would make an early-season statement by placing 4th overall while Charlie O'Donovan placed 5th, giving this team a strong 1-2 punch. And with Josh Phillips (9th) and Jack Jennings (10th) also cracking the top-10, this team was trouncing the Tar Heels through four runners.

Unfortunately for Villanova, this team didn't come away with the win -- their final scorer, rookie Marco Langon, dropped back to 74th place overall. That performance opened up a massive gap and allowed North Carolina to easily come away with the win.

There was, however, a catch.

Haftu Strintzos, the juggernaut long distance star from the year prior, didn't race for the Villanova men that day. If he had, then the Wildcats wouldn't have just beat UNC, they would have crushed them.

All things considered, it was a great race for the men stationed just outside of Philadelphia.

The Nuttycombe Invite, however, isn't anything like Paul Short other than the incredibly large field size. While the Villanova men were likely riding the high of their early-season performance, they needed to validate that earlier result with another strong effort.

And sure enough, they did exactly that.

Haftu Strintzos returned to the Wildcats' lineup. And although he didn't have his best race ever, he still produced a strong 47th place finish. However, the bigger development was seeing Jennings (50th) and Murphy (51st), two sophomores, finish right behind their low-stick veteran teammate.

With those two men running as well as they did, and O'Donovan producing a very solid 84th place finish of his own, it seemingly didn't matter that Villanova didn't have a true low-stick result from any of their men. And thanks to Langon finishing 112th overall, the Wildcats were able to walk away from Madison, Wisconsin with a fantastic 9th place team finish.

All of that happened while Phillips, the team's third scorer at Paul Short, had an "off" day. And in our eyes, being able to thrive without his scoring was arguably the most impressive part.

Villanova would later venture to the BIG East XC Championships which, truthfully, wasn't a significant challenge for them.

While teams such as Butler, Providence and Georgetown were fringe national qualifying squads, none of them came all that close to Villanova who went 2-3-5-7-10 in the overall results. And with six men in the top-13, there was simply no stopping this squad even if someone did have an "off" day.

After unsurprisingly cruising through the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships, the Villanova men toed the line for their season finale, the NCAA XC Championships.

Everything that they had done throughout the season suggested that this team was due for their best performance yet. The Wildcats had developed their youngsters into high-impact names, they had reliable depth and the firepower was becoming increasingly more present.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to matter on the national stage.

Murphy (92nd) and Jennings (99th) did enough to get by. While it would have been nice to see them 20 to 30 spots higher, it was hard to be upset with their performances. It was a somewhat similar story for Marco Langon, the true freshman who finished 121st.

However, it was the veterans of this team who surprisingly struggled. O'Donovan settled for 130th place while Phillips closed out the scoring in 160th place. Strintzos faded back to 185th place.

In the end, Villanova finished 19th overall in the team standings. It was a tough end to a season which suggested that they were capable of doing so much more.

* * *

You may want to sit down if you're a Villanova fan...I have some tough news for you.

Jack Jennings is gone.

Charlie O'Donovan is gone.

Josh Phillips is gone.

Even Jack Fredian, the team's seventh runner throughout most of last fall, is gone.

There's no way to sugarcoat this: Those are brutal losses. The latter three men are leaving via expired eligibility while the former, somewhat surprisingly, opted to transfer to Tulane. That means only three men, Strintzos, Murphy and Langon, remain from last year's squad.

Not having O'Donovan and Phillips is hard to ignore, but there is theoretically enough scoring help on this team where their departures shouldn't devastate this squad in 2023. However, not having Jennings is a tougher pill to swallow. Not only was he the future of Villanova's distance group (alongside Murphy), but he was already one of the team's best scorers last fall!

There is, however, some good news.

Coach Marcus O'Sullivan and his staff have added a handful of very solid transfers to this team during the offseason. And while those men aren't expected to be quite as potent as Jennings, Phillips and O'Donovan were, they'll still soften those losses a bit.

In any other year, losing those kinds of scorers would send a team like a Villanova tumbling backwards in our rankings. They surely wouldn't be ranked this highly after only placing 19th on the national stage (even if they were better than that).

However, there were a ton of other teams in the NCAA that lost a heavy amount of scoring options from their own lineups. NC State, Syracuse and Washington were all similarly ranked to Villanova last year, but their own depatures feel far more damaging by comparison.

For teams like Harvard, Alabama and Portland who return similar personnel, they didn't necessarily bolster their rosters enough to catch what we think this year's version of the Wildcats could be.

Of course, we'll just have to wait and see if that's the case...

* * *

Despite what you may think about Liam Murphy, it's Haftu Strintzos who is the most important runner on this team going into the 2023 cross country season.

In the fall of 2021, this Aussie distance star was incredible. He ripped off numerous top-three finishes throughout the season before placing 9th on the national stage. Strintzos was a true star who carried massive expectations going into the fall of 2022.

But it was clear that this Villanova ace just wasn't at 100% last fall. He ran well at the BIG East XC Championships, but on pretty much every other stage, he just wasn't himself.

In 2023, we're hoping (and predicting) that Strintzos won't be having those same challenges. He ran a 13:45 PR for 5000 meters this past spring and returned to the outdoor national meet over 10,000 meters back in June. His 10k time was from this past outdoor track season was just two seconds off of his 10k PR from the spring of 2022 when he ran 28:34.

Despite a rough fall campaign, most of the signs that we've seen from Strintzos as of late are that he will be a true low-stick for his team yet again in 2023. He doesn't even need to be a top-10 name like he was in the fall of 2021! If he can crack the top-30, then that would be more than enough towards getting this team back on track.

However, it's also very possible that Liam Murphy will be the main focal star of this program as we enter a new academic year. And after what he did on the track, that's not a ridiculous suggestion to make.

Yes, Murphy was good during the 2022 cross country, maybe even really good, but he wasn't a low-stick or even a lead scorer. That, however, could be changing after seeing him run times of 3:39 (1500), 3:55 (mile), 7:45 (3k) and 13:43 (5k). Throughout the winter and spring months, Murphy was electric, running blistering fast times, consistently improving and showcasing refined tactics that many veterans don't have.

In many instances, he was the most exciting men's distance runner in the NCAA.

We currently have Murphy ranked at TSR #43 in our preseason rankings while Strintzos is listed at TSR #35. And if those two men deliver on the expectations that come with those rankings, then you're looking at a Villanova team that already has better firepower than they did last year.

In fact, those spots could end up being too conservative for both Strintzos and Murphy by the time we reach November.

We then come to Marco Langon, a rising sophomore who was a lot better last fall than some people may realize. Sure, finishes of 112th at Nuttycombe, 13th at the BIG East XC Championships and 121st on the national stage aren't going to blow you away.

But this is also someone who finished 4th at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships and was 19th at the U20 World XC Championships! That latter performance is a very strong result which put him just three spots back of Leo Young.

Even so, you may not be totally convinced about Langon's potential yet. After all, he didn't race (attached) on the track this past winter or spring. However, if you look at his profile on Villanova's roster, then you'll find that he actually ran 3:58 in the mile (outdoors) and 13:47 for 5000 meters (outdoors).

For years, Coach Marcus O'Sullivan has shown us that he can make former high school stars majorly impactful pieces of his team as just underclassmen. He did it with Murphy and Jennings. Now, he is seemingly primed to do it again with Langon -- and those are not the only examples that we have.

* * *

Through three runners, this team doesn't just look good, they look scary good.

There's a very realistic possibility that the Villanova men have three runners cracking the top-60 or the top-70 on the national stage later this fall with two of them being All-Americans. However, it's the rest of this lineup which holds slightly less certainty.

There are three known graduate transfers joining this roster in 2023: Xian Shively (via Cal Poly), Ryan Kredell (via Haverford) and Jamie Moreland (via Haverford).

Admittedly, Moreland is more of a miler rather than a long distance specialist. His personal bests of 1:49 (800) and 4:03 (mile), at least for the Division Three level, were exceptional. However, this is someone who will fit the Wildcats' middle distance ethos on the track. We're not expecting him to play a major role on the grass.

However, Moreland's former (and still current) teammate, Ryan Kredell, is a different story.

This Haverford alum evolved into one of the better Division Three distance runners in the NCAA this past year. Not only did he run 14:02 (5k) and 29:32 (10k), but he also finished 17th at the NCAA D3 XC Championships last fall.

Sure, maybe Kredell isn't going to be the same potent scorer at the D1 level that Charlie O'Donovan was when he was at his best, but he shouldn't crazy far off, either. This is someone who has made significant improvements over the last year and is clearly geared for the longer distances, specifically cross country.

And what if I told you that he may not even be the fourth scorer on this team?

That's because Xian Shively may take that roll.

The former Cal Poly runner was quietly very good during his time with the Mustangs, specifically over the last year. His 25th place finish at the 2022 Joe Piane Invite showed us how much value he held on the grass, even if he wasn't quite that good over the rest of the fall months.

Even so, Shively can be a crucial name for this team who closes out their scoring just as quickly as some of the backend Villanova men did last year. And with personal bests of 3:59 (mile) and 13:58 (5k) from this past year, this is someone who is seemingly trending in a positive direction going into these fall months.

But what gave us enough confidence to place this team at TSR #12 is the depth and support that the Wildcats should be able to get from their youngsters.

* * *

Devon Comber is someone who makes me feel old, mainly because I raced (many strides behind) his brother Casey Comber in high school. Casey is now an accomplished pro runner for Under Armour, but Devon has begun to show signs of promise as well.

The younger Comber brother ran 14:05 for 5000 meters on the outdoor oval this past year. And while that is truthfully the only major highlight of his resume (along with a 4:00 mile PR), it does leave us encouraged about his future.

There are also numerous high-impact recruits joining this team in 2023.

George Andrus, for instance, has run 14:58 for 5000 meters and was 17th at the 2021 Garmin RunningLane XC National Championships. Bailey Habler is a 19-year old Aussie who has run 8:15 for 3000 meters. Kai Mitchell-Reiss is coming from the west coast with an 8:26 (3k) PR. There's also CJ Sullivan who has run 14:31 (5k) and has yet to put his newfound fitness to the test on the grass.

Colin Riley, Nick Sullivan and Brian Theobald are other key names who, for the most part, have had moments of brilliance similar to their already-listed rookie teammates.

In our eyes, this team is going to be at least six names deep in terms of viable varsity lineup options. There is simply too much talent, too much upside and too much proven coaching history for one of these younger runners to not be a contributor this fall.

* * *

We'll admit, we even surprised ourselves when we ranked the Villanova men at TSR #12. And yes, this ranking requires a bit of favorable speculation. There are going to be parts of this lineup that are fairly young and there are going to be others on this team who we are expecting to have improved fitness.

But the trio of Strintzos, Murphy and Langon is not a scoring group that I would be happy about battling throughout the fall months. Each of those men should be noticeably better in 2023 than they were last fall. And if that happens, then the rest of this supporting cast just needs to be good enough for those low-sticks to capitalize on their scoring potency.

If Coach Marcus O'Sullivan continues to develop better-than-expected underclassmen (and he seemingly will), then this team may actually be better this fall than they were 10 months ago -- and that's saying quite a bit.