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TSR's 2023 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #18 Alabama Crimson Tide
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 16, 2023
- 6 min read
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.
Ah yes, the Alabama men. A team that has left us so conflicted in recent years. This is a group that features numerous elite stars who boast overwhelming firepower, but depth and their margin for error has been extremely minimal.
In 2023, none of those aspects, both the good and the bad, are expected to be any different than they were in 2022.
This team is undeniably talented enough to be a top-20 program, and the math that we utilized last year suggests that they are closer to the top-15. But how this team performs in the postseason, specifically on the national stage, will ultimately be the driving force behind where they are listed in our final rankings, regardless of how their regular season plays out.
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The first legitimate test of Alabama's 2022 cross country season came at the Joe Piane Invitational. The Notre Dame-hosted meet featured a solid mix of national-caliber teams which gave the Crimson Tide men a variety of different lineup structures to deal with.
That, however, didn't appear to faze the Crimson Tide too much. As expected, Alabama's top trio was brilliant. The combination of Victor Kiprop, Eliud Kipsang and Hillary Cheruiyot offered overwhelming scoring potency by going 1-3-6 in the overall results.
Through three runners, no other distance program came within 20 points of the Alabama men. They were simply too talented.
Of course, as had been the case for the last few years, the limited depth of the Crimson Tide's cross country squad could only take this team so far. With their final two scorers placing 54th and 62nd overall, the men from Tuscaloosa had to settle for a 3rd place team finish.
But truthfully, that was still a solid result. Losses to Notre Dame and Tennessee were nothing to be disappointed about. And with the Volunteers sitting just 22 points away, a larger invitational (like the national meet) could end up producing a different outcome.
However, the Joe Piane Invitational was the last big-time regular season meet that we would see the Crimson Tide men contest. They later ventured to the SEC XC Championships where they faced off against Tennessee as well as Arkansas and Ole Miss.
And what was supposed to be a two-team fight turned into a four-squad brawl.
Alabama yet again had the better scoring trio with Kiprop, Cheruiyot and Kipsang going 1-4-7 in the overall results. However, the low-stick potency of both Tennessee didn't offer much leeway and, surprisingly, neither did Ole Miss.
In a race that was tighter than expected through three runners, you would have thought that the Crimson Tide's lack of depth would hurt them.
But instead, that was what ultimately saved them.
Texas A&M graduate transfer Brady Grant had the race of his life to place 19th overall while the same could be said about Toledo graduate transfer, Jacob Harris, who placed 28th. That, in turn, led to the Alabama men pulling off an upset win over Tennessee and snagging the SEC team title.
Unfortunately for the men in red and white, the magic would begin to fade from there.
At the South Regional XC Championships, Crimson Tide men faded to 3rd place overall after Eliud Kipsang took an early spill and settled for 28th place. The Alabama men would still snag an at-large bid to the national meet, but Stillwater, Oklahoma didn't treat them team well, either.
At the NCAA XC Championships, the Crimson Tide men simply weren't good.
Kiprop, who was a dark horse pick to win the individual national title, dropped back to 66th place. Kipsang also struggled and settled for 98th place. Cheruiyot fell way off the main group and outside of the top-200. In fact, Jacob Wiggers was the only other Alabama runner to finish inside the top-200 with a 198th place finish.
To be blunt, it was an ugly race for the Crimson Tide. They ended their season with a 27th place finish on the national stage.
* * *
This is not going to be a crazy-long article, mainly because it doesn't need to be.
The scoring structure of this group is exactly what you saw last year. At their absolute best, this group has an elite top-three and a backend that, on occasion, can likely hold their own. And with Brady Grant set to be the only departure from last year's SEC Championship lineup, the Crimson Tide men are essentially running it back as we approach the fall months.
The entirety of Alabama's scoring runs through Victor Kiprop (TSR #11), Hillary Cheruiyot (TSR #44) and Eliud Kipsang (TSR #47). In fact, if you use their preseason rankings for where they would finish at this year's national meet, and remove any individuals from teams that we don't believe will qualify, then this trio would theoretically score somewhere around 98 points.
If you take the lowest point totals possible that someone could have scored at last year's national meet (214 points and 215 points), and had Alabama's last two scorers finish there, then the Crimson Tide's final point total would be 527 points.
That would have been enough for 21st place at last year's national meet. So even when four of their top-seven runners have the worst races that are mathematically possible, this team is still scaring the top-20.
Of course, we did the exact same exercise for this team last year and got a similar result. But what we failed to emphasize (enough) is that Kiprop, Cheruiyot and Kipsang can't have poor races. Any of them.
If just one of them falters, then this team will struggle. And if they all struggle like they did at last year's national meet, then the end result is...well, bad.
Really bad.
But we also can't focus on one race. That goes against everything that we have ever preached about in our coverage.
That's why we should also review the efforts that we saw from the Crimson Tide men at the Joe Piane XC Invitational and the SEC XC Championships -- those were fantastic runs. Those meets also showcased how insanely valuable a three-headed scoring monster like Kiprop, Cheruiyot and Kipsang can be.
Not only that, but the depth of this team clearly improved last year and they may be even better in 2023! Or at the very least, they'll be (slightly) more reliable.
Brady Grant and Jacob Harris were the real heroes of this team on the conference stage. They're essentially the reasons why the Crimson Tide won the SEC title. But with Grant now gone, Harris will need to, a) replicate his conference meet performance on a far more consistent basis, and b) build upon that result.
Luckily, all of the backend pressure won't be on just him.
There are a few key names coming in (or coming back) to offer greater scoring support for the Alabama men in the coming months.
Carson Burian has run 8:57 in the steeplechase, but didn't compete last fall and was limited on the oval this past winter and spring. Joel Gardner is a top JUCO talent who has run 14:08 for 5000 meters, but his cross country results don't match the caliber of that mark. Charlie Rogers is an incoming Australian who has run 8:18 for 3000 meters, but how will that translate to the 8k and 10k distances on the grass?
The depth of this team is set to be just as strong in 2023 as it was last year. And in our eyes, that means more performances like what we saw at the SEC XC Championships could be on the horizon.
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National meet success (which is not to be confused with postseason success) has eluded both the team and individual sides of Alabama's distance group over the last few years across all three seasons.
Simply put, the men on this roster have to have their best performances on the stage that matters the most, the NCAA XC Championships.
If they do, then the math in a best-case racing scenario suggests that Alabama is closer to the top-15 portion of our rankings -- and the 2017 version of this program proved that a national meet result like that is plenty realistic with this exact lineup structure.
A TSR #18 ranking feels like a fair compromise between the very extreme ends of results that the Crimson Tide men could find themselves at. That, however, shouldn't take away from the fact that you won't find a more entertaining and exciting team as Alabama in this range of our rankings.
