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TSR's 2023 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Rankings (Men): #4 Stanford Cardinal
- Ben Weisel
- Aug 30, 2023
- 9 min read
Written by Ben Weisel, additional commentary & edits by Garrett Zatlin
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.
Here at The Stride Report, we take pride in our research and our ability to formulate opinions on the world of NCAA distance running better than anyone. We pour countless hours towards this great sport which enables me to truly say that our rankings are the best and most complete lists that you will find anywhere.
But what does that have to do with Stanford?
It’s been a while since I’ve written an article, so bear with me, but Stanford...oh Stanford. It's a team that I just couldn't stay away from writing about. We’ve made the "Charlie Brown kicking the football" joke ad nauseam, so no need to go into that again. But when it came to the conclusion of the 2022 cross country season, we found ourselves in a similar spot as before: impressed by their talent, but wanting more.
Last summer, we did not make the same mistake of ranking Stanford at TSR #1 over Northern Arizona like we had previously, but by the time November rolled around, we were convinced (for good reason) that Stanford would win the NCAA title.
But once again, we were wrong.
And yet, before Charles Hicks announced that he was turning pro earlier this summer, I was almost ready to do this whole thing over again where I pick Stanford as my preseason favorite. That’s how tantalizing their talent is.
However, with Hicks no longer on this team and a handful other key departures hurting this program, this is not the full-strength 2023 squad that the Cardinal men could have had.
All of this to say, we believe that we have ranked Stanford at the perfect spot going into this fall. Or at the very least, we think it's the most fair spot. But as history has shown us, that certainly does not guarantee that we will be right.
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The men of Palo Alto started the 2022 cross country season knowing that they had the best scoring trio in the country. All they needed to do to win their first national title since 2003 was develop two or three runners who, on their best days, could flirt with top-40 or top-50 at the NCAA XC Championships.
For the most part, the season started spectacularly. Without Ky Robinson at the Cowboy Jamboree, Stanford finished 2nd overall to BYU. Charles Hicks (2nd) was incredible as expected and Cole Sprout (4th) was (unsurprisingly) an elite low-stick.
The biggest takeaway from the meet, however, was the emergence of Robert DiDonato and, to a lesser extent, Thomas Boyden, as legitimate scoring options.
For Boyden, his 16th place finish was not a shock, but it was still much better than what his preseason "Honorable Mention" ranking indicated. Conversely, it was very surprising to see someone (DiDonato) whose best 10k PR was 29:36 and who had never factored into the Cardinal’s cross country lineup to finish 21st.
DiDonato’s emergence was a great sign for Stanford as he gave them yet another credible option behind their top trio of Charles Hicks, Ky Robinson and Cole Sprout. Beating much more established names like Shay McEvoy, Thomas Vanoppen and Haftu Knight showed us that he had taken a huge step forward in his fitness and was ready to compete with the nation’s best.
Stanford's fifth runner, Nolan Topper, was back in 59th place and admittedly, that wasn't ideal. Even so, it was clear that this team didn't have all of their lineup options for that meet.
Instead, the real indication that Stanford was ready to end their title drought came at the Nuttycombe Invitational where they dominated title contenders such as BYU and NAU, beating them by 25 and 91 point margins, respectively.
Ky Robinson, with a furious closing kick, took home the individual title and cemented his place as a national title contender while Hicks showed us that he was ready to win an NCAA title as well with his 3rd place run.
Cole Sprout held his side of the bargain by crossing the line in 7th place, but it was Devin Hart and Meika Beaudoin-Rousseau’s performances that helped the Cardinal lock down the overall win. After a sub-par run at Cowboy Jamboree, Hart ran with a vengeance in Madison, Wisconsin to finish an incredible 13th overall against the best men that the country could offer.
Stanford no longer had a top trio, but now had the quickest quartet in the NCAA if Hart could continue running like that.
Meanwhile, Beaudoin-Rousseau had shown flashes of his exciting potential in 2021. His 30th place finish at Nuttycombe, while certainly better than what we expected, was the result that we had been waiting to see from this veteran for the last few seasons.
Despite the outstanding team victory, Stanford’s backend runners, Boyden and DiDonato, had "off" days. And with BYU missing two of their top men, the Cardinal weren't totally in the clear when it came to contending for NCAA gold in November.
Of course, at the PAC-12 XC Championships, we really saw the full power of Stanford's
lineup. Hicks took home the individual title while Sprout finished 3rd. Stanford’s trio of
Beaudoin-Rousseau, Robinson and Boyden crossed the line in 5th, 6th, and 7th place, respectively, to easily clinch the team title.
Meanwhile, Hart and DiDonato had strong performances, finishing 10th and 19th, respectively, which further showcased the immense depth of Cardinal's roster.
It was at this point that we truly believed that the NCAA title was Stanford’s to lose.
After a solid run at the West Regional XC Championships, the team toed the line in Stillwater, Oklahoma. However, despite displaying improved depth to go along with their top-end firepower throughout the year, the pieces of this team did not come together at NCAA XC Championships.
Instead, the men from Palo Alto simply underwhelmed.
Charles Hicks ran a beautiful race to take home the individual title while Ky Robinson held his own with a strong, but slightly underwhelming, 10th place finish. Outside of Cole Sprout, who was dealing with an injury, the rest of Stanford's varsity group didn't have poor races, but they were certainly not at their best.
Devin Hart recorded a decent 51st place finish while Beaudoin-Rousseau and Boyden finished with respectable placements of 71st and 75th, respectively. Altogether, those results kept the Stanford men on the podium, but it was at the bottom (4th) instead of at the top like we expected them to be.
* * *
As I said at the top, Stanford was originally set to return the core of their 2022 lineup that made them one of the more dominant regular season teams we had seen in recent years. While their NCAA performance was a little lackluster, there was no denying that the talent they had was the best in the country.
All of that would have made ranking the Cardinal extraordinarily difficult in 2023.
But with the announcement that Charles Hicks was going pro with Nike and Devin Hart was transferring to Texas, the team effectively lost their top scorer as well as a valuable backend runner who, at his best, was an All-American-caliber runner.
Those losses were in addition to the expected departure of veteran Meika Beaudoin-Rousseau who graduated.
And no matter which way you slice it, those are challenging losses.
* * *
With both their firepower and depth dented, Stanford will rely even more heavily on the dynamic duo of Ky Robinson and Cole Sprout this fall.
The former (Robinson), after his two titles at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, looks to be one of the top contenders to take home the individual title this cross country season. The latter (Sprout) has dealt with several injuries which has prevented him from being in top form. Stanford will need him to be at his best to remain in podium contention.
Even so, when this duo is firing on all cylinders, the Stanford men should still be able to contend at the very top of the national meet. As long as Robinson and Sprout are contending for top-10 finishes on that stage, then the Cardinal's ability to battle for an NCAA title is largely going to hinge on the success of their next three men, not their top-two.
When it comes to Stanford's primary superstars, there isn't much more to talk about. Keeping Sprout healthy for the entirety of the season will be a massive goal, but as long as that happens, then we should largely know what to expect from this duo.
We now turn our attention to Thomas Boyden and Robert DiDonato, two runners who return to this program and will give the Cardinal some veteran stability in the middle of their lineup. If either man can take a step forward and consistently run like they sporadically showed last year, then they could both be All-Americans by the end of the season.
The issue, however, is just that: We don't always know what we're going to get out of Boyden and/or DiDonato.
Yes, Boyden is listed at TSR #45 in our preseason cross country individual rankings and yes, he did finish 16th at the Cowboy Jamboree and 7th at the PAC-12 XC Championships last fall. At his best, he could be a low-stick for certain teams listed in our rankings.
But when you factor in his less-exciting results on larger stages and his lack of racing since January, then it's hard to know for sure exactly what we should expect from Boyden this fall.
As for DiDonato, last year may have been more of an acclimation period for someone who was still fairly young and inexperienced. But as we saw at the Cowboy Jamboree (where he placed 21st), this guy could be extremely important to the Stanford men this fall.
We still need to see more seasonal consistency from this Pennsylvania native. He has incredible raw talent, and his recent 13:44 (5k) PR from late March is encouraging, but greater reliability this fall would put us at ease when it comes to the depth of this program.
* * *
After those four men, there are plenty of question marks as to who will fill out the last three spots in their lineup.
Our best guess is that two of those spots will be filled by none other than the Young twins, Lex and Leo. Two of the best high school runners that we have ever seen both have the potential of being instant impact scorers for Stanford despite true freshmen rarely doing so.
Let’s start with Leo whose performance at the 2023 U20 USATF National XC Championships showed us that he can run over the 8k distance with some of the best underclassmen in the country. The incoming rookie took home the win in that above race and then followed that up with a 16th place showing at the U20 World XC Championships.
While he has plenty of accolades on the state level and on the track, those two runs are the best indicators that Leo is ready to make an immediate impact this fall.
Meanwhile, Lex finished a respectable 12th at the 2023 USATF U20 National XC Championships, although he is more proven on the track where he owns PRs of 3:59 (1600), 7:57 (3k) and 13:34.96 (5k), the latter of which is the high school national record.
Lex comes into our preseason individual cross country rankings listed at TSR #41, but it's hard to know for sure exactly how good he'll be. His twin brother was stronger on the grass last fall, but that 5k PR is stunning and it's hard to imagine the fastest American high school 5k runner ever not being a top-50 name in the NCAA this fall.
While both men will surely have great careers and lead the next chapter of Cardinal distance running, it is notoriously difficult to make an immediate (and consistent) impact in the first semester of a collegiate career.
And yet, if anyone could, it's these two young men (no pun intended). In our eyes, if Stanford is going to win the national title, it'll be because their two first-year stars became All-Americans.
Thankfully, this roster also has three members from the Class of 2022 who have great high school pedigree and will be looking to find their spot in Stanford's lineup this year.
Callum Sherry, Gavin Sherry and Zane Bergen had decent track seasons this past year, but it was only Bergen who ran on the grass last year. He was 13th in the "B" race at the Nuttycombe Invitational and 42nd at the PAC-12 XC Championships. While he showed some middle distance chops on the outdoor oval, he will look to showcase his abilities in the longer distance later this fall.
For the Sherry brothers, they showed some flashes of subtle promise this past spring, but with no results in cross country, we will have to see how they can impact the team in their second year in Palo Alto.
As DiDonato showed, it's possible to take a big step forward in your sophomore season.
One last name to keep an eye on for the final varsity slot of this lineup is Evan Burke. He placed 191st at the NCAA XC Championships last year. He ran sparingly during the winter and spring track seasons, but he did record times of 7:53 (3k) and 13:38 (5k). If he can run at top form, then he is someone who could turn into an x-factor for this year’s team.
* * *
It is hard to see Stanford having the same ceiling that they have had in years past, but this is still a very good team that will deservedly have podium expectations. Their top duo has the potential of being the best in the country and they have talent in excess throughout their roster.
In the end, this program simply doesn't have much margin for error. Robinson and Sprout must be at the top their game to give this group the requisite firepower up front. Meanwhile, Boyden and DiDonato need to be more consistent top-60 type of runners.
All of that can happen, but the Cardinal’s season will likely be determined by how quickly the Young twins assimilate to the NCAA. If they can translate their high school success to the collegiate scene quickly, then all of the sudden, the Stanford men might have six runners with legitimate All-American potential.
Finishing anywhere between 3rd and 6th place at the national meet would not come as a surprise for this year’s Stanford team and that's why we feel like a TSR #4 ranking is an appropriate spot for them.
