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TSR's 2024 Preseason D1 XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Men): #7 Alabama Crimson Tide
- Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
- Aug 27, 2024
- 7 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 certain occasions, we are referencing TFFRS in order to talk about returners and athletes who are out of eligibility.
Whether you like it or not, the NCAA landscape is rapidly changing.
Scholarship limits are being altered, athletes can profit off of their likeness and traditional powerhouses are going through significant coaching changes.
All of those aspects (and more) affect recruiting heavily, and we're beginning to see that with more and more schools going overseas to add top-tier distance runners to their teams.
But Alabama, along with a small crop of schools, have been ahead of the curve for a while. Few distance programs have been more effective than the Crimson Tide when it comes to pursuing aerobic-centric standouts from Africa.
Of course, it's one thing to recruit well, but it's an entirely different challenge to properly develop and capitalize on an individual's talent. And thankfully for Alabama, they have largely been great in that area, too -- and that's important given this year's newcomers.
This year's group of Alabama runners will once again feature a handful of strength-based distance stars with absurdly high ceilings and tons of firepower. And while limited depth may remain as a point of emphasis, that may not matter if the Crimson Tide's top-four can deliver on their unreal upside and potential.
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Truthfully, the only real challenge that the Alabama men and women had before the postseason last fall was the Joe Piane Invitational. The Notre Dame-hosted meet featured plenty of strong programs such as the Fighting Irish themselves, Florida State, Montana State, Furman, NC State, Michigan State and more.
Unsurprisingly, Hillary Cheruiyot (2nd) and Victor Kiprop (3rd) crossed the finish line (somewhat) together, giving their team a lethal 1-2 punch. Eliud Kipsang (25th), who was expected to be the team's third low-stick, had a bit of an "off" day and faded back. Even so, this team still looked fairly strong through three scorers.
Jacob Harris (39th) and Carson Burian (45th) closed out the Crimson Tide's scoring roughly as fast as we expected them to. And while the backend of this squad did see significant gaps open up, Alabama was still able to salvage a 3rd place result. That performance, however, would end up yielding zero Kolas points as both NC State and Montana State were eventually "pushed" into the national meet later in the season.
Fast forward to the SEC XC Championships, a meet which featured a clash of national-caliber distance squads. With programs such as Tennessee and Arkansas also posing as threats for the conference title, the Crimson Tide would need everyone on their team to firing on all cylinders.
Victor Kiprop came away with a clutch win while Hillary Cheruiyot was once again excellent, snagging a very strong 3rd place finish. Eliud Kipsang (7th) also had a great rebound race of his own, putting himself back into "low-stick" territory.
But with Jacob Harris (23rd) and Hudson Hurst (25th) finishing a bit further back, a team like Arkansas was able to capitalize on the gaps. And in the end, the Razorbacks would win gold while Alabama settled for silver. The Crimson Tide still took home a win over 3rd place Tennessee.
The South Regional XC Championships, however, is where things began to look grim.
Kiprop and Cheruiyot went 1-2 to give their team a lethal scoring injection that could be matched by no other team in the field. However, Kipsang (20th) faded once again, making it a bit challenging for the Crimson Tide to keep pace with their opponents. And although Burian (26th) had a nice outing, another gap between him and Harris (37th) did cause Alabama's team score to inflate.
In the end, Alabama had to settle for 3rd place at the South regional meet behind Tennessee and Florida State. And with only a single Kolas point in their possession, the Crimson Tide shockingly missed out on the national meet (although Kiprop and Cheruiyot would advance as individuals).
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You're probably sitting at your desk or looking at your phone, reading this article and thinking, "How on Earth does a team that didn't qualify for last year's national meet get ranked at TSR #7 a year later?" Well, let's start with the departures and returners, first.
Eliud Kipsang is gone and so is Jacob Harris. Those are obviously not ideal departures given that this team was already thin on depth last fall. Kipsang, at times, had proven to be a borderline low-stick. He was, after all, the 2021 SEC cross country individual champion.
Thankfully, Alabama's two most important scorers from last fall, Victor Kiprop and Hillary Cheruiyot are set to return this fall. And on paper, they'll likely be one of the best 1-2 punches in the NCAA (again) this year.
Kiprop has been a dominant star for years, although the national meet had been a consistently challenge for him. Thankfully, Kiprop finally delivered on his raw talent over the last year, amassing multiple All-American honors via a 20th place finish at the NCAA XC Championships and a runner-up honor in the 10k at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
It seems fair to say that Kiprop is not only at the peak of his fitness, but he also seems to have far greater control of his talent as well.
Hillary Cheruiyot, however, is a bit more difficult to figure out.
Last fall, Cheruiyot was seemingly the best he's ever been, sticking closer to Kiprop than he had been in prior seasons. Placing 2nd at Joe Piane and 3rd at the SEC XC Championships are performances which suggest that he's a top-20 runner in the NCAA.
Unfortunately, the postseason has not been kind to Cheruiyot throughout his career. In his last three cross country national meet appearances, the Alabama veteran has placed 98th, 209th and 53rd.
There is no question that Cheruiyot is an upper-echelon runner. However, the only result that will truly matter for him this fall will be the finish that he produces at the NCAA XC Championships. If he's able to put it altogether on that stage, then Alabama has a very good chance of being on the podium.
But for as good as those two men are, they can't possibly carry the entire scoring burden of this team. That, ladies and gentlemen, is where Dismus Lokira and Dennis Kipruto come in.
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Dismus Lokira and Dennis Kipruto are two of Alabama's newest overseas additions to their roster. And if all goes according to plan, these two men could be the reason why the Crimson Tide sit on the podium in November.
Lokira enters the NCAA with solid marks of 13:56 (5k) and 28:36 (10k). And while you may be shrugging your shoulders when looking at those times, you have to remember that Lokira produced those marks at altitude. After conversions, those marks roughly equate to times of 13:22 (5k) and 27:19 (10k).
And at this point, you can begin to see how dangerous someone like Lokira could be if he translates those performances to the grass.
Now, admittedly, the very limited cross country results on Lokira's resume have left us scratching our heads. His 40th place finish at the Kenyan XC Championships is respectable, but compared to some of the men who beat him in that race, we thought he would be a bit better.
Lokira is a massive wild card who could be responsible for the direction of this team in 2024. He'll most likely give them some kind of low-stick presence, but how potent that presence turns out to be is the real uncertainty.
It's a fairly similar story for Dennis Kipruto, the half-marathon star who has a 60:51 PR in the road race event. And while we have yet to see him on the grass at the collegiate level, we do know that he can already be a competitive name within the NCAA.
That's because Kipruto ran a respectable 10k time of 28:44 this past spring and qualified for the outdoor national meet. And while that mark may not jump off the page, we do feel like we have seen enough from the Crimson Tide talent to be considered as an All-American threat.
And at the very least, even if he doesn't become an All-American, his chances of being a stable fourth scorer seem plenty high.
The fifth and final spot in this lineup feels a little bit like a free-for-all. Names such as Carson Burian, Hudson Hurst, Ethan Lemons and Kai Connor all have a shot of cracking this top-seven. Of course, trying to figure out who will be the most effective backend scorer is going to be the biggest and most challenging test that Alabama's coaching staff has to deal with this fall.
On paper, Burian is likely the safest (or at least the easiest) option to point to. He's run 8:48 in the steeplechase, he's an experienced veteran and he made encouraging progress on the oval this past spring.
But Hudson Hurst is someone who was already the team's fifth scorer last fall at the SEC XC Championships after he placed 25th. Not far behind him was Kai Connor who took 27th place. However, the name who interests me the most is Ethan Lemons. As a true freshman, Lemons ran a 5k PR of 13:55. And while that kind of mark isn't going to win any awards, it is a great result to have on the resume of a high-upside underclassman.
Alabama's depth isn't exactly among the best in the NCAA, but it doesn't need to be. If this supporting cast can simply set a respectable baseline expectation of what that final scoring spot can provide, then that will still put the Crimson Tide in a position to land on the podium (if their top-four all deliver).
We also like that a lot of their depth pieces are somewhat young, meaning that there is likely greater growth remaining in certain men like Lemons and Connor.
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Alabama is a team that has a ridiculously high ceiling. If all four of their star-caliber Kenyans are able to deliver on their upside, then it's hard to imagine this team not landing on the podium.
However, unlike a few other programs, the chances of the Crimson Tide reaching that ceiling don't feel quite as high by comparison. That, of course, is only because we don't know what to expect on the national stage from three of their top-four names -- there is far less certainty from this group compared to other programs with top-heavy lineups.
But talent is talent and there is plenty of it in Tuscaloosa.
The best national meet finish that the Alabama men have had in the Dan Waters era was 14th place back in 2017. But as we look ahead, you could argue that this year's group is the strongest team that Waters has ever assembled. This is also his greatest chance to put the Crimson Tide men on the podium.
And thankfully, Nick Saban isn't around anymore to steal the limelight.
