TSR's "If Everything Was Normal" D1 XC Top 25 Teams (Men): #10 Michigan Wolverines

We are aware that certain conferences and universities will not be competing this fall due to ongoing concerns surrounding COVID-19. However, for the sake of content, we have constructed these rankings as if a regular cross country season will happen.

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The 2019 Michigan men's cross country team was a prime example of how beneficial consistency and depth can be throughout a season.

The Wolverines weren't always among the most elite teams during the 2019 regular season, but they were often found just a few spots outside of our top-10 and had clearly put themselves in the upper tier of distance programs in the BIG 10 (alongside Wisconsin, Indiana and Purdue).

After beautifully peaking in the postseason, they had an overall resume that matched some of the best programs in the nation, making this group an extremely exciting squad to keep an eye on during the now defunct 2020 cross country season.

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Last year's Michigan team wasn't the flashiest group, but they always produced strong results and never faltered. They had high-level depth and exceptional pack-running which kept them competitive in the country's largest invitationals and helped them avoid upsets.

At Joe Piane, Devin Meyrer was the team's top scorer in 21st place with Jack Aho not far behind in 34th place. The rest of the Michigan team finished 50-52-56-57-69 in the team scoring. For perspective, no team in that race had a better #7 runner than Michigan. Only 1st place Colorado had a better #6 runner.

Nuttycombe wasn't much different as Michigan finished 11th overall with their top-five earning team scores of 36-54-70-82-87. Their final two runners dropped off a bit, finishing 111th and 135th in the team scoring.

Overall, Michigan was a team that had so much depth and consistency that it was going to be hard for any underdogs to take them down. However, they desperately needed firepower to separate them from the rest of their competition.

The postseason is where the men of Ann Arbor began to find some serious momentum. They had all seven men finish within the top-26 of the BIG 10 Championships and had Meyrer crack the top-10 with a 9th place finish, leading to a bronze medal result in the final team standings.

No program in the country peaked better for the National Championships than the Michigan men. Prior to the race, I harped on the fact that their elite depth and top-tier pack-running would be a massive advantage for them in a crowded field in Terre Haute and that it would end up vaulting them to a top finish.

While they didn't necessarily utilize that same pack-running strategy that many of us were expecting to see, the team did secure a 7th place finish (two points behind Stanford) with exceptional firepower.

Michigan got a surprise boost from Meyrer's 16th place finish while Aho secured the last All-American spot in 40th place. Isaac Harding secured a quietly impressive 44th place result of his own.

With Jordy Hewitt and Joost Plaetinck finishing 96th and 101st respectively, the Michigan men were able to walk away from Terre Haute as the top BIG 10 team in the field and one of the more promising squads in the nation for the 2020 cross country season.

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Let's get the bad news out of the way.

Isaac Harding is no longer with the team as he has since joined the Grand Valley State Lakers as a graduate transfer to pursue his desired physical therapy degree.

Based on the national meet results, that is an ultra-tough (but expected) loss. He was nearly an All-American for this team last year and offered extremely important scoring stability in the middle of this lineup throughout last fall.

It also doesn't help that the team will no longer have the services of Jordy Hewitt and Ben Hill -- two men who appeared as varsity runners for the Michigan men throughout the 2019 cross country season.

In all, that's three veterans that this team will have to race without whenever cross country competition returns.

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Now for the good news.

This is team so incredibly deep to the point that they can handle the loss of three veterans far better than most nationally-competitive programs could, and that's not an exaggeration.

Nick Foster was only a true freshman last year, but appeared as a top-five scorer on multiple occasions throughout the 2019 cross country season. He was the team's #3 runner at Joe Piane (50th) and their #2 runner at Nuttycombe (54th).

A pair of tough races at the BIG 10 Championships and the Great Lakes Championships eventually forced Foster out of the national meet lineup, but it is clear that this team can thrive with Foster in their varsity lineup.

And how about Gabe Mudel? He was the team's #5 scorer at Joe Piane, finishing 56th overall and placing one spot ahead of Isaac Harding. However, after a 27th place finish in the Nuttycombe "B" race, he was left out of the varsity lineup for the rest of the season.

We then come to Jacob Branch. He finished 3rd at the Ohio State Preview early in the season (taking down Penn State's entire varsity team) and later finished 6th in the Nuttycombe "B" race.

Other guys such as Christian Hubaker and Cole Johnson (two underclassmen at the time) also made appearances inside of Michigan's varsity lineup during the 2019 season, but eventually gave up their spots to more accomplished veteran runners.

In total, four of those five men that we just mentioned made some kind of appearance inside Michigan's top seven last fall and didn't end up running at the National Championships. The only runner who never officially finished inside of Michigan's top seven was Jacob Branch.

In other words, this team has an insane number of options to replace the veterans who are no longer with Michigan.

And what's even crazier is that we haven't even talked about Michigan's returners yet.

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Two highly underrated scorers for the Michigan men last fall were Joost Plaetinck and Jacob Lee. Both men were relatively quiet during the regular season, but they eventually ran well enough to earn themselves spots in Big Blue's varsity lineup.

This led to a clutch 17th place finish from Plaetinck at the BIG 10 Championships and some impressive running from Lee who stayed close to the top-five and solidified the backend of their lineup.

There are obvious concerns about some of the championship inexperience and youth when taking a look at the guys we talked about in the above section. However, boasting four seniors with championship experience in Meyrer, Aho, Plaetinck and Lee has to bring some stability and comfort to this loaded Michigan squad.

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We should also take the time to highlight a few of the high-level recruits that Coach Kevin Sullivan was able to add to this roster.

Anthony and Michael Hancock opted to stay in-state and join the men from Ann Arbor. Anthony owns a personal best of 14:59 for 5000 meters while Michael also owns a 5k personal best of 14:59 and boasts a pair of national meet appearances at the 2019 Foot Locker National Championships and 2019 NXN Championships.

Jack Spamer is another incoming recruit with strong cross country accolades. He owns a lethal personal best of 14:48 for 5000 meters and made a pair of national meet appearances last fall -- finishing 17th at the 2019 NXN Championships and 19th at the 2019 Foot Locker National Championships.

Zach Stewart is yet another young talent who also qualified for the Foot Locker National Championships last fall. While he was there, he finished 26th overall. He'll be joined by fellow Michigan native Joe Meyers who has a well-rounded resume of 4:16 (mile) and 9:14 (3200).

However, there is one final recruit who could be a massive X-factor for this team whenever they next have competition and his name is Oli Raimond.

The Australia native is listed as only a freshman, but has jaw-dropping personal bests that could immediately put him in the top-five of this varsity group. Raimond has run 3:46 for 1500 meters, 8:09 for 3000 meters and 14:29 for 5000 meters.

If Michigan was looking for a game-changer, they certainly found one in their new Australian rookie.

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There are, however, fair reasons why we opted to not give this Michigan team a better ranking.

This team was super consistent throughout last year, but Meyrer and Aho didn't really offer the same high-impact scoring during the regular season that they did at the National Championships and that needs to be taken into consideration.

It's also hard to overlook the fact that Coach Kevin Sullivan was constantly altering his varsity lineup throughout the season, switching out younger, inexperienced guys for older, more experienced runners at the national meet (a strategy that paid-off big time).

The inconsistency from these less-experienced runners is something that weighed on us as we were creating rankings for this theoretical season.

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Overall, it is hard to rank the Michigan men at "only" TSR #10 considering the overwhelming number of options that they have for their cross country lineup.

Meyrer and Aho have established themselves as true low-sticks.

Plaetinck and Lee are experienced veterans who can be middle-lineup scorers.

Foster has already been a proven varsity scorer.

Raimond could end up being a stud.

The rest of this roster is loaded with talent that we haven't even talked about, but the article would just be too long if we went down that route.

It feels fair to say that in a normal year, the Michigan men would have been favorites to win the BIG 10 title and potentially earn a spot on the podium.