Do we really have that good of a shot at winning both the men's and women's track NCs this year or is this hear say?

Yes...I think we do.....the new predictions out have the women winning and men finishing second.

Chances are decent.

The Women are ranked #1 by one point over Oregon going into the competition. The Men are ranked #2 and are 10 points behind Oregon going in. The bad thing is, Oregon's strengths are mostly in distance, and the Aggies are stronger in the sprints and jumps where there is less margin for error. It's gonna be close. There will be a few Aggies come home with individual event National Championships tho if those events go as planned.

Based on my limited experience of running, here's how I see it on the guys' side.

10 points is, surprisingly, a pretty large margin, and very hard to make up.

On sprints, with a tiny amount of time change, you can jump or drop a ton of spots.

Distance events are more likely to finish in the order they're seeded, except for the difference in training. A peak in a distance event at the right time will make more of a time difference than in a sprint event (absolute, not relative), so I guess there's more of a chance for someone to hit their taper at the right time and jump some spots.

So in other words, I don't see Oregon dropping a whole lot of spots, but we could move up a bunch. And then it comes down to who hits their field events.

I don't see it happening, but there's always a chance.

We definitely have a shot at both of them. But as others have said we will need to get the absolute best efforts out of everybody as Oregon will be tough to beat. If the girls 4X400 and one of our triple jumpers could jump up a few spots then that will really help the girls pick up some extra cushion points. For the guys, if Phiri could move up in the 100 and 200 and Z move up in the triple jump and/or Tyron in the long jump that would go a long way in helping them close the gap. There's also a bunch of other athletes who have a chance of scoring points or more points if they can move up a couple of places. Of course, it's the NCAA meet so everybody there will be looking to PR so you never know what can happen but I think we've got legitimate shots with both girls and boys.

A big event COULD be the Decathlon. It's the only event where Oregon and A&M both have someone projected to score. The Oregon Decathlete is ranked #1 right now with Trinity Otto at #6 I believe. If something big happened to the Oregon guy, like a No-Height in the pole vault, or a bad day in one of the field events, that could provide a HUGE point swing if Trinity can continue to improve his score as he has most of the outdoor season.

Do the recently announced additions to the field help us at all? Its on aggieathletics.

Im gonna say Oregon takes the mens title, but A&M will be close. They are so strong and the talent is deep in their distance squad that a huge chunk of their points will come from those events. They are strong in the decathlon as well.

The women have a better shot of taking the title, and I hope they do.

Regardless of the outcome, Pat Henry has done a wonderful job this year, and hopefully this means recruits will show more interest in the program.

As to the at-large bids, I don't really think anyone except for maybe Dominique Duncan in the 200 has a chance at jumping into the top 8. Maybe Melvin Echard in the triple jump, with the ways our guys have improved this year, he could show up big, but that would probably result in one of our other guys being out of the top 8 (it would be hard to get 4 into the scoring).

The aggieathletics release shows the seedings of all of the aggies, and I didn't realize how many guys are so close to scoring. They've got 3 guys seeded 9th going in. That would be a great place to pick up some points, if those guys all move into 7th or 8th, all else equal that's cuts the margin about in half.

why have we had trouble recruiting runners for the longer distances?

we've obviously been bringing in outstanding sprinters in recent years, but what's the problem with the distance recruiting?

[This message has been edited by S.S.Aggie (edited 6/3/2009 2:52p).]

There are 21 events in track & field and somewhere between 10-15 scholarships...there's only so much $$ to go around...it seems quite obvious where the scholarships are directed, but it seems like we have been successful in doing so...it all depends on where the coaching staff wants to focus their efforts

In my experience with Henry, it seems that he is very focused on the sprints. He wants to dethrone Baylor as the premier 400m school in the nation, while also dominating the shorter sprints too.

Keep in mind this is his 5th season at A&M and he only has 12.5 schollies a year to work with. In his first 3-4 years he focused all his effort and scholarship money on the sprints at first, then after a couple of years of solid recruiting in those areas, he focused more schollies on the long and tripple jump to bring them up to speed. Both of those groups are the reason the team is as strong today as it is. He may very well soon focus the schollies on the distance crew to catch it up to the rest of the team. Once that happens, A&M will have the most dominant team in the country year in and year out.

It just seams that he is rotating the scholarships around to different event groups each year as opposed to spreading the 12.5 schollies thin every year.

[This message has been edited by aggievaulter07 (edited 6/3/2009 3:33p).]

We really need someone to stand out in the field events. We have no one scoring in discus, shot, or javelin. We have a great history in these events but nothing happening right now. One guy can make a big difference here.

Looks like we are favored to win both Track championships.

Here's to 3 NCs in 2009.

Mission Accomplished.

2009 ain't over yet...come December in Aggieland, I really think the soccer team can make it FOUR in 2009.

Don't forget the football team. We play Arkansas this year and lately the Razorbacks have been giving us some national championship mojo!