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Notre Dame’s Dylan Jacobs has announced that he will be finishing his eligibility as a graduate transfer later this year at Tennessee. The NCAA champion at 10,000 meters is expected to have two full years of cross country, as well as one year of indoor track and outdoor track eligibility remaining.
After distance coach Sean Carlson unexpectedly left Notre Dame and accepted the Director of XC role at Tennessee, there had been rumblings suggesting that Jacobs would follow him. Today confirms those rumblings and the move doesn’t come with much surprise.
The impact that Jacobs will have on Tennessee’s program will likely be immediate. The distance star will help improve a program that has shown flashes of promise, but didn’t qualify a team for the NCAA XC Championships last fall.
Jacobs finished 10th at the NCAA XC Championships last year as he led the Fighting Irish to a top-10 placing. He was also a key All-American scorer when the Irish earned runner-up honors as a team at the NCAA Winter XC Championships.
Jacobs boasts personal bests of 3:57 (mile), 7:49 (3k), 13:14 (5k), and 28:01 (10k) on the track. All of those times have come in the last six months and have led to Jacobs taking home the 10k title this past spring.
For Notre Dame, more will be asked of Matthew Carmody, Jake Renfree and Josh Methner now that Yared Nuguse, Danny Kilrea, and Jacobs have left the program. But with a loaded distance running recruiting class, Notre Dame still has plenty of young and promising pieces to work with.
Jacobs has shown how good he is, but is it enough to put the Volunteers over the top? The combination of him and Karl Thiessen has the potency to be one of the best duos in their region, but can the Volunteers build enough depth to secure a Kolas-based national meet selection?