.png)
NOTE: This article was originally published in January of 2024. The below criteria is a duplicate of last year's rubric with the exception of a few changes.
Yep, we're bringing it back!
One of our most popular series of content each and every year is our Freshman Class Distance Rankings. What we do is look at all of the CURRENT freshmen around the NCAA (who specialize in the 800 meters and up) and attempt to evaluate which programs brought in the best young distance talents.
Now, I know what you're thinking.
"Garrett, the academic year is already half-way over. We've got indoor track races coming soon! Why are we doing these rankings now?"
Well, simply put, we just don't have enough time to post these rankings during the summer months. That is, after all, when our preseason cross country lists dominate the site. Not only that, but many schools don't have updated rosters at that point in the year and a handful of international names don't sign with an NCAA program until the winter or spring months anyway.
It's also unlikely that we'll have any major results on the indoor oval until the third weekend in January. This makes the next week-and-a-half a fairly good time for us to fill the void with something that will probably cause a lot of arguments (which have already started at TSR).
Before we release our current Freshman Class Distance Rankings, we thought it would be a good idea to give you an idea of how we constructed these lists, how we collected the data and when you can expect to see our content...
The Content & Our Publishing Timeline
The Stride Report is aiming to release our top-10 Division One Freshman Class Distance Rankings starting Saturday (beginning with our "Just Missed" and "Honorable Mention" groups). Our top-five Division Two rankings and our top-five Division Three rankings will likely be published starting early next week.
We will also be following the same release schedule that you saw last year.
For D1, that means that we will be publishing teams 10-9-8 for the men and 10-9-8 for the women on the first day. The next day, we'll be publishing 7-6-5 for the men and 7-6-5 for the women. The day after that, we'll be publishing 4-3-2 for the men and 4-3-2 for the women. Finally, on the last day, the top-ranked freshmen classes on both the men's and women's sides will get their own articles.
Then, shortly thereafter, D2 will post sections 5-4-3 on one day followed by their top-two teams the next day. The D3 rankings will follow the same schedule immediately after.
An Important Clarifier...
We understand that the timing of these rankings is a bit odd, especially since we already had cross country action take place this past fall. However, it's important to note that we are ranking CURRENT TRUE FRESHMEN.
So, to be very clear, we're looking at athletes who graduated from high school in 2024. We are NOT looking at the Class of 2025. These are athletes that are CURRENTLY in the NCAA.
Additional Criteria
Redshirt freshmen are not included in these rankings. Transfers from other universities are also not included in these rankings unless they are true freshmen. If an athlete has anything other than freshman eligibility in any season for this academic year, we will not consider that athlete in these rankings.
Missions, however, are a very challenging aspect to manage when it comes to our rankings. Ultimately, we decided that if you were a high school senior who graduated in 2024 and committed to run for a certain university, then you'll be factored into these rankings even if you went on a mission this year (or in the near future).
That, however, entirely depends on if we were able to find your commitment at all.
Data Collection & Rankings
This year, I hired someone whose sole goal it was to collect recruiting data across the NCAA for Division One. This person spent three weeks scouring the internet for any and all true freshmen who we could find. We looked at essentially every program that has been even remotely competitive in the distance events over the past few years.
The good news is that, unlike past years, these rosters were updated and actually had their new names listed. We didn't have to go to a ton of different places to find our data this year.
Of course, actually ranking these groups is an entirely different story.
Let me just throw out this disclaimer while I'm here: There are going to be A LOT of strong and impressive freshman classes that didn't make it into our rankings. We have about 12 men's teams and roughly 10 women's teams who we thought could have been considered for a top-10 spot, but didn't get ranked.
When it comes to rankings, we looked a variety of things such as...
Personal bests
Overall depth
Championship experience and championship accolades
Superstar talents / nationally-recognizable names
Roster needs
Subjective factors such as...
Racing style
Consistency
Potential / Upside
Roster fit / Skillset
Etc.
Just like last year, the first three pieces of our criteria hold the most weight in our rankings.
Naturally, you have to be fast (read: have fast times). We can look at as many intangibles as we want, but at the end of the day, you still need to have a top mark or two. And when you have a ton of fast times via a number of different athletes (read: a lot of depth), that certainly helps a team's ranking as well.
The same can be said about national meet / championship experience. We view that as a major asset for someone who is entering the NCAA level.
Of course, we also looked at a handful of other components, many of which are listed above.
Roster fit, for example, is a bigger deal than some people may think. If someone is middle distance focused, but ends up attending an aerobic-centric or short sprints-centric powerhouse, then on paper, that doesn't align very well.
But conversely, if a team is cross country dominant and needs more event diversity via a greater middle distance presence, then that should only help the team over the long-term.
And with that line of thinking, you can see how those are two conflicting aspects to balance when crafting rankings.
Those of you who read The Stride Report often also know that consistency is a major factor that we consider. It's great to see someone run a monster time or have a phenomenal race, but can they replicate that kind of performance consistently? Or was their breakout effort more of an outlier performance?
That matters, especially at the NCAA level when the postseason rolls around.
Racing styles are something that we lightly analyze, although it's admittedly tough to offer detailed breakdowns for every. single. athlete. who we'll be mentioning in these rankings. However, for those who we do have tape on, racing styles matter.
If someone understands the nuances of tactics, how to capitalize on their strengths and when to make moves, then that should give them a massive advantage as they continue to build their fitness. In theory, their growth as a nationally competitive talent should be accelerated.
Oh, and in addition to everything we just mentioned, we should also note that every division had at least three TSR contributors reviewing our rankings.
Simply put, we were very thorough.
International athletes
There is an increasing number of NCAA programs who are recruiting international athletes. However, just because a program brought in one or two overseas superstars doesn't necessarily mean that they deserve (or not deserve) a top-10 ranking.
In a few instances, some international athletes may have a limited number of results for us to review. Those athletes can also, at times, face challenges with consistency or acclimating to NCAA tactics in their first few seasons. Of course, given their incredible raw fitness and immense upside, those runners still hold tons of value that is impossible to ignore.
In a few instances, international athletes may be older than 18 or 19 years old. And yet, despite that, they are listed on their respective rosters as freshmen. Unless we have been told otherwise, we are basing our rankings off of what those rosters say.
Is it possible that there are one or two athletes we included who aren't actually considered to be true freshmen? Sure, maybe. And is it possible that a program added an athlete who is beginning school this winter, but we didn't catch it? Yes, that is also possible.
But otherwise, we feel like these rankings should be a fairly accurate representation of which programs brought in the best collection of young distance talents.