Track team at the NCAA championships
 

The mens team had a pretty good first day at the NCAA championships. I enjoyed watching it on ESPN last night. The 4x400 relay team qualified for Friday's final with the 3rd highest time out of the 3 semi final heats. Only Florida and LSU finished just ahead of them. The anchor on that team also qualified for the final of the 800, also set for Friday. We also had a runner take 3rd place in the 10K and a couple of others qualify for finals on Friday. Most of the track events haven't awarded points yet, but BYU as a team is tied for 13th right now. Kyle Collinsworth's wife runs in the 800 today.

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/trackfield-outdoor-men/d1

That's about right. BYU good track program, but not among the truly elite.

I grew up with A&M and they have been very good for a long time. Not that I pay attention anymore.

I'd love for football or basketball to be in the top 15.

True. But let's face it, people don't care about track except for once every four years.

I don't think A&M students even care about track and field.

You compete where you can. I think the non-rev sports for the most part are doing pretty well. Sure, no one really cares that much about sports like track, but watching the BYU athletes I saw on ESPN last night was pretty fun, especially the relay team. I'll be watching Friday, and it would be cool if they won it. They have a shot.

For basketball and football in today's P5 dominated era you can still enjoy it, but it takes a good dose of realism. We're not "elite," but no one else's school is either except for just a few. I'm not suddenly going to become a fan of an elite school (like Duke basketball) where I have no connection with just to be on a popular bandwagon.

What sport is BYU getting better in?

This level of track performance is not atypical.

Maybe baseball is getting better, but still far below its peak.

Football not terrible, but not great.

Basketball is probably in as good a position as it has been in the modern era, but still not that far ahead of Roger Reid's day. Still can't win conference champs and conference tourneys and generally flame out in the NCAAs.

Where's the trajectory towards improvement?

Women's and men's volleyball are both in pretty good shape. The women's team that played for the national championship has most of the team back and supposedly has a very good recruiting class coming in.

Women's soccer is quite good. Last year was supposed to be a down/rebuilding year, and it was in the sense that they didn't win an NCAA game, but they at least got there. They also recruited well and this year they're looking to be very good. We'll see.

Women's softball? Not bad. They win their league pretty much every year and make the NCAA tournament where sometimes they win a few games and sometimes they don't. Haven't made the super regionals yet but they don't usually just flame out either.

Baseball I think is going to get better and I think is coming out of over a decade of administrative neglect that allowed them to keep Law around for so long with so little to show for it. I don't know how to explain it other than the administration for years just didn't care. I have have a hard time seeing any BYU coach in any other sport ever being allowed to have such mediocre performance for so long. It was weird.

Football, I don't know. Against this schedule it's going to be tough. It could go either way, The offense should be pretty good. The defense historically when Bronco has run it has been efficient and solid. If the D can at least be adequate I can see us having a pretty good year, but the schedule looks pretty hard. If this were an MWC schedule with this same team I think we're looking at 10-11 wins, but then what would that really mean? I just want to see good games and I want to see us beat one or two of the big name opponents along with everyone else we should beat and I guess I'll be ok with that.

In basketball I guess Rose isn't THAT far ahead of where Reid was for a few years. But he's for sure sustained it longer than Reid did before it crashed and burned. I always was pretty supportive of Roger Reid, even after he started having trouble, but there's no question in my mind that Dave Rose is way better overall and the program is in better shape than it's ever been. He does have the sweet 16 year in spite of losing Davies. That's a pretty nice accomplishment. We went 17 years without a single NCAA win and he now has 4. Granted, I'd like a lot more, but I am getting excited about the players we have coming in.

I watched some women's track tonight. No BYU women that I noticed.

You missed the pole vaulter, Angela Monteverde who cleared 14 foot 1 1/4 and finished sixth.

The men have three races, Flint a steeple chaser, Walker in the 800 and one hour later Walker anchoring the mile relay. Not a great set up for him, but who knows.

The women finished with three points as the 800 m women didn't qualify for the finals due to being in a slow heat.

The women only sent 3 to the NCAAs this year. Not as good of a year for them as the men.