hey everybody its me one of the people who writes for dumbflotrack.

it’s been a pretty long time since i did one of these things, and i know im a little bit out of the loop when it comes to cross country, but i figured with first practice starting up, id give all of you a break from the incoming freshmen talking about arcadia invite, and break you off a little piece of this preseason top 25.

am i saying that this list is 100 percent accurate of where teams are at right now?

am i saying that i truly believe everything that im writing here?

are we truly supposed to believe that ariana grande is the only person on the face of the earth that can lick a donut and get away with it?

yes.

to be honest, i have no clue whats going to happen this season and none of this should be taken seriously, unless im right. in which case you can send us money via paypal.

so without any further ado, i give you our preseason top 25 mens teams for this fall

1. colorado – i know people are sitting here thinking “big whoop, whatever, you put colorado, who isnt putting colorado number 1?” and then youre thinking why read the rest of this list? thats a really strong point and now that i think about it a little more, youre entirely right. i think i need to change this up and get some page views.

THE REAL TOP 25 MENS TEAMS FOR 2015 NCAA DIVISION ONE MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY

Presented by Run Gum: “We’re more than just temporary tattoos and t-shirts”

1. im gonna actually stay with colorado on this one cause to write anything else would be dumb as hell. colorado is a really cool school because everyone likes to act like they’re a bunch of blue collar hard working castaways that other programs dont want taking down the big bad and mean oregon and stanfords of the world, entirely ignoring the fact that they consistently bring in the top high school runners, train in one of the top 5 training locations in the world, and are part of conference that has more money than davey crockett. they didnt really lose anyone from last years team which lets you know that we’re in for more of the same from last year: a whole bunch of really artsy looking instagram photos, aric van halen picking fights with people on twitter, and them winning another ncaa title which should be okay, i guess.
2. oklahoma state- everyone says college is to get your ready for the real world. which is exactly why we’re going to tell the most important lesson of them all: usa #1, every other country on earth #2. im sorry ok state, if you ever wanna be great state, buy american (sorry, im watching the dark knight and tried to fit this harvey dent quote in as best as i could
3. oregon – king chezzy isnt going to have to worry about jenkins coming around trying to kill his vibe this season which should push him to great times, unless whoever finishes second decides to run slower in which case just subtract about 6-8 seconds and youll get chesereks finishing time
4. syracuse – theyre actually a pretty good team returning some talent but the only problem is that theyre returning syracuse levels of talent and not colorado levels
5. wisconsin – i kinda wonder what they say about evan jager in madison. they cant call him alumni but they also cant NOT tell people that he was there competing for them for a year.
6. stanford – they’re not going to win this thing again for a number of years but they gotta finish somewhere near the top so high school kids keep thinking it’s a big deal to run at their invite
7. michigan – they dont really lose too much from a squad that was pretty young last year. while their womens team has struggled with hype early in the year but fizzled out as time went on, im fairly confident in the michigan men going the distance, as people assure me that men go further in cross country.
8. portland – portland is kind of like the ny/nj track club of collegiate cross country. someone might give you a name and say “yeah so and so runs professionally” and you might doubt it but then you google it and realize they run for a team that clings to a slash to stay relevant. this is a lot like when someone says “oh yeah so and so runs for a really good cross country team” and see that they run for a team in oregon but it’s not THAT team in oregon.
9. providence – not really, but i just wanted to make those underclassmen that stayed around there feel really excited about getting a top ten preseason ranking.
10. new mexico – theyre like the shittiest villain of any scary movie of all time, they always have some critical flaw that truly keeps them from being a threat but every year they have some remarkably stupid trait that brings them back to life so we can get a sequel before they get defeated by the composition of earth’s atmosphere or the fact that 1500 runners arent that good at a 10k. whatever comes first.
11. california – do i think cal is the 11th best team in the country? no. do i think cal is a good team? HELL NO, they run 3 deep, maybe 4 but see above regarding the comment on milers and cross country. to be fair, i do think they have the talent to be a good team. cal is a really good school for runners that may not be quite fast enough for oregon but are way too smart to go to arizona state. plus they’ve got tony sandoval who has proved in his 24 years that he is one of the best coaches at developing athletes in the ncaa. dont believe me? name another coach who is as good as he is at developing 8:58 high school seniors into 9:25 college seniors. i rest my case.
12. UCLA – this might be the year for ucla, it really could be, but im not the type of person to go against so many years of history and think anything different, but to be fair finishing 12th at nationals would be the biggest accomplishment for ucla since that one year where only 3 of their top 7 got stress fractures/season ending injuries
13. northern arizona – i feel bad for them. they’ve spent a lot of years as the top ticket in town. but now with the northern arizona ELITE, they’re in trouble. why would any runner come to flagstaff to run for some backwater college team when they can become ELITE or join some running store (i think flagstaff running something) and become PRO. yeah you could run for nau and get some shoes and finish highly at nationals, but if you run for the elite team you get free hokas and might end up on a picky bar wrapper. you tell me what a high school senior is going to want to do. recruiting for NAU is screwed for the next 60 years.
14. louisville – i think theyre hosting nationals and are probably used to drinking a whole bunch of bourbon and enjoying all that kentucky has to offer so im pretty sure theyre probably going to be the only non hungover team when everyone toes the line at nationals cause kentucky is fucking sick and no one from out of town will be able to control themselves.
15. providence – they’re gonna be number 15 if their womens team gets to run in the mens race. drop them down to unranked if they are forced to run their mens team because the ncaa patriarchy cant deal with progress.
16. arizona state – i like asu a lot. it’s a cool school. my barista at starbucks is getting a criminology degree from them online and he looks like he’s worth at least a 13:55-58 under coach louie quintana after he transfers from some other school where he just sucked.
17. indiana – the shittiest thing about being a runner at indiana is that no matter how fast you run, no one gives a shit cause you didnt win little indy and you dont play for their shitty basketball team that was good before the ncaa was desegregated
18. washington – theres a lot of definitions of strong that float around. people who work a job they hate for minimum wage just to put food on their table? theyre strong. a group of men who wear purple tights and openly refer to their female teammates as “husky”? even stronger.
19. furman – there was a guy that showed up to a bunch of 5ks when i was younger than had a hairy chest and arms and back and legs and face. i called him wolf man.  i guess furman wouldve been a good nickname too.
20. cal poly – i just googled this. apparently they have two campuses, one in san luis obispo, and one in pomona. im pretty sure that first one is in mexico and i know for a fact that second one is in a city that los angeles county abandoned 27 years ago but still 2 campuses = twice the athletes = twice the performance? i dont know, ive never been good with numbers
21. michigan state – lol jk
22. florida state – some of this is a gut feeling, most of it is just realizing i never talked about any of the schools in florida which i have to admit was my bad. you gotta give them credit though, they chose to go to college in florida. thats kind of like deciding to do a premeet meal at hometown buffet. theres a lot of trouble you can get into, and youll probably get through it, but everyone will look at you funny when you tell them about it.
23. arizona – i feel really bad for the arizona men. the last time you saw a group that was as devestated by the sudden departure of africans, lincoln was president and the southern economy took years to recover.
24. arkansas – glad to see the SEC bring back mens cross country after a 15 year absence. hopefully this group of upstarts can make some noise and finish in the top 31 at nationals.
25. you, the reader! – probably not. because based off of statistics, you probably run for an naia school in kentucky and wont be running at division 1 nationals this year. so lets just say that a school i make up like i dunno “university of texas el paso” finishes in this spot and be done with it.