It’s back. The Wood Report returns for its second year on CITIUS MAG. It’s a little later than last year but never late is better.

For those who need a refresher on what is The Wood Report and who the heck is Isaac Wood…

I am the Director of Operations at BYU and previously served as a graduate assistant and coach at Florida State as well as BYU. I have been doing The Wood Report since 2012 and people seem to have loved reading it. In 2012, I kind of started getting a reputation among the team at BYU for being someone that was fairly good at predicting races, breaking down meets and predicting top finishers. I knew stats pretty well for most guys. Olympian Doug Padilla, who was the director of operations at BYU at the time, said to me, ‘Dude, you just have to put this into some sort of website and let the people know about it.’ That’s it. The Wood Report was born. It’s my idea of who the best 31 teams in the country are who are the best individuals. It’s obviously never perfect but in years past, it’s proved to be very decent and accurate. That’s why I kept doing it. If I stunk at it, then I would not have kept doing it. Here we are five years later.

How is it all put together? I mined through every team in the NCAA. I put all the information into a document and list out some personal bests. I give it a glance and then a rating to get an idea of where they fit among others. The ratings are a bit of my own concoction. At the moment it’s a number from 1 to 10 with one decimal point. I’d love to get to the point, where I rank runners a few more places beyond the decimal point, but we’re not there yet. I made up my own equivalency chart that I feel confident in. It’s more for me to see where this one runner fits among others in a fair fashion. Here’s an example of how it works: When you’re looking at some of these smaller conferences, you’re like ‘Oh this guys is pretty good.’ But, in all reality, just because you win the Patriot League – which is a good league and more solid than people realize – doesn’t mean that you’re as good as maybe someone in the top 10 of the Big 10. Probably not. So I give a rating that will give me an idea of where to put them in the conference, regional and national meet (if they qualify.) Cross country finishes and track personal bests are important and a nice combination. You have to find a balance of that. Some runners are really good on the track and not so great in cross country. You can kind of weed those guys out by looking at some 10K personal bests but then their conference finishes over the years. I use my noodle to determine where they belong in the grand scheme of things nationally.

One last thing, you’ll notice very quickly into the rankings that BYU is not included. As I mentioned above, I am the Director of Operations at BYU. Last year, I was on the fence about including BYU into the rankings. Eventually, it was clear that we could be contenders for the national title. Things didn’t go as planned as the NCAA Championships and so this year, the CITIUS MAG team has agreed to let me pull BYU from the published rankings.

Women’s rankings to come tomorrow!

You might have questions about the first set of rankings so when you’re done reading, check out the mailbag column that was just posted. These projections have taken performances from early-season invitationals into account.

Now that you get the idea, I think it’s time to unveil my Top 100 for 2018…

Ranking	First	Last	School	Year	Rating
100	Kieran	Tuntivate	Harvard	SR	8.6
99	Iliass	Aouani	Syracuse	SR	8.6153
98	Caleb	Covell	Buffalo	SO	8.670194986
97	Ryan	Adams	Furman	JR	8.673297
96	Christopher	Henry	Wyoming	SO	8.67573
95	Awet	Beraki	Stephen F. Austin	FR	8.688888889
94	Caleb	Pottorff	Florida State	FR	8.69695
93	Kevin	Kipkosgei	Abilene Christian	FR	8.700854701
92	Joe	Dragon	Syracuse	SO	8.7019
91	Meikael	Beaudoin-Rousseau	Stanford	FR	8.713815789
90	Kevin	James	Syracuse	JR	8.72355
89	Paul	Hogan	UMass Lowell	SR	8.73635
88	Brodey	Hasty	Northern Arizona	FR	8.75
87	Zack	Snider	Wisconsin	JR	8.75
86	Yared	Nuguse	Notre Dame	SO	8.75259
85	Ben	Eidenschink	Wisconsin	JR	8.76621
84	Ryan	Murphy	Arkansas	FR	8.786111
83	Tom	Nobles	Charlotte	SR	8.79035
82	Isai	Rodriguez	Oklahoma State	FR	8.8
81	Colin	Burke	UCLA	JR	8.808388816
80	Nicholas	Golebiowski	North Carolina	SR	8.850961538
79	Jose	Pina	San Jose St.	JR	8.8659595
78	Casey	Comber	Villanova	JR	8.8688
77	Trevor	Siniscalchi	Air Force	SR	8.8752
76	Tai	Dinger	Stanford	SR	8.894736842
75	Ryan	Raff	Northern Arizona	FR	8.9282511
74	Chandler	Teigen	Washington State	SR	8.947302
73	Aidan	Reed	Southern Utah	JR	8.9921
72	Emmanuel	Rotich	Tulane	SR	9
71	Michael	Ward	Bradley	SR	9
70	DJ	Principe	Stanford	FR	9.000021
69	Curt	Eckstein	Purdue	SO	9.000211
68	Eric	Hamer	Colorado State	SR	9.014573
67	Jacob	Bilvado	Air Force	SR	9.0179
66	Garrett	Reynolds	UCLA	SO	9.038651
65	Kyle	Mau	Indiana	JR	9.06715
64	Caleb	Webb	Portland	JR	9.070627
63	Chris	Olley	San Francisco	JR	9.085201
62	Addison	DeHaven	Boise State	SR	9.096412
61	Gilbert	Boit	Arkansas	JR	9.1
60	Ashenafi	Hatte	Oklahoma State	JR	9.11574083
59	Noah	Schutte	Portland	JR	9.120515
58	Callum	Bolger	Stanford	SO	9.124812
57	Peter	Seufer	Virginia Tech	JR	9.126
56	Jamie	Dee	Iona	FR	9.134252
55	Tanner	Anderson	Washington	SR	9.1418
54	Ben	Veatch	Indiana	JR	9.15
53	Aaron	Templeton	Furman	SR	9.15275
52	Noah	Affolder	Syracuse	SO	9.16346
51	Cameron	Griffith	Arkansas	SR	9.168
50	Farah	Abdulkarim	Ole Miss	JR	9.18509
49	Olin	Hacker	Wisconsin	JR	9.21115
48	Christian	Ricketts	Southern Utah	SO	9.21581
47	Miler	Haller	Boise State	JR	9.21973
46	Meshack	Kipchirchir	Hofstra	FR	9.224791086
45	Geordie	Beamish	Northern Arizona	SR	9.23094
44	Dan	Curts	Iowa State	SR	9.232623
43	Alek	Parsons	Stanford	SO	9.23821
42	Yusuke	Uchikoshi	Boise State	SR	9.24552
41	Gabe	Arias-Sheridan	Portland	SR	9.25
40	Nadeel	Wildschutt	Coastal Carolina	SO	9.25
39	Azaria	Kirwa	Liberty	SR	9.25
38	Festus	Lagat	Iowa State	JR	9.25256
37	Eduardo	Herrera	Colorado	SO	9.30941704
36	Zach	Long	Tennessee	SR	9.3234887
35	Jaret	Carpenter	Purdue	JR	9.331838565
34	James	Mwaura	Gonzaga	FR	9.34234
33	Garrett	Corcoran	California	SR	9.350513
32	Brent	Demarest	Virginia	SR	9.3703
31	Blaise	Ferro	Northern Arizona	SO	9.371524
30	Ryan	Forsyth	Colorado	SR	9.380044
29	Andrew	Jordan	Iowa State	JR	9.41367713
28	Thomas	Ratcliffe	Stanford	JR	9.42348
27	Emmanuel	Roudolff-Levisse	Portland	JR	9.44899
26	Lawrence	Kipkoech	Campbell	SR	9.4567
25	Aidan	Tooker	Syracuse	SO	9.456730769
24	Paul	Roberts	Wyoming	JR	9.458238
23	Jonathan	Davis	Illinois	JR	9.5
22	Cooper	Teare	Oregon	SO	9.5
21	Amon	Kemboi	Campbell	SO	9.5
20	Steven	Fahy	Stanford	SR	9.5
19	Jonathan	Green	Georgetown	SR	9.5
18	Alex	Ostberg	Stanford	SR	9.5098684
17	Mickey	Davey	Air Force	SR	9.536995
16	Oliver	Hoare	Wisconsin	JR	9.59304932
15	Cole	Rockhold	Colorado State	SR	9.660313
14	John	Dressel	Colorado	JR	9.6739
13	Nick	Hauger	Portland	SR	9.69394
12	Luis	Grijalva	Northern Arizona	SO	9.7051569
11	Edwin	Kurgat	Iowa State	JR	9.73897389
10	Joe	Klecker	Colorado	SR	9.75
9	Alfred	Chelanga	Alabama	SR	9.7741
8	Peter	Lomong	Northern Arizona	SR	9.807735426
7	Gilbert	Kigen	Alabama	SR	9.876681
6	James	Sugira	Eastern Kentucky	FR	9.89234
5	Tyler	Day	Northern Arizona	SR	9.9775784
4	Vincent	Kiprop	Alabama	SR	9.9997
3	Grant	Fisher	Stanford	SR	9.9998
2	Matthew	Baxter	Northern Arizona	SR	9.9999
1	Morgan	McDonald	Wisconsin	SR	10

Thoughts? Send your compliments or hate mail over to me on Twitter: @Wood_Report or email me at contact@citiusmag.com. Tell us if you’d like for The Wood Report to go audio version as well. We could tape a bi-weekly podcast in the lead up to the NCAA Cross Country National Championships.