Texas A&M Men Move Up in Active DI National Rankings

courtesy By Kyle Terwillegar, USTFCCCA

January 25, 2016

NOTE: The first regional rankings of 2016 were also released this week.
NEW ORLEANS – This past weekend was just the third full slate of NCAA DI indoor track & field competition in the New Year, but already the race for the men’s national team title is tightening up.

NCAA Division I National Team Rankings Top 5 – Men
1)	2)	3)	4)	5)
Florida	Texas	Texas A&M	Virginia Tech	Oregon
138.12 pts	108.64 pts	100.73 pts	94.55 pts	93.85 pts
View Complete Men’s National Coaches’ Poll

Preseason favorite Florida remained atop the first regular-season National Team Computer Rankings released Monday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), but the crowd of teams in hot pursuit runs at least five deep with NCAAs in Birmingham, Alabama, now less than two months away..
No. 2 Texas fell off the pace a bit, but their in-state rival Texas A&M used strong early-season results – particularly a historic, collegiate-leading 800 meters from frosh phenom Donavan Brazier – to catapult six spots to No. 3 in the rankings.

More Info

Click below to see the full:

Virginia Tech, whose latest home meet fell victim to Winter Storm Jonas, remained steady at No. 4, while the two-time defending national champion Oregon Ducks dropped two spots to No. 5. Oregon has yet to debut its full squad in 2016.
Those five teams – along with No. 6 LSU – have all established themselves as early contenders for the national team title and the four spots on the team podium. Florida holds an early advantage at 138.12 team ranking points, while Texas (108.64), Texas A&M (100.73), Va Tech (94.55), Oregon (93.85) and LSU (92.66) are all separated by fewer than 20 points.
The USTFCCCA Rankings’ methodology does not correlate directly with the NCAA Championships scoring system. Points are designated using the USTFCCCA individual rankings, which take into account both the top previous-season marks from top returners and the best performances of 2016. Previous-season data is removed following the third-regular season set of rankings.
A pair of SEC teams followed Texas A&M’s lead and made significant jumps into the top-10. LSU improved eight positions from the preseason behind collegiate leaders Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake (200 meters) and Jordan Moore (60 hurdles), while No. 8 Tennessee climbed seven spots behind sprinter Christian Coleman.
No. 7 Georgia, No. 9 Washington and No. 10 TCU rounded out the top 10. Both Georgia and Washington slipped one spot each, while TCU dropped two.
No top-25 team made bigger strides in the early goings of 2016 than No. 18 Southern California, which improved 93 spots from the preseason. The Trojans made the top-25 behind national top-10 efforts from high jumper Randall Cunningham, triple jumper Eric Sloan and shot putter Nicholas Ponzio.
The other big gainer of early January was No. 20 Portland, who followed 3000-meter and 5000-meter collegiate leader William Kincaid to a 24-position jump.
The full rankings can be found below.

USTFCCCA NCAA Division I
Men’s Indoor Track & Field National Team Computer Rankings (Top 25)
2016 Week #1 — January 25
next ranking: February 1

Rank	Institution	Points	Conference	Head Coach (Yr)	Last Week
1	Florida	138.12	SEC	Mike Holloway (14th)	1
2	Texas	108.64	Big 12	Mario Sategna (3rd)	2
3	Texas A&M	100.73	SEC	Pat Henry (12th)	9
4	Virginia Tech	94.55	ACC	Dave Cianelli (15th)	4
5	Oregon	93.85	MPSF	Robert Johnson (4th)	3
6	LSU	92.66	SEC	Dennis Shaver (12th)	14
7	Georgia	74.28	SEC	Petros Kyprianou (1st)	6
8	Tennessee	73.77	SEC	Beth Alford-Sullivan (2nd)	15
9	Washington	67.55	MPSF	Greg Metcalf (14th)	8
10	TCU	65.86	Big 12	Darryl Anderson (12th)	7
11	Arkansas	65.66	SEC	Chris Bucknam (8th)	10
12	Colorado	62.99	MPSF	Mark Wetmore (21st)	12
13	Nebraska	62.28	Big Ten	Gary Pepin (33rd)	11
14	Stanford	60.79	MPSF	Chris Miltenberg (4th)	13
15	Texas Tech	54.95	Big 12	Wes Kittley (17th)	17
16	Oklahoma State	53.92	Big 12	Dave Smith (8th)	16
17	Alabama	53.51	SEC	Dan Waters (5th)	5
18	Southern California	48.02	MPSF	Caryl Smith Gilbert (3rd)	111
19	Virginia	45.69	ACC	Bryan Fetzer (5th)	18
20	Portland	45.51	West Coast	Rob Conner (26th)	44
21	Penn State	40.57	Big Ten	John Gondak (2nd)	21
22	Kent State	37.54	Mid-American	Bill Lawson (11th)	28
23	Georgetown	37.50	Big East	Michael Smith (1st)	22
24	Kansas State	36.29	Big 12	Cliff Rovelto (24th)	20
25	Purdue	33.96	Big Ten	Rolando Greene (4th)	24
Dropped out: No. 19 South Carolina, No. 23 Tulsa, No. 25 Houston
View All Teams Beyond the Top 25

Men’s Conference Index Top 10
Rank	Conference	Points	Top 25 Teams
1	SEC	663.13	7
2	MPSF	386.40	5
3	Big 12	377.97	5
4	Big Ten	307.39	3
5	ACC	276.56	2
6	American	113.26
7	Big East	86.37	1
8	Mid-American	68.25	1
9	Mountain West	49.89
10	West Coast	45.51	1

Men’s Regional Index Leaders
Region	Institution	Points
Great Lakes	Indiana	428.58
Mid-Atlantic	Penn State	371.56
Midwest	Nebraska	324.23
Mountain	Texas Tech	405.47
Northeast	Cornell	355.49
South	Tennessee	277.02
South Central	Texas A&M	473.04
Southeast	Kentucky	302.55
West	Southern California	322.20
View All Regional Rankings