The last time Tennessee’s men’s team won an SEC cross country title, the University of Arkansas was still in the Southwest Conference.
Tennessee won its most recent SEC title in 1990.
Arkansas joined the SEC the next year and won the first of what has become 27 cross country titles in 31 meets, the most of any team.
The Volunteers, second with 25 titles, go into today’s SEC Championships in Oxford, Miss., as the conference’s highest-ranked team nationally at No. 17.
Alabama is ranked No. 22. Arkansas isn’t in the top 25, but based on the votes the Razorbacks received in the latest poll they’re No. 33.
“We’re not the favorite in any shape or form, but I think we have a shot at it and we’re going to give it a run,” said Arkansas Coach Chris Bucknam, who has led the Razorbacks to 10 titles in the past 12 SEC meets. “I’d give Tennessee the nod with Alabama right there. Then I think us and Ole Miss are chasing those two schools.”
The Razorbacks have won back-to-back SEC triple crowns with six consecutive cross country and indoor and outdoor track and field meets during the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years.
“That’s a little bit of an extra motivation, because our guys don’t want to let go of the rope,” Bucknam said. “They don’t want to be the team that breaks the streak.”
Senior Jacob McLeod was fifth at last year’s SEC meet and junior Myles Richter was 10th among the top returning Razorbacks.
Ryan Murphy will run in his fifth SEC meet for Arkansas taking advantage of an additional year of eligibility granted by the NCAA because of covid-19. He was 18th last year and had his best finish, ninth, in 2018.
Sophomore Patrick Kiprop, who transferred to Arkansas last January and won the 5,000 meters at both the conference indoor and outdoor meets and was second in the 10,000 outdoors, has been the Razorbacks’ top runner this cross country season.
“Patrick is a special athlete,” Bucknam said. “He got off to a little bit of a slow start this fall because of a hip injury. That held back some of his training and he’s catching up now. He’s a phenomenal competitor and will be in the mix (to win the individual title).”
The men’s 8,000 meters race will start at 10:50 a.m. Central at the Ole Miss Golf Course and be televised live on the SEC Network.
Also running for the Razorbacks will be junior Josh Shearer, sophomores Elias Schreml and Tommy Romanow and freshmen Ben Shearer, Reuben Reina and Jack Williams.
“You need talent and you need your guys dialed in,” Bucknam said. “We’re going to have to utilize our talents and get after it.”
Alabama is led by defending SEC champion Eliud Kipsang.
Tennessee has two impact transfers in Dylan Jacobs, last year’s NCAA champion in the 10,000 meters competing for Notre Dame, and Yaseen Abdalla, who last year anchored Texas’ distance medley relay to a national title indoors.
“Tennessee added two national champions to their roster just over the summer,” Bucknam said of the transfer portal. “You can flip the switch pretty quick and really be good.”