Mick Byrne meets with the media
October 27, 2008 | Men's Cross Country
OPENING STATEMENT
MICK BYRNE: So far we've really put out our A team just at one meet, the Paul Short Invitational back in early October. We won that meet, although we did go into the meet without Stuart Eagon and Matt Withrow, our two seniors, fifth-year seniors. Going ahead to Big Ten Championships on Sunday, I'm really looking forward to it. It 's obviously my first championship.
The week, six days out, feels a little bit different than what I'm accustomed to, but obviously I'm excited about that. The kids are excited about going up to Ann Arbor, taking on Michigan on their home course. They're going to throw everything at us. They do not want the Badgers to win their 10th-straight title, that's obvious. So this week is preparation for these guys, and we're really looking forward to it.
We are going this weekend with Withrow will run his first race, and we're also going with Stuart Eagon.
QUESTION #1: Are they ready for such competition right off the bat, Mick'
BYRNE: They're 100% ready. They're seniors. They certainly do not want to hand off this title to Michigan. Michigan had a great race two weekends ago with pre-nationals. They finished third in a very good race. They ran real well. They hid one kid in the second race. I guess they thought we wouldn't see that, but we did see it, and we're prepared for them, and we expect them to come at us. And both Matt Withrow and Stuart Eagon want to win the 10th-straight title.
QUESTION #2: Normally you'd ask in a situation like that, do the kids feel pressure trying to keep a streak going' How about you as a coach, do you feel pressure jumping into a program that's now going for a 10th-straight title and all the success they've had'
BYRNE: Well, six days out, this morning I nicked myself in the chin here and kind of was wondering what the heck was going on, but we kind of control this and bleeding for a while, but I don't know if that's anything to do with what's going to happen on Sunday. But yeah, there is definitely a different feel to this. The kids are real excited about it, and I'm picking up on that excitement. They're talking about it in the locker room. They're talking about it out on runs, and I 'm kind of not used to that, at least, you know, a week to 10 days out from the meet they're really pumped about it.
So I've picked up on that, and we're going to run with it this week. We 're going to use the fact that we're going to Ann Arbor. They're going to have a ton of supporters there. It's a big alumni weekend for them. They don't think we know that, but we do. So we're going to, you know, prepare for them. It's a real challenging course with a lot of hills. We've stayed on hills for a little later than we normally would in the, so we're ready for the course. We're ready for the challenge of Michigan coming at us.
So yeah, there is a little bit of excitement going around camp right now.
QUESTION #3: Mick, do you have any tricks up your sleeve'
BYRNE: Yeah, Stuart Eagon, Matt Withrow, Landon Peacock and Craig Miller. They 're four guys that are running real well right now, and we've got a good bunch of guys behind them to back them up. But yeah, Stu is in good form. We were out doing a run with him on Saturday. He looked real good. Matt's coming around real well. And again, Mike (Eaves) talked a little bit about the mental aspect as you get forward into these big meets. These guys have been through the mill. They know what it's all about, and you have to rely on these guys that, you know, there's no real big game plan here. It's just get out and try to run Michigan into the ground.
