2024 NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Week 6
NEW ORLEANS – All eyes on Madison, Wisconsin.
The 2024 NCAA DI Cross Country Championships are on Saturday.
Before the action gets underway uninterrupted at 9:30 am ET on ESPNU, let’s find out which men’s teams the electorate feels have the best shot at challenging for the national title by looking at the final installment of the 2024 NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll.
National Coaches’ Polls are presented by AthleticNET.
NCAA Division I — Men's Cross Country
This Week's National Top Five
1
BYU
BYU
2
Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State
3
Arkansas
Arkansas
4
Iowa State
Iowa State
5
New Mexico
New Mexico
Cross Country Polls & Rankings
BYU is the consensus favorite to win its first national title since 2019. The Cougars, who received ten of 11 possible first-place votes, enter the NCAA Championships on a roll. Most recently, BYU won the team title at the Mountain Region Championships after putting four athletes in the top-10 and scoring 52 points, nine fewer than runner-up No. 5 New Mexico. Just 13 days earlier, the Cougars beat former No. 1 Oklahoma State head-to-head at the Big 12 Championships, 41-52.
Speaking of the Cowboys, they sit second in the final National Coaches’ Poll. Oklahoma State, which hauled in the lone remaining first-place vote, recently topped the podium at the Midwest Region Championships. The Cowboys took four of the top-6 places, led by a 1-2 finish by Dennis Kipngetich and Laban Kipkemboi. That was the second consecutive individual regional title for Kipngetich, who finished fourth at the NCAA Championships last year. Oklahoma State hopes to repeat as national champions and win its sixth national title in program history, which would tie them with Northern Arizona and Oregon with the fourth-most in NCAA DI history.
Arkansas is a strong podium contender – but right outside the hunt for the national title – by the electorate. The third-ranked Razorbacks enter the NCAA Championships fresh off a team title at the South Central Region Championships. Kirami Yego, Timothy Chesondin and Patrick Kiprop went 1-2-3 as Arkansas amassed just 33 points in College Station, Texas. The Razorbacks proved their mettle on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course earlier this season with an emphatic victory at the Wisconsin Pre-National, where it thumped the best field of any regular season meet.
Iowa State and New Mexico come in ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, also thought of as podium contenders. Both the Cyclones and the Lobos finished runner-up at their respective regional championships: Iowa State canvassed the top-15 with its entire scoring lineup, but ran into the juggernaut that is Oklahoma State; New Mexico, led by NCAA individual hopeful Habtom Samuel, put a scare into top-ranked BYU on a snowy day in Reno, Nevada.
Northern Arizona, Wisconsin and Alabama sit sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively, after all moving up two spots following Regional Championships Weekend. Stanford slid two spots to No. 9, while North Carolina cracked the top-10 once again, going into the climactic meet.
The 2024 NCAA DI Cross Country Championships are set for Saturday, November 23, at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Madison, Wisconsin. If you aren’t in the Badger State, you can watch the action uninterrupted on ESPNU beginning at 9:30 am ET. The men’s race begins at 12:10 pm ET, 50 minutes after the women take the course.
