2023 NCAA DI Cross Country Conference Championships Preview

Conference Championships Weekend is here!

Thirty-one meets will dot the nation this weekend.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results | USTFCCCA Scoreboard

Fourteen conferences have at least one nationally ranked program.

Let’s find out which meets are going to stand above the rest.

No conference has more ranked programs than the ACC.

Both races feature five top-30 programs from the most recent National Coaches’ Polls.

The Men’s 8k is first on the course at 8:40 am ET with No. 4 Syracuse headlining a quintet that also includes No. 11 North Carolina, No. 14 Notre Dame, No. 16 Virginia and defending champion No. 20 Wake Forest. The Orange seek its first conference title since 2019, when the meet was hosted by Virginia Tech. Tallahassee has proven fortuitous for Syracuse, as it not only won the ACC title the last time the meet was held in Florida, but also the national title.

The Women’s 6k follows at 9:30 am ET with three top-10 programs: No. 2 NC State, No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 10 Virginia. The seven-time defending champion Wolfpack could set an ACC record for most consecutive titles won in conference history with a victory. NC State has done historically well in Tallahassee, winning the national title there in 2021. Also of note, a different athlete has won the individual title for the Wolfpack in each of the past four years: Katelyn Tuohy (2022), Kelsey Chmiel (2021), Dominique Clairmonte (2020) and Elly Henes (2019).

Arkansas met its match last year: Alabama.

The Crimson Tide swept the team titles in 2022, becoming the first non-Arkansas double dip since 1990 (Tennessee). Alabama won the men’s race by five points and dominated the women’s race en route to snapping a nine-year run by the Razorbacks atop the SEC podium.

When the Men’s 8k Championship goes off at 10:08 am ET, three ranked programs will hope to claim victory: No. 8 Arkansas, No. 13 Tennessee and No. 22 Alabama. The Razorbacks have the most history, winning ten of the past 13 titles, but the Volunteers are raring for their first since 1990. Don’t count out the Crimson Tide after what it did last year in Oxford, Mississippi.

Five top-30 programs toe the start line for the Women’s 6k Championship at 10:50 am ET: No. 7 Florida, No. 11 Arkansas, No. 13 Alabama, No. 18 Ole Miss and No. 23 Tennessee. The Gators are favored to win their first SEC title since 2012 for a reason. Whenever Parker Valby races, you can all but pencil her in for a top-3 spot – most likely No. 1 – and Florida has talented athletes behind her. Valby debuted two weeks ago and ran roughshod over the competition at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on her way to the individual title. Fans should expect to see a few other athletes in the lead pack, especially the Alabama duo of Hilda Olemomoi and Doris Lemngole.

The Pac-12 Cross Country Championships never disappoint.

This year should be no different with eight top-30 programs mixed between the two races.

The Women’s 6k, second on the course at 11:10 am PT, features six of those programs: No. 5 Stanford, No. 9 Oregon State, No. 14 Oregon, No. 19 Washington, No. 20 Colorado and No. 21 Utah. The Buffaloes are back-to-back defending champions and the Cardinal won twice before that. Five of those programs matched up at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational two weeks ago with Stanford topping the rest. If you scored the meet with just those five programs, the Beavers wouldn’t be too far behind with a close battle for third between the rest.

Don’t say it’s a down year for Pac-12 men’s programs, because once the postseason hits, all bets are off. Colorado and Stanford are the only two ranked programs in the field at ninth and 25th, respectively. The Buffaloes and the Cardinal played Hot Potato with the conference title in each of the past four years: Colorado won in 2019 and 2021; Stanford topped the podium in 2020 and 2022. If the defending champion Cardinal – or the unranked Oregon Ducks – pull an upset, they’d become the winningest program in Pac-12 history (Stanford and Oregon are tied with 16).

Conference realignment isn’t all that bad if we get matchups like what we’ll see on Saturday at the Big 12 Cross Country Championships in Ames, Iowa.

Look at that Clash of the Titans in the men’s race, which will be first on the course at 10 am CT: No. 2 Oklahoma State vs. No. 3 BYU vs. No. 6 Texas. No other conference boasts that type of top-end talent. Cross country fans will be in for a treat, especially if all three squads race to their full potential.

The women’s race, second on the course at 11 am CT, features No. 5 BYU vs. No. 6 Oklahoma State as the headliner. Both the Cougars and the Cowgirls should be fresh, as they only raced hard once or twice this season. Most notably, BYU dominated at the XC23 Pre-Nationals Invitational, where it scored just 32 points and steamrolled Arkansas by 58 points.