It’s About To Get Nutty(combe) In Wisconsin

EDITOR’S NOTE: Parts of this story originally appeared on the USTFCCCA Facebook page on October 15, 2015, as part of a “Feature Friday.” CLICK HERE to read the original post.

“One of the best things about this meet is that people understand head-to-head competition. Every coach is going to run a full team and race hard. There is no hiding out there.” ~ Wisconsin coach Mick Byrne told the USTFCCCA back in 2015

It started as a modest proposal.

Wisconsin coach Mick Byrne, frustrated with the pre-nationals system in NCAA DI Cross Country, decided to host his own meet that same weekend. Plus, Byrne wanted to show off the brand-new Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course and planned on inviting 8-10 teams per gender, per year, to Madison, Wisconsin.

And thus, the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational was born in 2009.

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Sounds simple enough, right? Well, word got out.

By 2012, the original plan of 16-20 teams ballooned to 83.

Seventy-four teams toed the starting line in championship races in 2014.

That number has since been adjusted to anywhere between 65 and 70.

“I mean, the course can hold everybody – but this meet grew into a monstrosity,” Byrne said back in 2015. “As it turns out, a lot of other coaches were tired of how the seeded races worked at the Pre-National Invitational and wanted another option.”

For as much as Byrne bemoans the size of the meet, says how much it “sucks” to turn away teams and dislikes how it takes an oversized role in the qualifying process for the NCAA Championships, he understands the importance of the meet when it comes to generating excitement for the sport.

“There is a lot of hype surrounding it, for better or worse,” Byrne said. “From a spectators’ point of view and marketing our sport, it’s fantastic. People are talking about it on social media, the national rankings are bound to change and it has really taken on this whole persona of its own.

“One of the best things about this meet is that people understand head-to-head competition. Every coach is going to run a full team and race hard. There is no hiding out there.”

Competition will be fierce on Friday.

No. 1 vs. No. 3 vs. No. 4 vs. No. 5 in the Men’s 8k Championship.

No. 1 vs. No. 2 vs. No. 4 vs. No. 5 in the Women’s 6k Championship.

All told, 44 teams that were ranked among the top-30 of their most recent respective National Coaches’ Poll will vie for top honors in the Badger State on the Badgers’ home course. Read that again: 44.

Both races have an even split of ranked teams: 22 in the Women’s 6k Championship at 11 am CT; 22 in the Men’s 8k Championship at 11:40 am CT. (NOTE: Race times for both the Championship events were flipped with their Open counterparts. Rain is forecast throughout the day in Madison on Friday.)

The Women’s 6k Championship features seven top-10 programs: No. 1 NC State, No. 2 Northern Arizona, No. 4 Notre Dame, No. 5 Stanford, No. 8 Washington, No. 9 Florida and No. 10 Colorado. Four of those programs met up earlier this season at the Virginia Invitational with NAU routing the field by 56 points. NC State and Notre Dame got familiar with each other at the Joe Piane Invitational two weeks ago with the Wolfpack taking home the win by nine points. This will be a great opportunity to find out just how strong NC State is and how much of a threat NAU could be.

The Men’s 8k Championship will be a slugfest between eight top-10 programs: No. 1 Northern Arizona, No. 3 BYU, No. 4 Wisconsin, No. 5 North Carolina, No. 6 Syracuse, No. 7 Villanova, No. 8 Air Force and No. 9 Notre Dame. Six of those programs squared off at the Virginia Invitational earlier this season and NAU emerged victorious with 71 points over a shorthanded BYU. Now, we should see each and every team brandish their best hand with a little more than one month left in the season.

If a team is successful at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, chances are it will fare well at the NCAA Championships in November, because the competitive nature is similar. Dating back to 2009, five men’s team champions went on to win national titles, as did six women’s programs: Wisconsin (2011), Syracuse in (2015) and NAU (2016, 2017, 2018) for the men; Michigan State (2014), New Mexico (2015, 2017), Colorado (2018), Arkansas (2019) and NC State (2022) for the women.

The same could be said about individuals, too. Eight individual champions in this meet have been crowned NCAA champions one month later: Lawi Lalang (2011), Justyn Knight (2017), Morgan McDonald (2018) and Edwin Kurgat (2019) in the men’s race; Sheila Reid (2011), Abbey D’Agostino (2013), Ednah Kurgat (2017) and Katelyn Tuohy (2022) in the women’s race.

Speaking of Tuohy, she is one of five top-10 finishers from the 2022 NCAA Championships potentially entered in their respective races: Tuohy, Parker Valby of Florida (runner-up), Tuohy’s teammate Kelsey Chmiel (third place), Elise Stearns of NAU (fourth) and Olivia Markezich of Notre Dame (eighth) are in the women’s race; the NAU duo of Nico Young (runner-up) and Drew Bosley (third), Graham Blanks of Harvard (sixth), Parker Wolfe of North Carolina (ninth) and Ky Robinson of Stanford (tenth) in the men’s race. (NOTE: Rosters are up, but lineups haven’t been finalized.)

You don’t want to miss the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in 2023.