2024 NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Week 4
NEW ORLEANS – That’s more like it.
Here is the newest edition of the 2024 NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll, which was released on Tuesday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). There were some notable changes to the top-30 after a massive weekend that saw most of the nation’s best teams in action across the nation.
National Coaches’ Polls are presented by AthleticNET.
NCAA Division I — Men's Cross Country
This Week's National Top Five
1
Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State
2
BYU
BYU
3
Arkansas
Arkansas
4
Iowa State
Iowa State
5
Stanford
Stanford
Cross Country Polls & Rankings
Don’t look now, but Oklahoma State is no longer unanimous as the No. 1 team. The Cowboys, who recently steamrolled the competition at its own Weis-Crockett Invitational this past weekend, hauled in nine of 11 possible first-place votes, while No. 2 BYU took the others. The Cougars are still riding high off two resounding victories this season: beating a host of ranked squads at the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational in mid-September and then putting up a perfect score at the Bill Dellinger Invitational and throttling Oregon in the process.
Arkansas held steady at No. 3 and appeared to be as dominant as can be at the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals this past weekend. The Razorbacks put on a clinic on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Madison, sending across three runners in the top-10 and outclassing a field featuring 19 other ranked teams by 39 points. Patrick Kiprop (fourth), Kirami Yego (seventh) and Yaseen Abdalla (eighth) finished within 18 seconds of each other.
The rest of the top-10 (and top-30) looks pretty similar to how teams finished in Madison.
Wisconsin Pre-Nationals runner-up Iowa State didn’t budge from No. 4, while third-place Stanford jumped four spots to No. 5 and fourth-place New Mexico, led by individual champion Habtom Samuel, climbed two spots to No. 6. Fifth-place Northern Arizona fell two spots to No. 8, right behind Panorama Farms Invitational champion Wake Forest. Then sixth-place Wisconsin and seventh-place Notre Dame round out the top-10 at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.
Got it? Good. Now let’s have some fun.
Both Syracuse and California Baptist soared more than ten spots following their sterling efforts in Madison. The Orange, now ranked 12th, finished eighth at the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals, while the Lancers, now ranked 14th, took tenth. This kind of improvement is nothing new for CBU, which charged nine spots between Week 3 and Week 4 in 2023.
Wisconsin Pre-Nationals tenth-place squad Harvard, with NCAA champion Graham Blanks back in the fold, is now ranked No. 15 with Panorama Farms Invitational runner-up Virginia at No. 16. Princeton Fall Classic champion Villanova is No. 17 with Mountain West rivals Utah State and Wyoming at No. 19 and No. 20, respectively.
Coming in at No. 30 is Texas Tech, ranked for the first time in program history.
Mark your calendars for Saturday, November 23, because that’s when the 2024 NCAA DI Cross Country Championships will be held at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course in Madison, Wisconsin.
