Qualifying Questions

Nothing is normal these days, that much is a given. I mean, who would've thought that we would be having an indoor track season and a cross country season being run in the same three month-span? I know we've talked about the absurdity of that on multiple occasions, but that doesn't make it any less odd (at least not to me).

As part of this ongoing craziness, the winter cross country season won't have regional meets this year. Instead, distance programs will be (and have been) fighting to boost their resumes in an effort to earn a national qualifying spot from the NCAA selection committee.

Naturally, this new process has left us with a ton of questions as to which teams are currently in a position to qualify for the national meet and which teams are on the verge of not making it to Stillwater in March.

Before we dive into some of that analysis, we should probably review the criteria that the NCAA selection committee will be looking at for this winter XC season. This criteria is based on a November 4th release which, truthfully, still leaves us at TSR looking for additional clarity.

Here are the key points that the NCAA selection committee highlighted in that release...

So, based on that information, how will that new criteria impact the qualifying chances of teams that have raced so far this winter and last fall? How could future qualifying scenarios unfold?

Before we move forward, it's important to clarify that we don't know exactly just how much weight the NCAA selection committee will put into certain performances. In order to have any kind of productive conversation, TSR needs to make certain assumptions when talking about potential national qualifying teams.

We should also clarify that there are a plethora of regular season and conference cross country meets that still need to be run, so a lot of these theoretical conversations and questions could change in the near future.

Let's start our qualifying conversation by talking about the women. They seem to have the most interesting cases when it comes their potential qualifying scenarios, specifically Utah and Air Force.

At the Silver State XC Challenge, the Utah women competed in the more competitive "Yellow" race against the likes of BYU, Boise State, Northern Arizona, a limited Washington team and Weber State. However, despite being a top-ranked team, the Utah women finished last in the relatively small field.

Of course, the Utes were without a handful of their top varsity talents such as Cara Woolnough, Bella Williams, Trina Moreno, Emma Christensen and Ellie Lundgreen. Those absences obviously had a significant impact on Utah's overall performance and we know that they can a better team in the future...but how will the NCAA view this result?

Since the selection committee isn't differentiating between "A" teams and "B" teams this season, does that mean that they will actually hold Utah's performance against them? If so, then the Utes may be in a bit of a pickle.

The Utes still have two cross country meets left on their schedule for this winter season: another race at UNLV and then the PAC-12 XC Championships at the beginning of March. That second UNLV race is going to be absolutely pivotal for the Utes' national qualifying chances. They will need their full lineup in that field with hopes that they can beat enough talented teams to boost their national qualifying resume.

If the Utah women end up struggling in that race or don't beat enough top-ranked teams, then they'll go into the PAC-12 Championships having to face Washington, Colorado and Stanford. Would finishing 4th at the PAC-12 Championships be enough to help them qualify for Nationals?

In that specific scenario, I'm not sure that it would be, especially with Oregon not looking great this year and UCLA not yet posting any exciting performances.

In other words, Utah's national qualifying hopes could hinge on the success of their next race which will take place in Las Vegas (once again) next weekend.

The Air Force women are also in the same boat as Utah. Despite having low-stick Mahala Norris toe the line the other week, the Falcons didn't run top talents like Maria Mettler and Mikayla Gallagher (and a few others). The end result was Air Force earning a 3rd place team finish in the less competitive "Blue" race.

With their current cross country schedule only showing the Mountain West XC Championships as their only remaining meet of the season, how confident is Air Force that they'll be able to bolster their resume enough to earn a national qualifying spot? They'll have to face the likes of New Mexico and Boise State at their conference meet, so a win over either of those teams would surely send them to Stillwater...right?

However, if the Air Force women were to finish 3rd at the Mountain West Championships behind those two teams, which is fairly realistic, then what will their seasonal resume have that says they deserve to go to the NCAA Championships? Utah State and Colorado State are respectable teams, but at this very moment, coming home with a win over those two programs would probably not be enough for a national bid.

But let's move away from the Mountain region and move over to the BIG 12 and ACC, two conferences that have a ton of national qualifying implications associated with them.

Let's transition to the women of Florida State and Duke -- two teams that should theoretically be best friends when it comes to their common goal of qualifying for the NCAA XC Championships.

During the 2020 ACC XC Championships, the Florida State women finished 3rd behind NC State and Georgia Tech while the Duke women finished 4th overall. Both were respectable results, but by no means was either team locked into a national qualifying spot.

Luckily for them, Duke's massive 3rd place finish at the FSU Winter XC Classic wasn't just good for the Blue Devils. In fact, it was probably the best result that the Florida State women could have hoped for.

With the Duke women taking down BIG 12 champions Iowa State, as well as Oklahoma State and West Virginia, the Blue Devils now have a very solid argument to qualify for the NCAA Championships given that they beat almost every major contender in the BIG 12.

On paper, that Duke result makes Florida State's 3rd place finish at the ACC Championships this past fall look so much more impressive. In fact, it was probably best that the Seminole women didn't race at FSU Winter XC Classic, a meet that was hosted in Tallahassee.

If FSU did run and had finished behind Duke -- which seems very realistic given how well the Blue Devils ran -- then that probably would have hurt Florida State's national qualifying argument (not by much, but at least by a little bit).

And for Duke? Well, they'll be rooting for the Florida State women throughout the rest of the winter cross country season. If the 'Noles do decide to race at the FSU XC Last Chance meet on March 5th, then Duke will hope that they run exceptionally well.

Why? Well, a great performance from FSU probably makes Duke's 4th place finish from the ACC XC Championships a bit more impressive in the eyes of the NCAA selection committee. However, based on their most recent performance, the women from Durham, North Carolina are probably going to qualify for the national meet regardless of what Florida State does.

It's also important to note that Florida State was (probably) already positioned to qualify for Nationals regardless of how well Duke performed last weekend. Still, it's impossible to be 100% sure given the uncertainty of this new NCAA selection committee.

Let's go back and quickly revisit the BIG 12 competitors that we saw at the FSU Winter XC Classic last Friday. In that field, Oklahoma State finished 4th, Iowa State finished 5th and West Virginia finished 6th, potentially creating all kinds of crazy qualifying scenarios.

The Cowgirls from Oklahoma State may have saved their season last Friday despite finishing an unimpressive 4th place at the 2020 BIG 12 XC Championships last fall. The Pokes were without Molly Born in that BIG 12 race and Taylor Somers wasn't at 100%, but the selection committee won't be taking any of that into consideration.

Oklahoma States's performance at the BIG 12 XC Championships wasn't ideal and that could still hurt their overall qualifying chances depending on how closely the selection committee looks at their conference performance.

Even so, OSU's most recent result should be enough to help them qualify for the national meet now that they beat the BIG 12 conference champions (Iowa State). It's hard to find a scenario where Oklahoma State doesn't get into the national meet shortly after Iowa State does.

And that leaves us with West Virginia.

We believe that the Mountaineers are a better team than some people give them credit for. However, a 3rd place finish at the BIG 12 XC Championships last fall behind a decent, but unexciting Texas team doesn't help their case to qualify for the NCAA Championships.

It also doesn't help that they lost to conference rival Oklahoma State last weekend and that they finished 6th place overall, only beating teams that are not at all guaranteed a spot to the NCAA Championships.

However, West Virginia may have one saving grace: the Liberty Flames.

The women from Liberty have a respectable cross country squad, one that earned a 7th place finish at the FSU Winter XC Classic. If the NCAA selection committee is truly going to put the most weight into conference championship performances, then Liberty looks like they are in a great position.

The Flames are heavily favored to win the ASUN XC Championships in early March. If they do take home the win in that race, then they'll have a conference title and a respectable regular season performance on their winter cross country resume.

That could certainly boost Liberty's chances of qualifying for the national meet and if that were to happen, then West Virginia would have a win over a national qualifying team and suddenly have an argument to be on the starting line in Stillwater come March 15th.

Even so, both Liberty and West Virginia are far from national qualifying locks even if the Flames end up winning their conference meet. It's still difficult to tell how much stock the NCAA selection committee will put into teams who were/are victorious at smaller, less competitive conference championships.

Admittedly, the women's national qualifying scenarios are far more extensive and (in my opinion) are far more interesting than what we have seen on the men's side. There are, however, a few teams that have left us wondering what their path to the NCAA Championships will look like.

How comfortable should the Virginia men feel right now? Their 4th place finish at the ACC XC Championships wasn't bad and they had a strong regular season where they took down an NC State team that went on to finish runner-up at ACC's later in the season.

But if conference performances hold the most weight, then will a 4th place finish be enough to qualify for the national meet? Does that mean that the Eastern Michigan men will have a better argument to qualify for Nationals compared to Virginia thanks to them winning the Mid-American Conference title this past November?

And what about Furman, the Southern Conference champions? How many teams are in a position similar to those programs? Are there enough to potentially bump UVA out of a national qualifying spot?

Based on what we saw last fall, a knowledgable distance running fan would agree that the Cavaliers deserve to qualify for the national meet. We have them ranked as a Top 25 cross country team and we feel like they are talented enough to be in Stillwater. And truthfully, we do think that the NCAA selection committee will give them a national qualifying bid.

Still, we just aren't totally sold that they are locks to make it in.

We've talked a lot about teams that have already competed so far this season...but what about the teams that have yet to toe the line for a cross country race this year? The one conference that came across my mind was the BIG East.

One could argue that, on paper, teams such as Villanova, Georgetown and Butler are talented enough to be at the NCAA XC Championships later this year. However, it doesn't appear that Villanova and Georgetown will be racing until the BIG East XC Championships.

As for Butler, they toed the line for a low-key meet this past weekend. Despite them posting some solid results, Butler's competition probably wasn't good enough to bolster their national qualifying hopes in any major way. That, of course, could change at the Butler Invite if enough talented teams come to race and the Bulldogs end up posting a top finish.

At this moment, it seems like a bid to the national meet will likely come down to whoever emerges as the winner at the BIG East XC Championships. That applies to both the men and women for each of the three teams that we mentioned above.

For the most part, it doesn't feel crazy to say that Villanova, Georgetown and Butler are largely in same tier when it comes to overall talent. That, however, is just our suspicion based on returners and new roster additions. We can't truly figure out how good these teams are until they actually race against top competition which likely won't be until the BIG East XC Championships.

Simply put, there is a very good chance that at least one of these teams (both on the men's and women's sides0 won't be going to NCAA Championships despite being talented enough to be there.