TSR's 2023 D1 XC Top 25 Team Rankings (Men): Update #4

NOTE: These rankings are based on how a team fared throughout the entirety of a season, not just how they ran at a singular meet or (eventually) at the 2023 NCAA XC Championships. Click here to learn more about our ranking criteria.

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KEY

(Unranked):

Was not ranked in our last update.

(#/#):

First number indicates how much the team has moved in our rankings.

The second number indicates where the team was ranked in our last update.

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ANOTHER NOTE: The Stride Report does not typically put much ranking weight on the regional meet results. Oftentimes, certain teams will not place much emphasis on these races and will simply run with the goal of advancing to the national meet. This is not to say that all regional results are negligible (as you'll see below). However, you may notice less movement within our top-25 lists than usual in this update.

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25. Iona Gaels (Unranked)

You could make arguments for Florida State or Gonzaga to earn our TSR #25 spot, but the Iona men have put together a cross country resume that doesn't really have any flaws.

The Gaels were the runner-up finishers at the Loyola Lakefront Invitational (losing only to Wisconsin), placed 21st at the Nuttycombe Invite (ahead of both FSU and Gonzaga) and just dominated their Northeast regional meet.

On Friday, the New York-based distance program made a statement by putting five men in the top-14 spots. Damien Dilcher (2nd) and Joshua DeSouza (3rd) were unsurprisingly great, but it was Lachlan Wellington (10th), Nick Soldevere (11th) and Matt Rankin (14th) who offered WAY better scoring value than expected.

There are still a few questions that we have for this team, and truthfully, the regional stage is usually not the best gauge of how good a certain program is. Even so, it's hard to find an argument as to why the Iona men should not be ranked after their Northeast title victory.

24. Colorado Buffaloes (-3 / 21)

This feels...weird.

Ranking the Colorado men at TSR #24 feels so, so wrong. This is a historical powerhouse when it comes to cross country. They have almost always been in the conversation to be a top-10 program on the grass!

But after a 6th place finish at the Mountain Regional XC Championships where they lost to a Montana State squad that struggled earlier this year, it's hard to be too excited about the Buffaloes this fall.

And even if you're not someone who puts much stock into regional results (like us), then you could still point to the fact that neither Washington nor Oregon advanced to the national meet -- and those two teams beat Colorado at the PAC-12 XC Championships.

Colorado's 7th place finish from the Nuttycombe Invite is a massive reason why they are still ranked inside of our top-25. However, the arguments in favor of this Boulder-based distance programs are becoming increasingly more thin.

23. Wake Forest Demon Deacons (Unranked)

Seeing the Wake Forest men produce a 4th place finish at the Southeast regional meet may make you shrug your shoulders and move on. They did, after all, fall one spot behind a once-struggling NC State program.

But the Demon Deacons were able to snag 4th place and advance to the NCAA XC Championships without their star rookie low-stick, Rocky Hansen. The good news is that Hansen could come back for the national meet (although that is not 100% confirmed) and that could alter our perception of this still-young squad.

Bringing Hansen back into the picture with Luke Tewalt, who has looked much stronger as of late, gives Wake Forest an argument to be a top-25 team. Not only that, but redshirt freshman Joseph O'Brien continues to be an incredibly reliable scorer for the Demon Deacons in 2023.

Inexperience could be an issue on the national stage, but if Hansen does return and is able to be nationally competitive alongside Luke Tewalt, then Wake Forest could have two All-Americans come Saturday.

22. Michigan Wolverines (+3 / 25)

The Michigan men were projected to finish 4th in the Great Lakes region, but they ended up placing 3rd and defeating Notre Dame in the process. Of course, even if they had finished in 4th place, the Wolverines would have still comfortably qualified for the national meet.

There's admittedly not much to talk about when it comes to the men of Big Blue, but things are looking good for them as they head into their season finale.

Tom Brady is (seemingly) becoming increasingly more comfortable as the postseason unfolds, Nick Foster has been solid (but can still be better) and Owen Mackenzie has been a really nice addition to the middle portion of this lineup.

With a handful of underrated support scorers behind that trio, this Michigan cross country team is just flat-out solid and may be one of the safer teams to chose when making your NCAA XC Championship predictions.

21. Eastern Kentucky Colonels (Unranked)

They may not have needed to earn the second automatic national qualifying spot in the Southeast region, but it certainly didn't hurt to do so.

The Eastern Kentucky men have been solid all season long, consistently hovering on the fringes of our team rankings. However, the Colonels don't jump to our TSR #21 spot just because they earned silver at the regional level.

EKU had a lethal quartet of scorers on Friday with Nikodem Dworczak, Taha Er Raouy, Mohammed Jouhari and Abdelhakim Abouzouhir going 8-10-11-16, respectively. In fact, their fifth runner (Ahmed Kadri) wasn't even that far back in 27th place!

The Southeast Regional XC Championships was a perfect example of what can happen when all (or most) of the Colonels' best scorers run well on the same day. The rise of Dworczak as a competitive scorer is massive and Er Raouy continues to be a quietly-great lead scorer despite his youth.

Be careful with this team when they reach the national stage. If everything clicks, then their ceiling is that of a top-15 team.

20. Iowa State Cyclones (Unranked)

Yes, the Iowa State men did fall out of our rankings during our last update, but that was more because there was a lack of room rather than anything that they did. Now, with a handful of teams falling out of our rankings and other programs making marginal improvements, the Cyclones comfortably jump back onto our top-25 list.

There isn't much to discuss when it comes to the Midwest Regional XC Championships. Along with Oklahoma State, the men from Ames, Iowa were expected to easily cruise to an automatic birth -- and they did just that, at least by the team scores.

And remember, it's not like Tulsa, Loyola (Ill.) and Drake were push-over teams this season.

19. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (-2 / 17)

Falling back to 4th place at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships is certainly not the best development for a team that has yet to truly find a spark this fall.

Tyler Berg (7th) seems to be rounding into form and it was really nice to see redshirt freshman Ethan Coleman (12th) make a somewhat seamless transition to the 10k distance. The rest of the Fighting Irish's scorers (who went 20-22-34) were fine, but the absence of Josh Methner certainly limited this team.

I imagine that the Great Lakes regional meet wasn't a massive point of emphasis for this Indiana-based program which is why we're not going to overreact to a two-point loss to a solid Michigan team.

That being said, not seeing Josh Methner race on Friday did have us raising an eyebrow. It's not unusual for top teams to rest some of their best runners on the regional stage, and that could have very easily been the case, but the Irish will need their veteran ace back for the national meet if they want to be a top-15 threat.

18. Air Force Falcons (+1 / 19)

There's truthfully not much to chat about when it comes to the Air Force men. They finished 4th at the Mountain Regional XC Championships on Friday behind Northern Arizona, BYU and New Mexico.

Luke Combs (6th) looked great as he moved back up to 10k. Meanwhile, the rest of this team simply did their jobs, going 19-23-29-35. I wouldn't look too heavily into this result. And even if you did, there isn't much that you could pull from it anyways.

17. Tennessee Volunteers (+1 / 18)

A South regional title wasn't necessarily a surprise for the Tennessee men, but it was still a small and subtle step in the right direction.

Much like a handful of these other teams, we didn't really learn anything new about the Vols. Yaseen Abdalla, Gabriel Sanchez and Dean Casey are the clear leading trio for this squad and the rest of their lineup seems serviceable.

However, we should give credit to Eli Nahom (17th) who stayed within striking distance of Casey on Friday. Minimizing that gap could do wonders for this squad as they make their return trip to the NCAA XC Championships later this week.

16. Butler Bulldogs (+4 / 20)

The Butler men were not messing around with their national qualification hopes when they toed the line at the Great Lakes Regional XC Championships. There, the Bulldogs sent a commanding message with Florian Le Pallec, Will Zegarski, Matthew Forrester, Will Minnette and Jesse Hamlin going 4-5-8-9-15, respectively.

All of that gave Butler a comfortable regional title victory over teams like Wisconsin, Michigan and Notre Dame. And while the regional stage likely had a limited level of urgency for those teams, it was hard to dismiss how insanely strong the Bulldogs looked.

With a Great Lakes regional title and an upset win over Villanova under their belts, the Butler men are giving us more reasons to believe that their "off" day the Nuttycombe Invite was a fluke rather than a wholistic indication of their actual talent.

15. Stanford Cardinal (0 / 15)

Despite their early-season struggles, it was no surprise to the see Stanford men win the West regional title. They were heavily favored to qualify for the national meet with a top-two finish.

If we are going to pull any takeaways from this race, it's that Cole Sprout (4th) looks healthy AND fit going into the postseason and that Robert Didonato (7th) validated his tremendous race from the PAC-12 XC Championships.

There was admittedly a significant gap after that top-three, but those encouraging developments, as well as seeing both Young twins in this lineup, were positive signs.

14. Virginia Cavaliers (-2 / 12)

Sure, we may not put much emphasis on regional results, but Virginia's performance on Friday was a little concerning.

The Cavaliers faded to 5th place at the Southeast Regional XC Championships. And if they had fallen back 23 more points and placed 6th behind Charlotte, then they're not advancing to the national meet.

Will Anthony (7th) is becoming an increasingly bigger threat as a low-stick. The same could be said about Nathan Mountain (14th) and Yasin Sado (24th) as support scorers. But with the Cavaliers' final two scorers finishing between 45th and 50th place, and top scorer Gary Martin having a simple "off" day, the UVA men probably cut things a bit closer than they wanted to.

13. New Mexico Lobos (+1 / 14)

The New Mexico men certainly didn't need to be as aggressive as they were, but that wasn't going to stop Habtom Samuel Keleta, Lukas Kiprop and Evans Kiplagat from going 1-3-4, respectively, at the Mountain Regional XC Championships.

With Jonathan Carmin (37th) and Samuel Field (52nd) closing out the scoring, the Lobos easily secured an at-large bid to the national meet. But truthfully, we didn't really learn anything new about this team -- this is pretty much what they've been doing all season long.

12. Princeton Tigers (+1 / 13)

The Princeton men took care of business with ease at the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships. By putting five men in the top-12 and all seven men in the top-23, the Tigers easily cruised to the regional title.

With the Villanova men opting to hold out Marco Langon and Xian Shively, it should have come as no surprise that Princeton secured gold with a depth-heavy lineup. Can that same lineup structure give them enough scoring stability to be a top-10 team on the national stage.

11. Villanova Wildcats (0 / 11)

There's not much to chat about when it comes to the Villanova men. At the Mid-Atlantic Regional XC Championships, the Wildcats were led by Liam Murphy (1st) and Haftu Strintzos (2nd) while their latter three scorers went 21-24-25.

Despite not having Marco Langon or Xian Shively, Villanova still fended off Georgetown for the second automatic national qualifying spot. And truthfully, even if they hadn't, then the Wildcats would have still advanced to the NCAA XC Championships.

10. Harvard Crimson (0 / 10)

The lineup structure that we saw from the Harvard men at the Northeast regional meet was pretty much identical to what the Crimson have shown us throughout most of this season.

Graham Blanks (1st) was elite, Acer Iverson (5th) was great as expected, Ben Rosa (8th) continues to rise a highly valuable third scorer and the rest of the scoring group simply did enough to get by.

There wasn't anything new that we learned about this group, but you could begin to make the argument that Ben Rosa is the MVP of this team given the improvements that he has made.

9. California Baptist Lancers (-4 / 5)

For a team that was listed at TSR #5 in our last rankings update, earning a 5th place finish at the West regional meet is not a great sign.

The Lancers fell to Stanford, Gonzaga and Portland on Friday and they only beat Washington by four points. If the Huskies had upended CBU, then a team that we viewed as a podium threat last week was going to be left out of the national meet.

Make no mistake, Valentin Soca (3rd) and Arturs Medveds (9th) were brilliant. They offered some much-needed low-stick scoring. However, with their final three scorers going 23-44-46, the Lancers narrowly avoided a nightmare scenario.

Naturally, you can see why we dropped them to TSR #9.

8. Texas Longhorns (+1 / 9)

Nothing to chat about here. The Texas men, along with the Arkansas men, cruised through the South Central region to earn an automatic national qualifying spot. We didn't expect to see any surprises from this region and sure enough, it was pretty much chalk.

7. Syracuse Orange (0 / 7)

Yes, the Syracuse men may have finished 3rd at the Northeast regional meet, but they were racing without top ace Paul O'Donnell and Assaf Harari. If those two men had toed the line, specifically the former name, then the Orange are likely defeating Harvard for the second automatic national qualifying spot.

And sure, I'm not confident that they would have taken down Iona even with a full squad, but the Syracuse men haven't given us any major reasons to believe that they're not podium contenders going into Saturday. We imagine that they'll flip the switch in Charlottesville.

6. Arkansas Razorbacks (+2 / 8)

Nothing to chat about here. The Arkansas men, along with the Texas men, cruised through the South Central region to earn an automatic national qualifying spot. The Tulane men did come within 25 points of the Razorbacks, but it was clear that this Fayetteville-based distance program was without a number of key lineup contributors.

5. North Carolina Tar Heels (+1 / 6)

It was business as usual for the North Carolina men at the Southeast regional meet. There, they went 2-3-6-9-18 to easily secure the overall title. Jake Gebhardt looks like someone who can consistently be a top scorer for this team (which is huge going into the national meet) and Colton Sands is making tremendous strides as well at the fifth scoring spot.

Is it possible that the UNC men are peaking at the perfect time? It certainly seems like that...

4. Wisconsin Badgers (0 / 4)

A 2nd place finish at the Great Lakes regional meet leaves us with very little to talk about when it comes to the Wisconsin men. Bob Liking, Jackson Sharp and Adam Spencer went to 1-2-6, respectively, to easily take care of business while Josh Truchon (25th) and Micah Wilson (36th) closed out the scoring.

With both Evan Bishop and Rowen Ellenberg being sidelined for Friday's race, there isn't much analysis that we can offer. That being said, Adam Spencer has looked fantastic on the grass so far this fall despite initially being viewed as more of a miler.

3. BYU Cougars (0 / 3)

The BYU men earned a 2nd place finish (and an automatic national qualifying spot) in the Mountain region despite not fielding Creed Thompson and having a handful of their top scorers seemingly tempo the race. Simply put, we didn't learn anything new about this team.

2. Oklahoma State Cowboys (0 / 2)

Sure, scoring 19 points at the Midwest Regional XC Championships is insanely impressive, but...are you really that surprised? The Oklahoma State men were easily the best team in the field and it wasn't even close. They had five men finish in the top-eight and that was without Victor Shitsama, Will Muirhead or Jonas Price.

In the grand scheme of things, our opinion of this team didn't change at all on Friday.

1. Northern Arizona Lumberjacks (0 / 1)

The Northern Arizona men earning another Mountain regional title was probably the least surprising result of the season and there isn't any need to dive into the results. That being said, Kang Nyoak (5th) looked surprisingly great. He'll be on our radar at the national meet.

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ADDED

Iona Gaels

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Eastern Kentucky Colonels

Iowa State Cyclones

KICKED OFF

Alabama Crimson Tide

Oregon Ducks

Washington Huskies

Furman Paladins

JUST MISSED (in no particular order)

Alabama Crimson Tide

Oregon Ducks

Washington Huskies

Furman Paladins

Florida State Seminoles

Montana State Bobcats

Boise State Broncos

Gonzaga Bulldogs

Michigan State Spartans

Charlotte 49ers

Portland Pilots

NC State Wolfpack

HONORABLE MENTIONS (in no particular order)

Purdue Boilermakers

Wyoming Cowboys

Colorado State Rams

Georgetown Hoyas

Providence Friars

Navy Midshipmen

Cal Poly Mustangs

Santa Clara Broncos

Tulane Green Wave

Tulsa Golden Hurricanes

Loyola (Ill.) Ramblers

Duke Blue Devils

Notes

- N/A