With NCAA conference championships in the rearview, it is no surprise to see overreactions on social media. So let's dive into those reactions and share our opinions on the state of NCAA XC as Division I teams prepare for the NCAA Regional Championships.

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The Wake Forest Men Will Finish Top 5 at NCAAs After Winning the ACC Title

Not an Overreaction

No. 8 Wake Forest won the ACC men’s title, knocking off No. 5 Stanford, No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 11 Syracuse, No. 12 North Carolina and No. 15 Virginia. So surely they should move into the Top 5 of the FloTrack College XC Rankings, right?

Well the FloTrack algorithm moved them up to No. 7 from No. 8, and I would argue that’s probably the right spot for them… right now.

With so many ranked teams competing at the ACC Championships, it was naturally weighted heavier in the algorithm compared to some other conferences. Take for example, the Big Sky Conference. With Northern Arizona and Montana State being the only two ranked schools from that conference, NAU actually lost some ground in the ranking set, despite winning the conference title.

NAU is likely a contender for a top five slot at NCAAs, as is New Mexico.

Stanford currently holds the No. 5 spot in the latest ranking set, and 18 points separate Stanford and Wake Forest. Largely, that comes down to the difference between their No. 1 runners in a national-sized field. Cole Sprout (Stanford) is ranked No. 24, whereas Luke Tewalt (Wake Forest) is ranked 35th.

However, that’s looking at the picture with Rocky Hansen currently ranked No. 128. The algorithm severely penalized the Wake Forest sophomore for his 32nd-place finish at the ACC Championships. He dropped 107 places because he lost to about 30 ranked individuals.

Wake Forest already has a strong top five, but with him at the front of the pack, they’re a much, much better team. With him toward the front, Wake Forest would’ve beaten Stanford by about 20 points instead of nine.

By my estimates, if Hansen finished in the Demon Deacons’ top three at ACCs, then they would’ve ranked ahead of Stanford this week – and also would’ve been very close to Arkansas in the No. 4 slot.

The road for Wake Forest is simple. They’ll see No. 8 North Carolina, No. 11 Virginia, No. 24 Eastern Kentucky and No. 25 Furman at the Division I Southeast Regional on November 15. If they get through that unscathed, they’ll stand a great chance of contending for the top five at the NCAA Championships.

West Virginia’s Ceili McCabe is a National Contender on the Women’s Side

Overreaction

Listen, I’m on the West Virginia bandwagon too and I really like what Ceili McCabe has been able to accomplish so far this season. She just won the Big 12 Championship, and knocked off No. 5 Juliet Cherubet (Texas Tech) to do so. 

The Mountainer won the Louisville Classic, finished fourth at Wisconsin Pre-Nationals and has a 4:29 Mile PR. She is the real deal.

But the top three women in the nation seem borderline untouchable. Doris Lemngole (Alabama), Pamela Kosgei (New Mexico) and Hilda Olemomoi (Florida) have been nearly flawless this year. Collectively, they haven’t lost to anyone aside from themselves, with Olemomoi losing once to each of the top two.

McCabe heads into the Division I Mid-Atlantic Region Championship, where she’ll try to dispatch No. 4 Chloe Scrimgeour (Georgetown), No. 10 Sadie Sigfstead (Villanova) and No. 12 Lucy Jenks (Georgetown). Her and the Mountaineers will be locked in a battle with the Georgetown contingent for the regional title, so every point will matter. If she comes out on top, there’s a good chance her team does as well.

The Princeton Men Are Criminally Underrated

Not an Overreaction

Despite winning the Ivy League Heptagonal Championship, the Princeton men plummeted to No. 28 in the FloTrack College XC Rankings presented by HOKA.

This is another one of those situations, where they didn’t race many ranked opponents, so the algorithm didn’t reward their individuals with a lot of points. But if we look at the team's body of work as a whole, we can see that they’re better than No. 28.

Princeton beat No. 18 Harvard at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, finished just behind No. 15 and No. 30 Georgetown at the Princeton Fall Classic and finished ninth at Nuttycombe back in September.

At Nuttycombe, they beat Villanova, Virginia, Syracuse, Montana State and Portland, all teams ranked ahead of them.

I’d argue that they should be ranked right around the No. 20 spot.

They’ll head to the Mid-Atlantic Region Championship where they’ll face off with Villanova and Georgetown again, with hopes of securing one of the two automatic qualifying spots for nationals.

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