It's conference championship weekend! For a more in-depth read, check out our Big 12 XC Championships preview here and the Pac-12 XC Championships preview here. Below we provide more storylines to follow as the major NCAA DI conference battles get underway on Friday and Saturday.

1. No. 2 BYU Vs. No. 3 Portland

West Coast Conference
Friday, Oct. 27

The West Coast Conference features the most exciting men's team battle of the weekend between No. 2-ranked BYU, the two-time defending conference champions, and No. 3 Portland, the late risers who jumped from No. 22 to No. 3 in the FloXC national rankings with a runner-up finish at Wisconsin behind No. 1 Northern Arizona.

As it stands right now, BYU and NAU appear to be closer to the same level while Portland leads the next tier of podium contender teams. NAU and BYU have not raced each other, but NAU beat Portland by 73 points in Wisconsin with Syracuse and Stanford another 28 and 32 points back, while BYU put a 77-point differential between themselves and Colorado at Pre-Nats.

Portland thus has a bit more to prove than BYU, but they're embracing the challenge, as evidenced by our On The Run chat with top runner Jeff Thies this week. Listen to On The Run with Jeff Thies here.

Watch BYU: Time To Deliver below:

2. Ednah Kurgat Vs. Allie Ostrander, Part II

Mountain West Conference
Friday, Oct. 27

Here's to hoping this is more of a battle than the Wisconsin Invitational, where New Mexico's Ednah Kurgat broke the field by running four seconds outside the course record. But who owns that course record, anyway? None other than Boise State's Allie Ostrander, who outran Molly Seidel (who would win NCAAs that year) in 19:19 in 2015. Ostrander fell about 2K into the race this year and had to fight through the horde of runners to get into the top 10.

Kurgat rightfully moved into the FloXC No. 1 spot after her dominant win, but Ostrander didn't seem terribly distraught about ninth place.

"Last time, my best race of the year was here and this year, I want my best race to be later," she said in a post-race interview that you can watch here.

Watch Ednah Kurgat dominate the Wisconsin Invitational:

3. Will New Mexico Women's No. 5 Emerge?

Mountain West Conference
Friday, Oct. 27

The Lady Lobos took over the FloXC No. 1 position after distancing the competition at Wisconsin by 39 points. New Mexico's top four women are as good as anyone in the country, with FloXC No. 1 Ednah Kurgat, No. 8 Alice Wright, No. 12 Weini Kelati, and No. 13 Charlotte Prouse all earning top-15 national rankings to this point in the season. But with the likes of Oregon and Colorado gaining momentum, it's going to take more than four runners to win the national title in November -- remember that Colorado beat New Mexico by four points at Notre Dame.

The next group of Lobos consists of Kieran Casey, Alondra Negron, and Alex Buck, who have finished anywhere from 31 seconds to 83 seconds behind the No. 4 woman. If they can close the gap vs. a strong FloXC No. 8 Boise State squad at conference, New Mexico will look very good heading into regionals and nationals.

Watch this season's Workout Wednesday with New Mexico:

4. Can The Alabama Men Go 1-2-3 At SECs?

Southeastern Conference
Friday, Oct. 27

We've spent a lot of time this season analyzing the Alabama men, whose top three of Vincent Kiprop, Gilbert Kigen, and Alfred Chelanga rank FloXC Nos. 4, 7, and 17 this season. We don't expect them to interrupt a much-deeper Arkansas squad for their eighth-consecutive SEC title (which is one of the best active conference winning streaks in the NCAA) but the Crimson Tide do have the potential to sweep the top three individual spots.

'Bama's top individual competition will also come from the Razorbacks, whose Alex George and Jack Bruce are currently ranked Nos. 15 and 16 in the FloXC. The duo placed 15th and 19th, respectively, at NCAAs in 2016 and Bruce went on to earn runner-up honors behind Grant Fisher and ahead of Justyn Knight at NCAA outdoor 5K this past spring. Meanwhile, this is the first NCAA DI cross country season for Kiprop, Kigen, and Chelanga.

Alabama and Arkansas have not raced head to head yet this season, but we can infer a few things based on common opponents. George and Bruce were just 16th and 18th at Pre-Nats, six and eight seconds behind Joe Klecker of Colorado. At Notre Dame -- a much deeper field, by the way, than SECs -- Kigen, Kiprop and Chelanga swept the top three spots, with third-place Chelanger finishing three seconds ahead of fourth-place Klecker.

I'll put my money on the 'Bama individual sweep and title No. 8 for the Razorbacks.

5. Will Wisconsin Men Rebound?

Ben Ten Conference
Sunday, Oct. 29

The year of 2017 is starting to feel similar to the 2015 cross country season for the Wisconsin Badgers, a year of infamy that resulted in the team's first time missing the NCAA XC championships since 1971. With IAAF World Championships qualifier Morgan McDonald leading the squad, we pegged the Badgers at FloXC No. 8 in the preseason. But McDonald is now redshirting, Olin Hacker is nowhere to be seen, and without a big comeback performance at Big Ten, the Badgers look more likely to spend NCAA weekend at home than in the top 10.

A bright spot was Joe Hardy's 25th-place performance on their home course at the Wisconsin Invitational, but the team finished 25th overall as No. 2 man Ben Eidenschink was back in 90th place; no one else broke into the top 100 finishers. The good news is that field was extremely deep and 65 places only meant 34 seconds. If they can pack up better at Big Ten, they have the opportunity to score valuable points vs. a field that includes FloXC No. 15 Michigan, No. 17 Michigan State, and No. 20 Minnesota.