Someone wrote in a different forum no one wants to race everybody wants to train. Following up this weekend, as a college XC fan its disappointing when these meets get so hyped up and then the top guys for teams don't race. The amount of meets where letsrun and flotrack hype up Stanford (other teams do this too obviously but just an example) and then the gun goes off and Sean mcgorty, fisher, and in other years other top guys sit out and we watch their B squad get 5th is frustrating. That's the equivalent of Clemson/Louisville playing next week in football and Lamar Jackson and Watson don't play because there's no consequence to losing and they don't want them to get hurt. Obviously the qualifying system in XC should be different than football, but why can't regular season meets maybe count more towards qualifying in order to make these meets entertaining. Sometimes in other sports the best games of the season can come during the regular season, why can't this happen in cross. If someone live streamed a hypothetical Syracuse vs. Stanford or Colorado vs. Oregon showdown I really think a lot of people would watch that race, I know I would make it a priority to watch it during the day (unless it's on flopro paying 130$ a year) but it'd be entertaining for fans.
I think sometime in the near future there will be an altercation to the nationals qualifying system. So why not make meets like griak, pre nats, Wisconsin, panorama, Paul short, Louisville, etc. have more of an importance in the qualifying process. If a team wins one of these races (obviously there would be a limit on which meets counted and which didn't) then a win would punch there ticket to nationals. They wouldn't have to run the regional meet which gives them an edge at nationals so there guys wouldn't have to race 10k on 8 days rest. Obviously that would motivate teams to run their full squad these meets and try to get the win, which is entertaining for us to watch and creates buzz letting us actually talk on the board and be able to compare teams. Just an idea.