Grant Fisher is going to open his senior XC season on Saturday and Stanford coach Chris Miltenberg is worried...for the competition. "I’m maybe worried for everybody else out there because this is a different Grant Fisher than we’ve ever seen before."

Patrick Tiernan did the almost unthinkable and beat Edward Cheserek as NAU got its first national title.

Last year was an aberration as neither Stanford nor Oregon cracked the top 10 at NCAAs. That won't be the case this year as both teams are much better. The nation's #1 recruit, 4:10 1500 woman Elise Cranny, is headed to Stanford and the #2, 2-time NXN champ Sarah Baxter, to Oregon. Plus a look at the increasing importance of the transfer market to building an xc power.

As usual, Stanford is loaded on paper with the Rosa brothers, Sean McGorty and grad student Maksim Korolev, but that still may not be enough to topple defending champion Colorado, which returns its entire top seven plus its top runner from 2012, Jake Hurysz (13:38 5k PR).