2024 NCAA XC Men’s Team Preview: Will OK State Repeat or BYU Close Out a Dominant Season?

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Back in September, Oklahoma State coach Dave Smith said he believed his team had the best chance of any to win the 2024 NCAA men’s cross country championship. But he did not think that chance was greater than 50%.

At the time, it felt a bit like a bit of false modesty. The Cowboys scored 49 points to win last year’s NCAA title, the lowest men’s score at NCAAs in 18 years. And while their biggest rival, Northern Arizona, was decimated by graduation, OK State returned its top four runners — all of whom finished in the top 12 at NCAAs a year ago.

But Smith has seen a lot in 23 years at Oklahoma State. In 2011, OK State brought back five of their top six from a team that had won NCAAs by 120 points the year before and proceeded to…finish 2nd at NCAAs to Wisconsin.

Smith likens the NCAA cross country championships to racing on a razor’s edge. Last year’s NCAA meet was a best-case scenario for OK State: everyone in their top five had an incredible day. But if even one of those guys had been off their game, the Cowboys do not win. And Smith could tell that by the end of the race, Brian Musau (who finished 8th) was faltering.

“He was on the ropes for sure,” Smith says. “He didn’t have another 500 meters in him. There’s no way.”

This year, OK State rolled through the early season but was beaten at the Big 12 championships by BYU (now you see why Smith didn’t want to proclaim his team as the overwhelming favorite). When I spoke with Smith on Monday, five days out from the NCAA meet, he stuck by what he said two months ago: he still believes his team has the best chance, but he would not pick OSU to win over the field. He likes where his team is at, but he knows that it can only take one poorly-timed illness to derail a season.

“This time of the year, you just want the race to happen today,” Smith says. “Because right now for my team, we’re all healthy, no one’s got any illness. But every day you go is one more day for something to go wrong.”

A win on Saturday would be Smith’s fifth NCAA men’s XC title, tying him with Mike Smith, Vin Lananna, Mark Wetmore, and Karl Schladerman (Michigan State’s coach in the 1940s and 1950s) for #3 on the all-time list. Only UTEP’s Ted Banks (6) and Arkansas’ John McDonnell (11) have won more.

But it will not be easy. BYU has one of its strongest teams ever and heads into NCAAs ranked #1 in the coaches’ poll. Iowa State and SEC champion Arkansas are lurking in the shadows should the top two falter.

OSU’s Brian Musau has been sensational in 2024

Usually Northern Arizona is in the mix as well, but after a dynastic run of six wins and two runner-up finishes in the last eight years, the Lumberjacks have finally hit a rebuilding year in coach Mike Smith’s final season in charge. Nico Young turned pro, stalwarts Drew Bosley and Brodey Hasty are out of eligibility, and so far NAU has not been able to replace them. The Lumberjacks were only 5th at Pre-Nats in October, scoring 178 points — which is more than they scored at the last two NCAA meets, combined. NAU is still a strong team — most teams would kill to be ranked 6th in a “rebuilding year” — but the Lumberjacks are a longshot to win the NCAA title.

And at the NCAA cross country championships, longshots aren’t really a thing. This isn’t like March Madness, where a #7 seed can get hot for a few weeks and win the whole thing. The biggest upset in the last 25 years of the NCAA men’s XC meet was when Colorado took down Wisconsin’s super team in 2004. That Colorado squad entered NCAAs ranked #4 in the country. In the two decades since, only two teams ranked outside the top two in the final coaches’ poll have won the meet: Colorado in 2013 and BYU in 2019. Both were ranked #3.

Based on history, that means there’s a roughly 90% chance that either #1 BYU or #2 OK State wins the title on Saturday. Below, I make the case for and against each of them, plus a look at the schools with a chance to spring the upset if everything breaks right.

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#2 Oklahoma State

Why they could win

It’s pretty simple. OK State has four guys (Denis Kipngetich, Brian Musau, Fouad Messaoudi, Victor Shitsama) who finished in the top 12 at NCAAs last year, plus Ryan Schoppe (7:38 3k, 53rd ’22 NCAAs), Addisu Guadie (50th ’23 NCAAs), and Laban Kipkemboi, who was OK State’s #2 man this year at the Cowboy Jamboree (3rd overall) and Midwest regional (2nd). It’s an absolutely loaded squad. If everyone runs to their potential at NCAAs, nobody is beating Oklahoma State.

Why they could lose

You already saw it at the Big 12 championships. In that race, Kipkemboi — in his first year of NCAA cross country — ran too aggressively up front and went from leading the race at 5k to 7th at 7k to 19th at 8k. And Messaoudi had an awful race and finished 32nd. If either of those guys finished in the top 10 at Big 12s, OK State would have won. Instead, they left the door open and BYU hammered it down with a great performance of their own.

The Cowboys went back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. Can they do it again 14 years later?

OK State coach Dave Smith told LetsRun he is confident his team can perform better at nationals. He noted that last year, both Kipngetich (14th Big 12s, 4th NCAAs) and Shitsama (45th Big 12s, 12th NCAAs) finished much higher at NCAAs than they did at the conference meet. And Messaoudi, in particular, is a big-meet performer. His best races in an OSU uniform have all come at NCAAs — he was 12th and 10th at NCAA XC the last two years and won the 2023 NCAA 3k title in between.

Still, Smith admitted to panicking a bit after the Big 12, worrying if he had pushed his team too hard in training in October.

“If one or two guys had been off at the conference meet, I would have thought whoever [it was] was having a bad day,” Smith says. “But when, honestly, Schoppe was a little off, Will Muirhead was off, Fouad was off, Denis wasn’t his best, I started to think man, maybe we’ve overcooked.”

Ahead of regionals, Smith made his biggest decision of the season by removing the redshirt from Addisu Guadie, who qualified for NCAAs in the 10,000 last year and owns a 28:10 pb. Last year, he had faced a similar situation with Schoppe and Smith made the opposite choice. His gamble paid off: OK State won NCAAs without Schoppe. This time around, Smith is not taking any chances.

“They came to me, some of the guys on the team and said listen, Addisu is in really good shape, we don’t want to leave anything up to chance,” Smith said. “We know you want to redshirt him for the future, but we want to make sure we get this taken care of. And I kind of agreed. I said, yeah, you’re right. We can’t play games with this.”

If everyone in OK State’s top five has a great day, they may not need Guadie to win. But he offers insurance should one of them falter.

#2 BYU

Why they could win

Corrigan led the Cougars to a 3rd-place finish in 2023. They’ve been even better this fall (Photo courtesy James B Daves/NCAA)

BYU has kicked butt all season long. At the Nuttycombe Invitational in September, the Cougars scored 44 points to throttle a field that included #4 Iowa State (108 points, admittedly they were down a couple athletes), ACC champions #14 Wake Forest (150 points), and #10 North Carolina (196 points). On October 11, BYU traveled west and perfect-scored the Dellinger Invitational, going 1-2-3-4-5-7-10 and putting seven men in front of #15 Oregon’s #1 on the Ducks’ home course. And of course, the Cougars beat OK State at Big 12s, 41-52.

To win NCAAs, you usually need a low stick in the top 10, and BYU has that in Casey Clinger, the 26-year-old 8th-year senior (2 on a mission) who was 8th in 2021 and 7th in 2022 and finished 5th in the Olympic Trials 10,000m in June. And behind him, they have a bunch of guys who could finish in the 20-50 range on Saturday:

• James Corrigan, sophomore: 8:13 steeple/13:30. 32nd ’23 NCAA XC. 2024 US Olympian in steeplechase.
• Joey Noakes, senior: 13:28/28:05. 52nd ’22 NCAA XC, 56th ’23 NCAA XC.
• Creed Thompson, senior: 13:34/28:04. 35th ’22 NCAA XC, 46th ’23 NCAA XC.
• Lucas Bons, junior: 3:37/7:53/13:58. 63rd ’23 NCAA XC.
• Davin Thompson, junior: 13:35/29:05. 30th ’22 NCAA XC.
• Aidan Troutner, senior: 7:44/13:45. 48th ’22 NCAA XC, DNF ’23 NCAA XC. 2017 NXN champ as a high schooler.

If BYU runs like it has all season, that could be enough to win as long as OK State doesn’t have a historic day like they did in 2023. And their top seven is essentially interchangeable to the point where they should be able to survive a bad day by anyone but Clinger.

Why they could lose

Do they have another level to reach at NCAAs? Historically under Ed Eyestone, BYU has been a very strong regular-season team but they don’t usually “crush it” at NCAAs — though the Cougars have still run well, finishing on the podium in five of the last seven years and winning it all in 2019.

This BYU team could be very similar to that one. In 2019, BYU had a terrific front-runner (Conner Mantz) who finished 3rd overall, with his four teammates going 17-21-42-45 behind him. In the team scoring, that added up to 109 points, and it’s not hard to imagine the 2024 Cougars replicating that performance with Clinger in the Mantz role. That could be enough to win.

But BYU’s ceiling just isn’t as high as OK State’s. OK State probably isn’t scoring 49 points again, but they could hit 60 or 70 with a great day. Could BYU do the same? That would require Corrigan finishing in the top 10 and some combination of Noakes/Troutner/Bons and the Thompsons to finish in the teens or 20s. It’s hard to envision that happening.

Dark Horses

#3 Arkansas: Usually being ranked #3 in the country doesn’t qualify you as a dark horse for the national title. But it does in NCAA cross country. In Patrick Kiprop, Kirami Yego, and Yaseen Abdalla, Arkansas has three potential top-10 finishers at NCAAs. But the transfers coach Chris Bucknam brought in from Akron to round out the team, Timothy Chesondin (52nd Pre-Nats, 17th SECs, 2nd South Central regional) and Brian Masai (86th Pre-Nats, 22nd SECs), haven’t quite panned out the way they needed to for Arkansas to challenge for the national title. For the Razorbacks to challenge for the win at NCAAs, they need to step up or Ben Shearer and Reuben Reina (son of former Arkansas legend and Footlocker champ Reuben Reina) need to have the races of their lives.

Masondo helped Iowa State finish a surprising 5th in 2023 (Photo courtesy NCAA/James B Daves)

#4 Iowa State: The Cyclones have sprung some surprises in recent years under coach Jeremy Sudbury. In 2021, Iowa State entered NCAAs ranked #6 and finished 2nd. Last year, Iowa State was ranked just 17th before NCAAs and wound up 5th. Iowa State is ranked higher this time, at #4, which means for them to register a similar shock, they’d have to win the whole thing on Saturday.

Iowa State was 3rd at Big 12s, but not too far back of the top two, scoring 62 points to BYU’s 41 and OK State’s 52. And there is room for improvement. Sanele Masondo (16th ’23 NCAA XC) was only 14th in that race, and Rodgers Kiplimo (37th ’23 NCAA XC) was Iowa State’s 8th man in 24th place. Both of those guys made big leaps from the conference meet to NCAAs last season. Joash Ruto, an 8:22 steepler (at altitude), who arrived on campus in September and finished 13th in his first collegiate race at Big 12s, is another big talent with potential.

Between those three, Gable Sieperda (41st ’21 NCAA XC, 43rd ’23 NCAA XC, 3rd NCAA steeple), and reliable front-runners Robin Kwemoi Bera (5th Pre-Nats, 4th Big 12s) and Said Mechaal (19th Pre-Nats, 10th Big 12s), the Cyclones have a path to ~100 points and a possible upset if all of their guys can hit on the right day.

JG’s prediction

There is a compelling case for both OK State and BYU, but I prefer OK State’s upside. Over the last 10 years at NCAAs, the average winning score is 82 points. I have more confidence in OK State to reach that number than BYU.

1. OK State 2. BYU 3. Iowa State 4. Arkansas

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Come back to LetsRun.com on Friday and we’ll make our official predictions on a live video show after the pre-meet press conference. The show will likely be around 5 pm ET. Join our Supporters Club so you can get it delivered to your phone in podcast form to listen on demand.

A Supporters Club membership will also get you a free t-shirt as well as instant access to two big NCAA-related articles that we’ve published this week:

• Here’s Why There Are So Many Top Kenyan Runners in the NCAA This Year — Scholarbook & the New NCAA Math Last year, nine Kenyan men and a record seven Kenyan women earned All-American honors at the NCAA XC champs. The total could be even higher at this year’s meet. We explain the reason behind the trend and wonder if there should be an age limit. Is it fair to have a 28-year-old freshman join the team who has a PR faster than the American record?
• RADICAL Change Is Coming To the NCAA — Are You Ready For 10-Man XC Rosters? How House v. NCAA Could Reshape the College Track & Field World NCAA track and field/XC is about to be radically changed. Roster caps are coming — are you ready for a max of 10 people on a men’s SEC roster? But the opportunity to give out way more scholarships is also coming. Will the net change be great or catastrophic, leading to the “the slow death of men’s track & field” as one SEC coach worries.
• LRC 2024 NCAA XC Men’s Individual Preview: Graham Blanks Chases Repeat Against Stacked Field
• LRC The ULTIMATE 2024 NCAA Cross Country Women’s Preview
• LRC NCAA Prediction Contest is Open: Get Your Picks (Top 3 in Each Race) In NOW!

Get ready for NCAAs and show your support by buying a Graham Blanks or Parker Wolfe shirt. Visit the LetsRun.com store to get yours today — Wednesday is your final day to order before the price goes up and to guarantee you get one as we may not have any left over after Madison!

Get the latest LRC shirt for 50% off to generate some buzz for NCAA XC