D2 NCAA XC

Game the system? Yet when they go to the national meet how do they do? Also, you’re dead wrong, the RMAC schools consistently travel outside their region and run against these other national caliber teams, that’s WHY they make it. They are doing exactly what you’re supposed to do and also prove how competitive they are.

Exactly, the RMAC squads do better than those in the central region. However, this year the better RMAC schools didn't make it precisely because they ran out of region and picked up bad losses. That is how the central region was able to get teams in, they avoided those meets and got lucky on the right day.

No one is saying the central region is better than the south central, they are saying they are deep enough to deserve bids.

I wouldn’t call it gaming the system but rather just getting lucky. Lucky that Pitt State got 4th who did go out of region to earn a spot (doubt it would’ve worked out well for the region if it was East Central or Augustana who got 4th) and lucky that many other schools in comparison either didn’t go out of region or didn’t do well out of region (Tiffin). If you’re unhappy that you didn’t make it in, do better at out of region contests or do better at regionals or both. Absolutely not a perfect system but I don’t think it was intended to get to the point-gap ratio that soon in deciding at-large teams. It was probably added just another layer of objective comparison to make it less likely to reach a point where subjectivity is involved. I don’t think it’s possible to game the system without being able to control what other regions do and also controlling the finish order in your own region.

Here is an idea to make it more fair (if there is such a thing). What if only a certain number of top runners in each region advanced to the nationals regardless whether they are on a team or not. Top teams will still have most of their runners or at least top 5 in that number (maybe allow to add one more runner if they ended up with only 4) and they will be the ones to compete for the team championship. The rest of the field will just compete for the individual championship and All-American. This way if your team is good but your region is loaded you still get to send one or two of your top runners instead of none.

The goal of the national championship is to make sure all the teams with a chance at winning are selected. I'm sorry but in cross country, the #30 team in the country has a 0% chance at winning. If the national championship meet only included teams with a legitimate chance to win, how many would we be left with? Since the field was expanded to 34, all these teams feel like they are owed something just for being mediocre.

I simulated 500+ situations over the last weekend and this was the only outcome I saw central region get multiple bids, that being said I didn’t check many outcomes with Huntsville and Pitt and Tiffin all getting 4th which I felt was very unlikely going into the weekend. They didn’t intentionally game the system but got lucky, every year Multiple teams could be top 25-30 in the country but don’t get in because too many auto slots are given out. D2 should switch to 1 auto per region. this allows for more cross over on the indirect wins since more teams can be compared this way. A lot of the central region schools don’t have the funding to travel to big meets

Come on. Didn’t have the funding? Lame. Fund raise, figure it out. Lazy coaches.

Do NOT disrespect like that. He is a better man than you will ever be. We lost Eli so we had to adjust to build off of our solid base we have. Run regionals 9/10 times and Fort Lewis would make it to nationals

Here are the pre-national rankings

#24 MSUD - not selected
#25 UAH
#26 Tiffin - not selected
#28 Augustana
#30 Ft. Lewis - not selected (did have a head-to-head win over Tiffin at Lewis)
No ranking - UNK - selected (7 votes)
No ranking - OBU - selected (0 voted)

ustfccca.org

2025 NCAA DII Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Week 7

USTFCCCA Communications

2025 NCAA DII Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Week 7

Open link

I think we can all agree the system is not set up to have the best teams at the national championship.

You lost. No top 10 team in the nation comes 7th in their region hilarious comment from you.

Flawed system. They aren't loving the RMAC this season!

CCU women 2023, 7th at regionals, 8th at nationals.

bro, I'm posting on letsrun at 12:09 pm on a work day, of course Graham is a better man than me. Doesn't change that he's overrated as a coach

Men were 8th? Women 16th....

I think in 2021 adams state got 7th and was the top ranked team in the country

As a D3 runner in the East Region, why is the D2 East Region so rolled? I could easily be top 7 on any of the teams that qualified but I have not hope of going to D3 NCAAs individually or as a team. Franklin Pierce is ranked 141 nationally according the USTFCCCA rankings and still qualified. They have guys in their top 7 running 36+ minutes on the 10K. I don't know much about D2 but why is there so many auto Qs when it just results in rolled teams making nationals over teams that are half decent. D3 only gets 1 team auto Q at regionals

also, as for the regional point gap PSU was like 3rd at Lewis so the question is did they run out of their minds at Lewis, or really bad at regionals, or are the Central teams that good and we dont know because they didnt race out of region. PSU was ranked 10th going into regionals, MSU denver NR, and fort lewis only 24th. I dont think its out of the question for UNK to be a 23-27th team if they run like they did at regionals again