I ran on a top D3 team and we were better than some D1 schools in cross country. We had a couple of D1 guys who decided to move back home and another guy who probably had D1 talent didn’t run at all at high school so was undiscovered (me)
But we never finished better than 3rd at D3 nationals, so a couple of other D3 teams from that era were also likely better than some D1 teams.