NCAA Cross Qualifying Changes?

I agree with you. In the overall scheme of things it's not all that expensive to run regional qualifying meets for XC to earn the right to go to nationals. I don't see how having regional 'all-comers' meets takes anything away from the NC. It's still hard as heck to win a NC.

It should not be changed but Kevin is correct, it is the NCAAs championship and they'll do what they want.

Use conference meets. Take 1/2 of P5 and winner of every other conference winner. Take every other team who has beaten a qualifying team during the year. Betting that will result in about 100 teams or 20 per region.. That eliminates discretion and bias. The only thing required is a committee to determine where the qualifying teams go. The regions will be equally seeded so kolas goes away. Top 6 qualify from each regional. Done.

red and sad wrote:

Use conference meets. Take 1/2 of P5 and winner of every other conference winner. Take every other team who has beaten a qualifying team during the year. Betting that will result in about 100 teams or 20 per region.. That eliminates discretion and bias. The only thing required is a committee to determine where the qualifying teams go. The regions will be equally seeded so kolas goes away. Top 6 qualify from each regional. Done.

There are so many massive flaws with your approach that I don't even know where to start. I suppose with the fact that it ignores individuals entirely.

A lot of you are posting suggestions on number of regions and at large teams and other things. Based on the info I have seen and gotten from region reps the NCAA is beyond this point.

They have decided on 5 regions sites; teams are not put into permanent regions like now, but will be assigned based on geography and competitive standing after qualifying. This is very similar to regional rounds in many sports. It seems they want to cut costs (don't expect first rounds to be paid) by eliminating four region meets and they do not like the all comers format.

The 32 conference champs advance. The at large field may actually bring total qualifiers to 80 (the number I heard from multiple exec committee members). Selection of at large qualifiers is very unclear at this point. I imagine that whatever system is adopted, the outcome will be the majority of leagues get champions and occasionally will get a 2nd bid. Strong non p5 conferences (MTN West, Big Sky, WCC) will get 2-4 bids. The G5 conferences would likely get 2 bids. The top half of P5 conferences will make first round. While conferences don't get a set amount of teams this is how it plays out in every sport. This is not unfair in my opinion. It is likely that deserving P5 teams who do not run well at conference will be victims of missing out. I Ammon board with conference champs advancing, but most conferences don't deserve multiple qualifiers.

I do hope the NCAA moves toward scholarship parity for XC. Although I think the majority of fully funded teams have more than 3 and 4.5 scholarships in men's and women's distances respectively. 4.2 and 6 (33%) would be my line of thinking.

You are probably correct but I don't think that is enough teams. A team like Iowa placed 10th at Pre-nats last year but only 10th in the Big 10 and then 7th at the regional. Under this scenario, they wouldn't get to regionals even though they beat Arkansas head to head. Arkansas finished 3rd in the SEC and 2nd at regionals and 30th at nationals. All P5 conferences are not equal, nor even close. An average Big 10 team would finish near the top in the SEC. Same is true for the Big 12 these days. There are only a few good teams.

Yes, as I said, P5 teams that perform poorly at conference don't make it. The P5 conferences will likely get 4-7 bids, no matter the process, but no one needs more than that.

If you finish 10th in the Big 10 you likely perfect score the MEAC/NEC/SWAC conference champs.

But, like in every other sport confet champs go and you fill the filed. There are always top 50 NCAA basketball teams from the P5 left home despite the fact they can beat some conference champs from the mid majors 9 times out of 10.

The selection process would be like selection Sunday for march madness which would be fun. Just like march madness, NCAA college football playoffs, there will always be some debate on which teams should or shouldn't have made it. Just part of the process. With 5 regions of 16 teams top 6 make it to championships for field of 30

This approach would be disastrous. Why in the world would we guarantee (non-champion) qualifiers in some conferences but not in others?

And why is everything so dependent on performance at your conference championships? In other sports they will factor in your results all year. You can be one of the top teams in the country all year, but if you have a a couple top athletes sick at conference championships beating ranked teams earlier won't matter.

Additionally, it doesn't provide a fair route for individual qualifiers. You can't compare times across conference championships on different courses.

Hes not saying that those conferences are guaranteed that many teams. Thats just how many teams they would end up with. Individual system could be based off certain meets say that if you finish in the top # you qualify for regionals as individuals. That would make regular season exciting. Then for nationals anyone who finishes in top 30 at their regional meet qualifies as an individual.

Sliding Scale wrote:

Yes, as I said, P5 teams that perform poorly at conference don't make it. The P5 conferences will likely get 4-7 bids, no matter the process, but no one needs more than that.

If you finish 10th in the Big 10 you likely perfect score the MEAC/NEC/SWAC conference champs.

But, like in every other sport confet champs go and you fill the filed. There are always top 50 NCAA basketball teams from the P5 left home despite the fact they can beat some conference champs from the mid majors 9 times out of 10.

Except we are the only sport that can actually make it all-comers so that selection committees don't have to pick one team over another. Those sports do it that way because they can't do what we do.

Having an imperfect selection committee / algorithm pick the qualifiers is foolish when you can easily line everyone up and see who earns it in a head-to-head race.

maxgermany16 wrote:

Hes not saying that those conferences are guaranteed that many teams. Thats just how many teams they would end up with. Individual system could be based off certain meets say that if you finish in the top # you qualify for regionals as individuals. That would make regular season exciting. Then for nationals anyone who finishes in top 30 at their regional meet qualifies as an individual.

Exactly. I think he was just speaking hypothetically. Only Conference Champions get the AQ. The rest is just basically reinforcing that this would be consistent with all other sports.

The conference championship meets are just one piece of the puzzle, however, it makes your finish at the conference that much more important. In addition, it’s not uncommon in other sports to have upwards of 9–10 schools qualifying to a field of 64.

It would be great if they had 80 teams qualified to the NCAA championships. Even if they did 70 teams that is going to pretty much make sure that anyone with a legitimate chance to advance to the finals is actually in the field. In all likelihood, anyone being left out is someone that would not be challenging for the title (or top-30 for that matter).

Having a legitimate selection show would be exciting. It would be exciting to see who makes it into the meet and to see which region you are being sent to. It will be interesting to see which of the schools are the seated teams.

If they do go with us, I think that the top five seeds should have the option of hosting the meet. Otherwise, the bidding for the regional sites would be done in advance and a school could end up hosting and not being invited to the meet. This is how the regional championship sites are selected in baseball and softball. The top seeds have the opportunity to host.

Regardless, There will be resistance to a dramatic change like this. However, like I mentioned earlier, the NCAA ultimately owns the championship and, therefore, can create the standards by which the championship is run. It’s their meet and everyone will have to adapt to it.

This also gives schools in smaller conferences a chance to go to the national championship in their sport. Every other sport has that opportunity, we should have that opportunity now for cross country. It makes their conference championship meet even more relevant.

Having an imperfect selection committee / algorithm pick the qualifiers is foolish when you can easily line everyone up and see who earns it in a head-to-head race.

I was speaking hypothetically. Only conference champs are gaurenteed, but at large selection will end up looking like most sports.

An in response to the above...this is not my proposal. This is coming from the NCAA. They do not want an all comers meet, and are implementing an alternative.

Teams book travel to the regional at the start of the season. I believe the sites will be set and 90% of the qualifying teams will compete as close to home as possible so that they can make arrangements ahead of time.

You know what would be better than having 80 teams compete? Having 300+ teams compete like we currently do. How can anything be more exciting than giving anyone in the country a shot?

red and sad wrote:

Teams book travel to the regional at the start of the season. I believe the sites will be set and 90% of the qualifying teams will compete as close to home as possible so that they can make arrangements ahead of time.

The sites may be set. That’s not uncommon. However, if they seed the regionals (which would have to happen) you would not know where you are going until selection night. Again, everything about this would end up changing and would not be like it used to be.

Not to mention, Other sports are able to figure out their travel plans in much less time than what we would have. Other sports begin the national championship regional rounds only one week after the conference. Cross-country coaches would have two weeks to get everything sorted.

Gone will be the geographical “regions”. Like I said before, the first round of most NCAA championships in other sports are called “regional“ even though they have no geographical hard boundaries.

Exactly, you adapt.

The one problem I see is I really don't think the NCAA is going to fund XC first round travel. I have seen no evidence for that (I in fact got the impression part of the intent is to lower the cost by reducing regional meet numbers). In all other team sports the regional round is covered.

I am not a P5 XC coach, but I would add that if my team qualifies, we go, without question. Coaches and ADs will figure it out. Noone skips first rounds of the National tournament.

Sliding Scale wrote:

Exactly, you adapt.

The one problem I see is I really don't think the NCAA is going to fund XC first round travel. I have seen no evidence for that (I in fact got the impression part of the intent is to lower the cost by reducing regional meet numbers). In all other team sports the regional round is covered.

I am not a P5 XC coach, but I would add that if my team qualifies, we go, without question. Coaches and ADs will figure it out. Noone skips first rounds of the National tournament.

Exactly. However, I will point out that I don’t believe the Regional Round of the NCAA Golf Championship is paid for. They have similar numbers to what we are talking about (if not less to be honest).

I disagree. I predict that the sites will be established a year in advance and that 90% of qualifying teams will stay in their geographic region. It is pretty easy to draw 5 regions to accomplish that.

Kevin Hadsell wrote:

Sliding Scale wrote:

Exactly, you adapt.

The one problem I see is I really don't think the NCAA is going to fund XC first round travel. I have seen no evidence for that (I in fact got the impression part of the intent is to lower the cost by reducing regional meet numbers). In all other team sports the regional round is covered.

I am not a P5 XC coach, but I would add that if my team qualifies, we go, without question. Coaches and ADs will figure it out. Noone skips first rounds of the National tournament.

Exactly. However, I will point out that I don’t believe the Regional Round of the NCAA Golf Championship is paid for. They have similar numbers to what we are talking about (if not less to be honest).

That's part of the problem. Many coaches want the regional to be exclusive so they can brag to their AD about "qualifying for NCAA's". But the AD's aren't going to be impressed when they have to shell out a ton of money for a meet to qualify you for the real national championships.

Another issue is that the top men's and women's teams are often very different. If you are seeding regions, you need to make sure that teams with combined programs are sent to the same place. That's a huge logistical issue.