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

Conference action kicks off Friday with showdowns at Pac-12s (No. 2 Stanford men vs. No. 3 Oregon & No. 7 Colorado; No. 1 Colorado women vs. No. 2 Washington & No. 5 Oregon), ACCs (No. 6 Syracuse men, No. 3 NC State women), SECs (No. 5 Arkansas men vs. No. 11 Ole Miss) and the West Coast meet (No. 4 BYU men vs. No. 12 Portland). The Big East, Big Sky and Mountain West meets are all on Friday too.

Conference action kicks off Friday with ACCs (No. 2 Syracuse men vs. No. 7 Virginia), PAC-12s (No. 1 Colorado men vs. No. 3 Oregon & No. 23 Stanford; No. 3 Colorado women vs. No. 5 Oregon), SECs (No. 4 Arkansas women vs. No. 13 Miss. St.) and the Mountain West (No. 1 New Mexico women vs. No. 9 Boise St.).

We break down the biggest regular season meet of the year. Who flopped? Who surprised? We tell you.

There are lots of things to pay attention to as the calendar has turned to October. #1 New Mexico will run at the Notre Dame Invite on Friday against three other ranked teams while CU opens the season at the Rocky Mountain Shootout on Saturday. Friday's Washington Invitational (Stanford and Oregon are both in the field) and Saturday's Greater Louisville Classic (Wisconsin, Iona, Michigan, Ole Miss, Iowa St.) highlight the rest of the weekend's action. How will stars like Molly Seidel and the Rosa brothers look in their first tests of 2015? How will super frosh Anna Rohrer, Ryen Frazier, Matthew Maton, Tanner Anderson and Jonah Koech do? *MB:  Official 10/2-10/3 Weekend NCAA XC Talk – Notre Dame, Paul Short, UW, Rocky Mountain, etc.