Be break down the Big 12, Big 10, and Big East for 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.

Oregon's roster is overflowing with talent but everyone beyond top man Edward Cheserek is a question mark. With a veteran squad led by Aussie Patrick Tiernan, Nova will look to land on the podium for the first time in 23 years.

With no pro USA vs. The World distance events this year, the focus will be on the collegians - namely Oregon and Cheserek and Stanford and Cranny.

With Cheserek on the anchor, can anyone stop the Ducks from winning their first DMR title since 2010? The women's race should be great with Arkansas and likely anchor Dominique Scott battling Georgetown (Katrina Coogan on anchor) and Michigan State (Leah O'Connor).

Notre Dame has an extremely deep men's field (10 of the top 25, led by #10 BYU), but the best race of the weekend is Saturday in Seattle, where half of the men's top 10 (#2 NAU, #5 Portland, #6 Stanford, #7 Indiana, #9 Villanova) will square off. The women's races aren't as strong, but #3 Oregon vs. #4 Stanford at Washington should be compelling, with a potential debut from Stanford's Aisling Cuffe. In other action, the #6 FSU women trek up to Paul Short to face #5 Georgetown while the #1 Colorado men race at the Rocky Mountain Shootout.
*Aisling Cuffe Out For Most (Or All) XC Season With A Stress Fracture According to this blog post by one of the Stanford men.

Villanova, who will lean on 13:31 5k Aussie Patrick Tiernan, has everyone back from last year's 18th place finish at NCAAs while Iona will reload from a 6th-place finish with its own Aussie, 7:57 3k man Chartt Miller.