For high schools cross country unambiguously gets up and running in September. At the collegiate level, not so much until the month’s last weekend, and this is a 5-Saturdays September.
Throughout the autumn before conference meets are reeled off, the at-large scoring system discourages any racing by teams’ big guns except in carefully strategized appearances at less than a handful of major invitationals. That’s a long excuse-making way of saying we have limited data to go on for predicting who’ll be hot come November 17 (the equal-earliest day of the year the meet has ever been held) when Wisconsin will host the 80th NCAA Cross Country Championships for men and 38th for women.
We do wonder if the sport is best served by the frequent decisions by power program coaches to hold out their stars even from home meets, some of which in days of yore were major fixtures in the eyes of local fans? Formula rules over fans, especially in September in the current era.
Links to the four sections of our NCAA Cross Country Preview. Don’t be surprised by surprises when the nationals go down; expect them.
| Men’s Teams | Women’s Teams |
| Men’s Individuals | Women’s Individuals |
Collegiate Cross Country Schedule
| Invitational Cross Country | |
| September | |
| 21 | Battle In Beantown; Boston, Massachusetts |
| Dellinger Invitational; Springfield, Oregon | |
| 22 | Chile Pepper Festival; Fayetteville, Arkansas |
| 28 | Piane Invitational; Notre Dame, Indiana |
| Nuttycombe Invitational; Madison, Wisconsin | |
| 29 | Griak Invitational; Minneapolis, Minnesota |
| Stanford Invitational; Stanford, California | |
| October | |
| 13 | Pre-Nationals; Madison, Wisconsin |
| Cross Country Conferences | |
| October | |
| 22 | SWAC; Clinton, Mississippi |
| 25 | American Athletic; New Orleans, Louisiana |
| 26 | ACC; Boston, Massachusetts |
| Atlantic Sun; Bronx, New York | |
| Big 12; Ames, Iowa | |
| Big South; Kernersville, North Carolina | |
| Colonial; Farmingdale, New York | |
| Mountain West; San Diego, California | |
| Pac-12; Stanford, California | |
| SEC; Auburn, Alabama | |
| Southland; Lake Charles, Louisiana | |
| 27 | America East; Nashua, New Hampshire |
| Atlantic 10; Mechanicsville, Virginia | |
| Big East; Indianapolis, Indiana | |
| Big Sky; Sacramento, California | |
| Big West; Brea, California | |
| Conference USA; Boca Raton, Florida | |
| Heps; Princeton, New Jersey | |
| Horizon League; Parkside, Wisconsin | |
| Metro-Atlantic; Loudonville, New York | |
| Mid-American; Toledo, Ohio | |
| Missouri Valley; Peoria, Illinois | |
| Ohio Valley; Cape Girardeau, Missouri | |
| Patriot League; Lewisburg, Pennsylvania | |
| Southern; Cullowhee, North Carolina | |
| Summit League; Omaha, Nebraska | |
| Sun Belt; Mobile, Alabama | |
| WAC; Seattle, Washington | |
| West Coast; Provo, Utah | |
| 28 | Big 10; Lincoln, Nebraska |
| November | |
| 16 | IC4A/ECAC; Bronx, New York |
| Cross Country Nationals | |
| November | |
| 3 | JUCO Div. III Championships; Canandaigua, New York |
| 9 | NCAA Regionals (9 sites) |
| Great Lakes—Terre Haute, Indiana | |
| Mid-Atlantic—State College, Pennsylvania | |
| Midwest—Peoria, Illinois | |
| Mountain—Provo, Utah | |
| Northeast—Buffalo, New York | |
| Southeast—Rock Hill, South Carolina | |
| South Central—College Station, Texas | |
| South—Tallahassee, Florida | |
| West—Sacramento, California | |
| 10 | JUCO Championships; Garden City, Kansas |
| NCAA Div. III Regionals (8 sites) | |
| 16 | NAIA Championships; Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
| 17 | NCAA Championships; Madison, Wisconsin |
| NCAA II Regionals (8 sites) | |
| NCAA III Championships; Oshkosh, Wisconsin | |
| December | |
| 1 | NCAA II Championships; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
