By Jasmine Fehr & Audrey Allen

This Saturday in Columbia, Missouri, the fastest collegians from across the country will be momentarily setting aside their holiday-themed Starbucks cups for Bicarb bowls and Nomio shots. And last we checked the forecast, it looks like we’re in for a perfectly muddy stage to dance on a quintessentially cross country day. Which is good news because there are some major unanswered questions hanging over the season.

Can the rookie defeat the reigning champ?

Last year’s winner, Doris Lemngole, has come off a fifth-place steeple showing at World Championships looking unstoppable. She won SECs in 19:32.4 then backed that up with a commanding 18:43.8 win at the South Regional. She has the experience, but Jane Hedengren has looked like she’s operating on an entirely different level. She opened her season with a win at Pre-Nats in 18:42.3, followed that with an 18:29.6 win at Big 12s, and then dominated the Mountain Regional in 19:06.6. That was a 42 second margin of victory over two-time NCAA champion Pamela Kosgei. Yes, 19:06 is slower than Doris’s 18:43 regional win, but Hedengren raced at 4,000 feet elevation and her margin of victory was enormous while Lemngole’s was only six seconds. On Saturday, we finally get to see the two stars match up.

Will Habtom Samuel finally get his cross country title?

And a second, equally important question: will the jersey swap tradition continue on the men’s podium? The New Mexico star donned the Harvard crimson in Madison last year as an ode to the repeat battle between him and two-time NCAA cross country champion Graham Blanks. Now that the crown is up for grabs and Samuel has notched second-place finishes in the indoor 5000m and outdoor 5000m and 10,000m since then, he looks poised to end his runner-up streak. He’s one of most experienced guys in the field and has the confidence of an undefeated season at his disposal, racking up margins of 7 seconds, 24 seconds, and 20 seconds in his wins at the Nuttycombe, Mountain West Champs, and Regionals, respectively.

Who you got in a fight: Wolves or Cougars?

NC State and BYU have spent the season trading places at the top of the women’s rankings and we finally get the matchup between the last two national champs. BYU is looking for their second straight, whereas NC State wants to get back on top for the fourth time in the last five years. One of BYU’s scorers is likely to score, at most, two points with Hedengren to lead the way. Meanwhile, NC State has World Championship finalist Angelina Napoleon, last year’s fifth-place finisher Grace Hartman, and a ton of depth behind the two. Hartman and standout freshman Sadie Engelhardt both sat out Regionals though, which could be injury-related or simply keeping them extra fresh for the Big Dance. Looking ahead, both teams have enough low sticks to win, but championships often come down to the fourth and fifth runners along with a bit of race day luck.

Who wins the favorite-less men’s team title?

In a dogfight for the top two men’s teams, Iowa State and Oklahoma State are likely both carrying a chip on their shoulders, either to bury some dramatic headlines this season or reassert their dominance on the national stage. OSU has the head-to-head edge this year at Big 12s and the Midwest Regional, but history isn’t in their favor: the Cowboys were the favorites heading into this meet last year before falling to eighth. Speaking of the Midwest regional, OSU won the dual-meet-at-the-top even when double national 5000m champ Brian Musau recorded the worst finish of his collegiate career in 17th place. It’s worth noting that Iowa State was without Meshack Kimutai, their fifth scorer from Big 12s, but it’s tough to picture a world where that could close the gap if Musau can deliver the goods.

Who will win the American race-within-a-race?

With all the recent news of international recruiting companies and their athletes dominating this year’s cross country scene, you might be asking what Americans are in the conversation for the individual podium. Virginia’s Gary Martin and Wake Forest’s Rocky Hansen will be returning for a third round in the ring, but the latter is looking like a heavy favorite given that he’s taken the win of the two-man race by 20+ seconds at ACCs and Southeast Regional. Michigan State’s Riley Hough has put together an excellent track cross country record this year, with eighth-place finishes at Gans Creek and Nuttycombe, but notched his worst finish of the season in 10th-place at the Great Lakes Regional so it’s possible the extra 2K isn’t his forte. Butler’s William Zegarski sure knows how to close and is the second-best returning American behind Martin, so he’s one to look out for after a promising fourth-place finish at the Great Lakes Regional. Plus, we can’t talk up this Bulldog without also mentioning his teammate Jesse Hamlin, the runner-up at that regional, and third-placer Ethan Coleman of Notre Dame.

Is Northwestern the biggest underdog?

The women of Northwestern may be the most surprising team in the country. They opened the season unranked and climbed all the way to eighth at their highest. At the Midwest Regional, they finished second behind Oklahoma State to earn an automatic qualifier… and they did it without going all-out. Their top three crossed together in 15th, 16th, and 17th, and their fourth and fifth runners were only a few seconds back in 18th and 20th. If their regional meet was just a glorified tempo, Northwestern could make a huge jump at nationals. Tennessee pulled off a similar rise in 2023 where they started the season unranked nationally and ultimately finished sixth at the NCAA Championship. Will we see a similar story with Northwestern?

Is Eastern Kentucky the biggest dark horse on the men’s side?

EKU wasn’t ranked a few weeks ago, but the team appears to be peaking at just the right time. At the Southeast Regional, they finished second behind Wake Forest and beat Virginia, one of the teams we think could be a legit podium contender. Virginia might have had an off day, but EKU’s runner-up finish still matters. They’ll be heading into NCAAs with a ton of confidence after pulling off one of the biggest upsets across all nine regional meets. If they can repeat that level of performance, they could shake up the entire men’s team race.

By how much will the course records be lowered?

This season alone, 31 women and 34 men ran under the Gans Creek 6K and 8K course records, respectively. That’s because, despite its muddy tangents and slight rolling hills, the Columbia, Missouri, course is a relatively young one: it opened in 2019. Of course, championship races, especially cross country ones, are never about the times, but we’d place our bets that the second-ever 10K to tear up the Gans grass will be faster than OSU’s Isai Rodriguez’s 29:40.1 win at the 2022 Midwest Regional. Each of the last five national titles has been won in times faster than that—on three occasions, over a full minute faster. On the 6K side of things, Hedengren wasn’t challenged with her 18:42.3 at Pre-Nats, which lowered the already-lowered 19:07.0 early-season CR by WSU’s Rosemary Longisa. So what can we expect with an honest race between the freshman phenom Hedegren and seasoned vets like Lemngole and Kosgei. Only (the) time(s) will tell.

With all that said, it’s Nationals time. You’re no longer subject to quad-box watching Regionals while waiting for lagging and sometimes wildly inaccurate splits to update on a jumble of signal-dependent timing websites. Unless you’re driving out to Missouri, spurred on by a devastating case of CoMo FOMO, you can watch the meet this Saturday at 10 a.m. ET on ESPNU. Hopefully the finish line will be represented by more than a pixel or two!