By Jasmine Fehr & Paul Hof-Mahoney

With all due respect to the early season, now is when we really start to learn what the major players have in store. It’s one thing to hold out a scorer or two or play sit-and-kick at Nuttycombe, but everyone wants to win their conference title. And so the cards have come out of the hands, and there’s a lot to unpack.

Starting out with Big 12s… Jane Hedengren has arrived and is here to STAY! After rewriting the history books with her 18:42.3 win at Pre-Nats, Hedengren somehow found another gear, clocking 18:29.6 to trounce a stellar field by 44 seconds. Incredible. Her dominant performance led the BYU women to the team title with 38 points, ahead of Iowa State. This marks the Cougars’ third straight conference crown, and they’re looking stronger than ever heading into Regionals and NCAAs.

For the men, the Cowboys come out on top. Oklahoma State dethroned #1 ranked Iowa State mid-controversy by putting all five scorers in the top seven, claiming victory with just 20 points to the Cyclones’ 43. Brian Musau led the charge, winning in 22:53.7 for his third consecutive conference title. After placing eighth at last year’s NCAA Championship, OSU is looking hungry for redemption, and with their sixth and seventh runners placing 14th and 21st, their depth could make all the difference come Nationals.

Another men’s team to watch as we get closer to NCAAs is Colorado. With all five scorers in the top 25 against powerhouses like OSU and Iowa State, Colorado is definitely looking to be a podium contender on the national stage this year.

The big headline from ACCs is Watch out for the Wolfpack. Angelina Napoleon led the way for NC State, running 19:13.9 to take the win over Notre Dame’s Mary Bonner Dalton (19:14.9) in a tight finish. NC State took the team title with 28 points and placed all five scorers in the top ten, continuing a trend of the Wolfpack being a force all season. And file this away for 2026: every scorer from the ACC-winning squad will be back again next year.

In the men’s race, Wake Forest may have only placed third with 111 points, but Rocky Hansen stole the show, leading from start to finish, setting a course record, and winning by 21 seconds. After finishing 100th at last year’s NCAA Championship, Hansen will be looking for redemption in Missouri come November 22nd. A single-digit finish is within reach – but could he even contend for the win?

Unlike the NC State dominance in the women’s race, Virginia’s Gary Martin-led team title wasn’t a runaway lopsided outcome. An interesting note: the top eight men’s finishers represented eight different schools—Wake Forest, Virginia, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Stanford, North Carolina, Notre Dame, and Syracuse.

Onto the SEC, where Napoleon and Hedengren’s biggest rival resides. After running and jumping her way to a fifth-place finish in the World Championship steeplechase final in September, defending national champ Doris Lemngole made an emphatic return to the grass, picking up right where she left off with another SEC title. In a conference that projects to have a ton of All-American honors when nationals rolls around, the Alabama standout cruised to a 15-second win.

Judy Chepkoech seems to have unseated Hilda Olemomoi as the Flordia Gators’ low stick this year, finishing seventh at Gans Creek and now second in Knoxville over the weekend. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter what order Florida finishes in because their top four of Chepkoech, Olemomoi, Tia Wilson, and Desma Chepkoech (no relation) can hang with anyone in the country. In both races this quartet has run together this season, they’ve all finished inside the top 10.

On the men’s side, another national contender may have emerged from the swamp. Florida’s Kelvin Cheruiyot backed up a Pre-Nats win with a SEC win, both times doing his damage over the final K. On one hand, that’s an impressive resume and very strong momentum heading into the national postseason, but on the other hand you could make the argument that he hasn’t really raced any of the top individual contenders yet. Both performances came absent Oklahoma State’s or Iowa State’s mighty squads, national favorite Habtom Samuel, the ACC duo of Hansen and Martin, or Washington State’s terrifying tag team. Even with a pair of very respectable wins, it still feels like Cheruiyot might be a bit unproven until he (most likely) returns to Columbia later this month.

In Big 10 news, Oregon’s reinforcements have hit the grass running. Nobody has made changing conferences look easier than Oregon, as Shalane Flanagan’s Ducks have totaled just 51 points at this meet in the last two years combined to cement a chokehold on the Big Ten. This year’s showing featured a 1-2-3-5-7 finish for a meet record 18 points.

Just like she did in 2024, Flanagan opted not to show all her cards until the conference meet, and Şilan Ayyildiz (third) and Mia Barnett (seventh) delivered in their highly anticipated debuts. However, the most bone-chilling part of this race for anyone outside of Eugene was how wholly Diana Cherotich dominated. It’s always tough to gauge how much teammates really care about racing each other at conference, but she beat Juliet Cherubet—who was 11th at nationals last year—by 15 seconds. Cherotich also beat Cherubet by 45 seconds last month at the Dellinger Invitational, so it’s safe to say she’s firmly in the Lemngole-Hedengren-Pamela Kosgei tier of individual contenders.

Despite our world of increasingly consolidated conferences, there was still plenty to watch outside of the Power 4.

Clearly running at Worlds before the cross country season is not that big of a deal, because New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei’s debut completed the triumvirate of Tokyo steeplers doubling back for the XC season. The defending national runner-up hasn’t lost a step, taking the Mountain West title by 22 seconds ahead of Boise State’s Kaiya Robertson, who was knocking on the door of an All-American berth in Wisconsin last year.

Probably the least surprising results of the weekend came in the form of Habtom Samuel cruising to another Mountain West individual title and Wazzu standouts Solomon Kipchoge and Evans Kurui going 1-2 at WCCs. Samuel and Kipchoge had an epic battle for the win at Nuttycombe, and they figure to once again be at the very front of the pack at Nationals.

And Samuel’s Lobos easily won the team title in Fresno, posting a dominant 26 point total even with All-American Collins Kiprotich finishing outside of their scoring five.

With all the dust settling on courses around the country, the individual and team pictures are finally becoming clear. Hedengren and Lemngole aren’t going to be able to dodge one another for much longer, and the depth of teams that can pack the top-10 at their league champs will be put to a much stiffer test in a few short weeks. Whether you saw the weekend’s offerings as a trick or a treat depends entirely on who you’re cheering for, but at least now we’re all on the same page.

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