What to know entering cross country's final regular season week

The final weekend of the DI cross country regular season is here for programs nationwide. Here's what you need to know.

Rankings entering the final week

Defending champion Oklahoma State remains atop the men's rankings, but BYU is looming with one first-place vote of its own. Rounding out the top five are No. 3 Arkansas, No. 4 Iowa State and No. 5 Notre Dame. 

On the women's side, Northern Arizona leads the way with nine first-place votes after winning the Joe Piane Invitational earlier this month. No. 2 BYU, No. 3 Washington, and No. 4 Notre Dame follow the Lumberjacks, all ahead of the three-time defending national champions, NC State. The Wolfpack enters the final cross country week ranked fifth. NC State lost at the Loyola Lakefront Invitational by almost 20 points.

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Top Invitationals to watch

Now let's get into the invitationals to watch during the final regular season week. You'll have the No. 1 men's team in the country, Oklahoma State, running on their home course in the Weis-Crockett Invitational. Standout women's runners Doris Lemngole (Alabama), Gladys Chepngetich (Clemson) and Judy Kosgei (Clemson) will run at Alabama's Crimson Classic. Nuttycombe runner-up Rocky Hansen will race at last year's national championship site in Virginia's Panorama Farms Invitational and there's also the ECAC Championships too. 

However, the premier invitational of the weekend will be DI Pre-Nationals in Wisconsin. This weekend's invitationals will lead into conference championship season, beginning with the SWAC championships on Monday.

What to watch for at Pre-Nationals

All eyes will be on the Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course yet again as it hosts one more invitational before the national championship. The last time we saw an invitational at Zimmer, it was the Nuttycombe Invitational and we saw course records fall. When Pre-Nationals hits the grass, it should be even more exciting.

We'll have No. 3 Arkansas, No. 4 Iowa State, No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 6 Northern Arizona, No. 8 New Mexico, No. 9 Stanford and of course, No. 10 Wisconsin all running. That's a loaded team field — and that was only the top-10 teams.

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Individually, we'll see defending individual champion Graham Blanks (Harvard) make his season debut. He'll face an elite crowd that features last year's runner-up Habtom Samuel (New Mexico), Patrick Kiprop (Arkansas), Ryan Kinnane (Auburn), Dylan Schubert (Furman) and more.

Six top-10 women's teams — No. 1 NAU, No. 2 BYU, No. 3 Washington, No. 4 Notre Dame, No. 5 NC State and No. 8 Stanford — will run at Pre-Nationals. We'll see veterans like Ceili McCabe (West Virginia), Lexy Halladay-Lowry (BYU), Grace Hartman (NC State) and Elise Stearns (NAU) competing head-to-head. Hilda Olemomoi (Florida) will also make her debut, hoping to confirm her place among the top individual title contenders in November.

We're in for an exciting close to the cross country regular season.