What to Know About Cross Country Regionals

On Friday, in nine different regions throughout the country, cross country teams will be lining up, vying to win automatic spots to the NCAA Championship. Spots are awarded to the top two teams in each region. Every Division I school that fields a cross country team may compete in the regional, but not every team will advance.

Once the regionals are completed, 13 additional schools will be selected as at-large representatives to complete the field of 31 men's and women's teams that will run in the Championships to be held Nov. 19 in Terre Haute, Ind.

The criteria for selecting the at-large schools includes regular-season competition as well as the team's finish at regionals. A team's regional finish is the first area that is evaluated.

“The top two teams go automatically and then there is a thing called the Kolas Calculator to determine the rest of the field,” explains associate coach Kevin Ondrasek. “It's very complicated but basically it does win-loss record of all the teams who are next in line to go, usually the third- and fourth-place teams in each region. It calculates how many times those teams beat other teams that automatically qualified.

“The record will be determined from previous races, so [for example] from our finishes at Pre-Nationals, the Griak, and the Big 12 Championship. Those finishes will actually give us more points. For instance, if our women take third at the regional, we will be in the at-large pool. We beat Baylor at the Big 12 and should Baylor qualify for the NCAA, our women would have a very good chance of being selected as an at-large team because we beat Baylor.”

After the 31 teams have been set, 38 individual runners are chosen from teams that were not selected for the Championship to compete as individuals. Of those 38, the top four finishers at each region, again from teams that are not selected, are automatically selected, as long as they finished in the top 25 of the region. The remaining two spots will be chosen from the remainder of the runners who have finished in the top 25 of their region.

All selections are made by the NCAA Committee, which is comprised of 12 members. The complete field will be announced by 3 p.m. eastern time Nov. 12 on NCAA.com.

The University of Oklahoma is in the Midwest Region, which consists of 37 teams from nine states and 13 conferences. The women are the sixth-ranked team in the region while the men are ranked 10^th. The regional will be held in Iowa City, Iowa at the University of Iowa on Nov. 11.

Joining Oklahoma in the Midwest Region are Big 12 schools Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas State and Kansas. Texas will face Baylor and TCU in the South Central Region. Texas Tech competes in the Mountain Region and West Virginia is in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

What to Know About Cross Country Regionals

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