How the 2023 Nuttycombe Invitational impacts the outlook of the NCAA cross country title races

The 2023 Nuttycombe Invitational closed an exciting cross country regular season. As always, the "Nutty" serves as a DI championship preview of sorts, with plenty of ranked teams competing against each other. So, what does it all mean? Here are some takeaways from one of the nation's premier meets.

What the Nuttycombe confirmed

Northern Arizona's men's dynasty hasn't missed a beat

If anyone thought the NAU men's team — the winners of six of the last seven team titles — would fall off in 2023, the Nuttycombe begs to differ. The Lumberjacks won the Nutty with 76 points, 86 points ahead of BYU in second place. Led by Nico Young and Drew Bosley, NAU had four runners cross the finish line in the top 25 before any other team had three runners. North Carolina was the first non-NAU team with a third runner at 27th, but NAU's fifth-place runner finished two spots later in 29th. 

Keep in mind that NAU's stellar performance came against 13 of the top 16 ranked men's teams. We should still watch out for No. 2 Oklahoma State and No. 10 Virginia on its home course, but NAU definitely flexed its muscle.

NUTTY RESULTS: See complete results from the 2023 Nuttycombe Invitational

Parker Valby and Katelyn Tuohy are the top women's contenders

NC State's Katelyn Tuohy and Florida's Parker Valby entered the 2023 season as the top women's individual contenders after finishing 1-2, respectively, in last year's title race. We got to see the two go head-to-head at the Nuttycombe, this time with the finishing order flipped.

Valby beat Tuohy by 12 seconds, and that's with Tuohy beating third place by 23 seconds. Valby was ahead of the pack at every 2000 meters of the 6K race, and the gap shows that come the championships, the Valby-Tuohy rivalry will be exciting once again.

Parker Valby, the 2023 Nuttycombe Champion 🤩🐊#NCAAXC x @GatorsTF pic.twitter.com/AXIE0jSKbg

— NCAA Track & Field (@NCAATrackField) October 13, 2023

🔮: Every Nuttycombe Invitational champion that has won the NCAA cross country title in the same year

What the Nuttycombe taught us

The men's individual title race is wide-open

2022's men's individual titleist Charles Hicks is now a pro, and entering the year, we knew we'd be looking for a new champion. There's still no front-runner for the individual title after the 2023 Nuttycombe, as the top nine finishers all finished within nine seconds of each other. Harvard's Graham Blanks won the Invitational, but he was in ninth place with 2000 meters to go. The 2023 DI men's individual picture only got murkier after the Nutty, especially when considering No. 2 Oklahoma State wasn't even running. The men's individual race is wide open.

He’s that guy 👀

The Men’s individual champion at this years Nuttycombe is Graham Blanks#NCAAXC x @HarvardTFXC pic.twitter.com/FI3rVAZNLP

— NCAA Track & Field (@NCAATrackField) October 13, 2023

Freshmen men are title threats

New Mexico's Habtom Samuel already had one of the top performances early in the season at the Roy Griak Invitational. He impressed yet again at the Nuttycombe, finishing third to beat out some of last year's top finishers. Elsewhere in the top 10, Wake Forest freshman Rocky Hansen finished sixth. With the men's individual title race being up for grabs, could one of the talented rookies take command?

IMPRESSIVE: Ranking the top cross country performances after one month

The NC State women's squad has a legitimate challenger

NC State has won the last two DI women's cross country titles by an average of 32 points. In 2022, NC State won the Nuttycombe en route to a title. This year, Northern Arizona not only beat the Wolfpack in the Nutty, the Lumberjacks dominated with a 43-point win.

The Northern Arizona women scored 52 points, the lowest at the Nutty since 2015. The Lumberjacks were the only team with five runners to finish in the top 20, and they had a sixth runner finish 24th. After that performance, NAU should be neck-and-neck with NC State in women's team title conversations.

Now, of course, NC State has two of the top three runners in the country Katelyn Tuohy and Kelsey Chmiel. Likewise, top-15 runners last year Amaris Tyynismaa and Samantha Bush didn't run and didn't finish the Nuttycombe, respectively. We can't count out the Wolfpack, but NAU has closed the gap.