Not since 2003 has a men's NCAA xc team returned 3 from the top 10 from the year before. In 2003, Stanford was historically great and won by putting 6 in the top 13. If the meet was scored Stanford versus the rest of the field, Stanford would have geen the winner.
So NAU has the chance to be great but the problem for them is Stanford has 3 of the top 10 returners from last year (all guys were in the top 20 last year) and BYU has 4 sub-13:40 guys with a lots of experience, as two of them are 5th-year guys and two of them are 7th-year guys.
So by no means is NAU an automatic lock. Who do you think will be the winner? Can anyone touch NAU?
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2018/09/2018-ncaa-mens-xc-preview-2-byu-1-northern-arizona/