This past weekend, the Alabama men debuted their full squad at the Joe Piane Notre Dame XC Invitational in Indiana, finishing eighth overall with 200 team points. At first glance, one might assume the Crimson Tide fell short of their 11th FloXC pre-season ranking after losing to five unranked teams.

However, Alabama actually did more to validate their pre-season ranking, and here's why.

SEE UPDATED FloXC RANKINGS HERE

1) Alabama's top three proved they are as good as we think they are.

The Kenyan trio went 1-2-3 at Notre Dame with convincing wins over All-American Joe Klecker (Colorado) and 13:34 5K runner Mike Tate (Southern Utah).

Deservingly, all three men are now ranked in the FloXC Top 25:

No. 4 Gilbert Kigen
No. 7 Vincent Kiprop
No. 19 Alfred Chelanga

2) Alabama still looks to be able to advance out of the South Regional.

Alabama competes in one of the weaker regions, and looks to only have one true contender in Middle Tennessee State. Other potential top-two contenders are Ole Miss and Florida State. Alabama beat Florida State convincingly at Notre Dame, and Ole Miss -- who finished second at the Cowboy Jamboree -- appears to be in rebuilding mode after graduating multiple seniors last year.

Let's take a look at last year's South Regional results with redshirts/graduates removed and Alabama's trio added:

Pl	Athlete	YR	School
1	Kigen, Gilbert	JR	Alabama
2	Kiprop, Vincent	JR	Alabama
3	Chelanga, Alfred	JR	Alabama
4	Choge, Jacob	SO	Mid. Tenn. State
5	Chemadi, Kigen	JR	Mid. Tenn. State
6	Guillorel, Arse'ne	SR	Samford
7	Tobin, Sean	SR	Mississippi
8	Boit, Gilbert	SO	Tennessee Tech
9	Kamau, Bryan	SR	Georgia
10	Long, Zach	JR	Tennessee
11	Morken, Nick	JR	North Florida
12	Cheruiyot, Amos	SR	Mid. Tenn. State
13	Laari, Sampson	SR	Mid. Tenn. State
14	Navarro, Daniel	SR	Georgia
15	Cheruiyot, Geoffry	SR	Mid. Tenn. State
16	Pectol, Wesley	SR	Auburn
17	Sprague, Austin	SR	Georgia
18	Cross, Steven	SO	Florida State
19	Bryant, Ben	JR	Samford
20	Wyss, Kevin	SR	Auburn
21	Kelley, Bryce	SR	Florida State
22	Hall, Michael	SR	Florida State
23	Solomon, Nahom	SR	Georgia Tech
24	Pittman, Frank	SO	Georgia Tech
25	Stahl, Tyler	SR	North Florida
26	Grady, Alex	SR	Georgia Tech
27	Westog, Eric	JR	Georgia
28	Robertson, Mark	SR	Mississippi
29	Munns, Matthew	JR	Georgia Tech
30	Short, Josh	JR	Alabama
31	Caldwell, Taylor	JR	Mississippi
32	Dean, Dillon	SO	Samford
33	Sanders, Mitchell	JR	Georgia Tech
34	Grossman, Sean	SR	Miami
35	Leber, Brent	JR	Lipscomb
36	Hasty, Gavin	JR	Chattanooga
37	Edwards, Matthew	SR	Belmont
38	Prizy, Evan	SR	Alabama
39	Shaw, Tanner	JR	Georgia Tech
40	Richardson, Paul	SR	Samford

Top Two Projected Scores:

1) 49 points Middle Tennessee State
1) 74 points Alabama

Obviously, results change year to year, but with the addition of a potential 1-2-3 finish in 2017 the Crimson Tide are formidable contenders for a top-two regional team finish.

3) Under the NCAA scoring system, the Crimson Tide are still pretty good in a worst-case scenario.

Based on our FloXC rankings, we believe Alabama's top three could score 30 points. Even if Alabama's fourth and fifth man finished second to last and last overall, they would add 214 and 215 points respectively bringing their team total to 459 points, which would have placed a team 18th overall at last year's NCAA championships. So worst-case scenario Alabama is a top-20 team purely based on their first three runners.

4) Alabama's fourth and fifth men might be good enough.

Now obviously it's hard to imagine Alabama's fourth and fifth finishing dead last at NCAAs, so how many points could one expect from these two? One fun way to imagine their potential is to see how similar athletes did at Notre Dame vs NCAAs last year.

	2016 ND Finish	2016 NCAA Score
Patrick Sheehan (NC State)	73rd	104
John Lawson (California)	130th	166
	2017 ND Finish	2017 NCAA Score
Josh Short (Alabama)	75th	TBD
Garrett Bull (Alabama)	131st	TBD

Now obviously this comparison can be wildly inaccurate, but it does show that Alabama's fourth/fifth men have at least the potential to score around 300 points between the two of them. And if that happens, Alabama could be looking at 330 team points, which would have been good for 11th last year.

So there you have it, the results may look weird, but Alabama has the ingredients to be a top-15 team despite their eighth-place finish at Notre Dame.