One of the biggest ‘what ifs’ in NCAA cross country is how the best Division II and III programs would perform in a Division I championship race, so we decided to conduct a little experiment using our limited reference data points based on 2018 season results.

For DII, we compared the defending national champion Adams State men’s and women’s 2018 Stanford Invitational results versus DI athletes who competed at that meet and this year’s NCAA DI Championships. And for DIII, we compared the North Central (Ill.) men’s performances at the 2018 Louisville Classic and the Washington U. women’s performances at the 2018 Loyola Lakefront Invitational.

Note: For comparing results, we generated a rating for the DII/DIII athletes based on their performances against the DI athletes. This rating was similar to the rating formula for our regular season Top-255 rankings.

2018 Louisville Classic DI Men vs. North Central (Ill.)

Ben Varghese (East Tenn. St.), Ben Kendell (Detroit Mercy), Jacob McLeod (Belmont), Aaron Bienenfeld (Cincinnati), Kaleb McLeod (Belmont), Antonie Senard (Eastern Kentucky)

2018 Stanford Invitational DI Men vs. Adams State

Alek Parsons (Stanford), Alex Ostberg (Stanford), D.J. Principe (Stanford), Tai Dinger (Stanford), Meika Beaudoin-Rousseau (Stanford), Michael Vernau (Stanford)

2018 Stanford Invitational DI Women vs. Adams State

Elise Cranny (Stanford), Katie Rainsberger (Washington), Fiona O’Keeffe (Stanford), Jessica Lawson (Stanford), Erika Adler (UCLA), Miranda Daschian (Cal Poly), Emily Hamlin (Washington), Allie Schadler (Washington), Rebecca Story (Stanford), Katie Izzo (Cal Poly), Jordan Oakes (Stanford), Julia Heymach (Stanford), Catherine Pagano (Stanford), Shona McCulloch (Washington)

2018 Loyola Lakefront Invitational DI Women vs. Washington U.

Gillian Wagner (Princeton), Addi Zerrenner (Arizona), Lindsey Brewis (Loyola Ill.), Melia Chittenden (Princeton), Allie Klimkiewicz (Princeton), Alie Fordyce (Princeton), Madison Offstein (Princeton), Sophie Cantine (Princeton)

After removing the bottom two DI teams from the 2018 results and adding the No. 1-ranked DII team and the 2018 DIII champions, here's how the results played out based on our rating formula.

Reminder: This is based off the DII/DIII team’s September performances, so athletes on these teams who did better in November are not accounted for since they had no reference points for those performances.

Men’s Championship Virtual Result:

Women’s Championship Virtual Result: