This is the latest installment in the FloXC Countdown. For the full list of the top teams and individuals, click here. Today, the #3 women's team, the Colorado Buffaloes. 

Last year, the Colorado women ran a race that was close to perfect. 

On the snowy day in Madison that they wished for, the Buffaloes put six women in the first 30 places at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. Led by Dani Jones’ individual title, they turned what was supposed to be a competitive race into a rout, scoring 65 points to runner-up New Mexico’s 103. 

Any pre-race doubts — and there was plenty of reason to think they couldn’t win — seemed foolish in retrospect. 

It was the eighth title of coach Mark Wetmore’s 24-year tenure as the school’s head coach. The women have been on quite a run as of late: 2018 was their third team championship, and they've finished in the top three each of the past four seasons. There’s an air inevitability about the program, that Colorado will always be around when a title is on the line, even if results earlier in the season dictate otherwise. 

Last year, that moment was three weeks before their victory in Madison. 

Oregon beat them comfortably at the Pac 12 Championships, putting five runners in before Colorado’s fourth. The team was disappointed but resolute. 

“We didn’t cry into our Gatorade,” Wetmore said.

As Wetmore enters his 25th year, his enthusiasm hasn’t waned, and all of his idiosyncracies are fully intact. To the latter point, here’s how he answered the first questions at the season-opening press conference at the University.

“I think if there was an uprising, a revolution, and they decided to agree to do nothing over the summer, I’d be in trouble. But they all know somebody is out there. They all know (Colorado All-American) Joe Klecker is out there running 15 miles a day and he’ll murder them when they come back out of shape so it’s a mutually supportive culture . . . of fear.” 

In that same press conference, Wetmore said the team was “pretty cleaned out” after losing four runners from their national championship team from a year ago. 

Other than the roster, the biggest change is within coaching duties. Associate head coach Heather Burroughs has taken on a bigger role in the program. 

“If it isn't 50/50, it’s me assisting her,” Wetmore said.

One of the coaches, Wetmore or Burroughs, will step away from the team for a few weeks this fall during the World Championships to travel to Doha, Qatar, to coach Colorado alum and volunteer assistant Jenny Simpson as she competes for the United States in the 1500m. 

“Whatever compromise that may present for 10 days or 12 days I think is made up for in the overall culture of excellence and thinking big and dreaming big,” Wetmore said. 

With Jones, Makena Morely (eighth place at NCAAs), Taylor Tuttle (24th), and Val Constein (30th) gone, it will be on Colorado to evolve again into a title contender. They have the team to do it. 

Tabor Scholl, perhaps the biggest surprise last year of the entire women’s race, returns for her senior year after placing 15th at NCAAs.  Fellow senior Sage Hurta also provides valuable experience. 

She was the embodiment of Colorado’s Pac-12-to-NCAAs turnaround going from 28th at the conference meet to 22nd at nationals. 

Hurta redshirted during the indoor and outdoor seasons to focus on academics; she’s a chemical and biological engineering major. (Wetmore: “She has nearly a 4.0 in something that would have killed me in a month or two when I was a student.”)

However, she was able to race unattached on a few occasions when Wetmore said “it was convenient and fun.”

The results were spectacular. 

Hurta set lifetime bests in every event from 800m through the 5000m. She won the 800m at the Music City Distance Carnival in 2:00.99, a mark that no collegian bettered during the NCAA season. She also dropped her 1500m PR from 4:13 to 4:09.  

“I was pleasantly surprised, particularly with the 800,” Wetmore said. 

Two key transfers will also help the team. Emily Venters has joined after two seasons at Boise State. She was 39th at the NCAA Championships last year. Rachel McArthur, previously of Villanova, will also have two years of eligibility remaining. She was runner-up at the Big East Championships and took second at the Mid-Atlantic regional meet last fall. 

Emily Covert, a freshman from Minnesota, has the ability to help the team right away. Covert was fourth at Nike Cross Nationals and fifth at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. 

Holly Bent joins Scholl and Hurta as the only returners from the title team. She placed 80th as a freshman.

If there’s an X-factor, it’s junior Madison Boreman. As a freshman, she was second at the NCAA Championships but has missed the last two cross country seasons. 

“Maddy is very, very talented. One of the most talented individuals we’ve ever had here but very fragile. I have not yet found a recipe to keep her healthy over a long block of training and then racing. That's our fantasy . . . is that we can move very carefully, very conservatively, and get her to November the runner that she can be which is a very good runner,” Wetmore said.

If they can succeed, the team would add another potential All-American. 

The championship experience of Scholl, a souped-up Hurta, experienced transfers, and the potential of Covert and Boreman, put this team in line to see the podium with a chance to make a run at the title. It’s impossible to replace what they lost from last year, but Colorado has again put the pieces right back together.