FAYETTEVILLE -- Down in Mississippi the Ole Miss men and the Mississippi State women likely still think they can rid the SEC of Arkansas cross country oppression.
Their belief seems likely a little lessened with Friday's SEC Cross Country Championships looming in College Station, Texas, than it did back in August. .
Other than returning two-time SEC champion Dominique Scott, the nationally ranked No. 1 runner, Coach Lance Harter's reigning SEC champion Razorbacks women were hard hit by graduation and so dependent on newcomers that they were deemed vulnerable to the up and coming Mississippi State Bulldogs.
Chris Bucknam's men's team has won five consecutive SEC titles, but 2014 SEC champion Stanley Kebenei and 2014 All-American Patrick Rono graduated and even with them the Razorbacks needed a heroic fifth-man scoring performance from seventh-man Aidan Swain to edge runner-up Ole Miss at last year's conference meet.
Ole Miss returns its top three SEC scorers -- Wesley Gallagher, Sean Tobin and Robert Domanic -- and added heralded runners MJ Erb, Craig Engels and Ryan Manahan. The Rebels opened the cross country season ranked 15th -- Arkansas opened at 17th -- and climbed to 13th. The Rebels also were voted the SEC favorite by league coaches.
"They were the team that was picked to win and we weren't," Bucknam said. "We will have to run our best race to beat them. They still look awfully good."
Arkansas looks better according to the polls. Coming off running a strong third at the NCAA Preview meet two weeks ago in Louisville, Ky., and winning their Chile Pepper Festival before that, Bucknam's men are eighth nationally.
Ole Miss tumbled out of the men's Top 25.
Swain, last year's hero who has improved and could still factor in next month's NCAA Regional according to Bucknam, isn't among Arkansas' 10 SEC entrants.
Surprisingly these Hogs are that deep even without the guaranteed SEC champions like Kebenei and Kemoy Campbell of recent past.
"We have had a different No 1 guy each race," Bucknam said. "Frankline Tonui at Iona to Alex George at Chile Pepper to Austen Dalquist at the Preview. You know something good is going to happen. You just don't know what."
Mississippi State's women are running better than ever, finishing fifth at their NCAA Preview meet in Louisville, and rank 13th nationally.
But Harter's women, with freshman phenom Devin Clark established right behind Scott and returnees Kaitlin Flattman, Valerie Reina, Kelsey Schrader and Regan Ward having emerged, ran a shocking second to nationally No. 1 New Mexico at the adidas Wisconsin Invitational. Arkansas soared to fourth nationally.
"Losing that big senior class a lot of people considered us buried this year," Harter said. "I think we stunned them in Wisconsin. If we didn't stun them, we definitely startled them."
Of course with the tradition that Bucknam extends from John McDonnell and that Harter has built and extends, it seems truly startling only when Arkansas isn't poised to win the SEC cross country title.
Sports on 10/28/2015