BYU football may be chasing a College Football Playoff spot, but the Cougars will have a national champion no matter what this fall.
Well, two actually.
The men’s and women’s cross country teams both won the national championship in Wisconsin on Saturday. It was the first time a program won both titles since 2004 when Colorado did it.
The women were anchored by Lexy Halladay-Lowry, who finished 14th overall. This was Halladay-Lowry’s second title since coming to Provo.
Head coach Diljeet Taylor has now won two national championships herself since leading the program. Her Cougars also won in 2021. It is the program’s sixth title overall.
This time, the Cougars edged out West Virginia and Providence in the top three.
“I’m really proud of these women,” Taylor said in a news release. “They stayed committed to the process. They embraced the imperfect, which is what it takes. Like in any season, we had lots of downs, lots of ups, but they ran for each other and figured out how to fight their own battles.”
As for the men, they were led by senior Casey Clinger, who helped push BYU over Iowa State and Arkansas.
BYU was ranked No. 1 coming into the weekend. The Cougars won the Big 12 title earlier in the year. Head coach Ed Eyestone was optimistic about a potential cross-country sweep.
“I think we are in a great place,” Eyestone said. “I think our guys have the focus. This entire year has been on the build from our very first workout in the summertime.”
It is BYU’s second title under Eyestone. The longtime head coach guided multiple individual national champions, but this is his first program title since 2019.
