The men’s team is the defending national champion. They competed in a meet yesterday that included Northern Arizona, who has won the national championship four of the last five years (they finished second to BYU last year).

A couple of questions I had going into this season:

1. Was Conner Mantz recovered from the injury he suffered while training for the Olympic Trials?

2. Was Casey Clinger, the most highly-touted recruit ever at BYU, back in shape after returning from his mission last year?

3. Was Clayson Shumway recovered from the injury he suffered that kept him out last season?

4. Which recent returned missionary would step up?

We got some answers to these questions from the meet over the weekend.

1. Conner Mantz finished in second place by one second and seems to be back to his old self.

2. Casey Clinger finished in third place right behind Mantz by seven seconds. With these two fit and healthy BYU has a killer one-two punch.

3. Clayson Shumway is reportedly not enrolled in school but will be come January. He ran in the race Unattached, which means he was not included in the team points. He finished as BYU's number three runner and was eighth overall. He appears to be healthy and is running well.

4. Zack Ericksen, who was fresh off a mission last season, appears to have his legs back under him, and he has been running really well in practice. He finished as the fourth BYU runner and was 16th overall.

Another pleasant surprise was Aidan Troutner. Troutner was a highly-touted recruit as he won the 2017 Nike Cross Nationals race. While he finished as the ninth BYU runner he is fresh off a mission. Usually recently-returned missionaries need a full season to get into shape and don't even compete their first season back. With another five months before the NCAA championships it will be interesting to track his progression.

Northern Arizona is absolutely stacked again this year. They have more depth than BYU, but anything can happen on race day. BYU's number four (Brandon Garnica) and number five (Matt Owens) runners from last year's NCAA championships ran yesterday but didn't look too good. Apparently they're both recovering from injury, so we’ll see if they get back to full health.

Hopefully this year’s team can work some magic and do a repeat of last season.