ISUs runners are indeed as difficult a challenge as there is. They are both future Olympians and winners that are both individual champions. NAU on the other hand runs a different brand of team racing that hasn't proven as effective outside of XC so not sure I m as inclined until we see start seeing them put up times this season.

The only race that BYUs guys have run this year saw 3 qualify for the Olympic trials which is incredible. All 3 were within about a second of what Kiptu ran to win the indoor 5k and all would have won the 2019 race by about 40 seconds.

Lastly, it will be interesting to see which of these guys will attempt to double or if any will go all in on one race. I think Kiptu and Mantz obviously would try for both. We saw a fresh Mantz handily beat Kiptu in XC with fresher legs so could be interesting to see who does what there.