October is going to go a long way toward deciding the at-large teams for the NCAA meet. The selection process has been questionable in the past but it should hold true that if you perform well this month and next you should be selected. The Pac-12/West region and Mountain region teams are going to have to stack up a lot of good performances because it will be very hard to make the top two automatic berths at the West Region and Mountain Region meet. As of the national rankings Oct 1, 7 of the top 16 teams are in these two regions with only 4 automatic berths between the two regions. It is easier to sit people during the region meet if it is not as tough a regional to qualify.. All of the teams contend for conference championships and then would probably only want to focus on the national championship.

Contending for the men's automatic berths (Oct 1 Rankings) -
West - Pac-12 - #4 Oregon, #12 UCLA, #23 Stanford (likely to move up if they remove redshirts), #28 Arizona
West Coast #8 Portland

Mtn Region is really brutal for the top two
Pac-12 #2 Colorado
Big Sky - #3 Northern Arizona
West Coast - #5 BYU
Mtn West - #16 Colorado State, Boise State

The women will be tougher in the west regional with 4 in the top 8 national rankings
West -Pac-12 -#3 Arizona, #5 Oregon, #7 Washington, #8 Stanford
West Coast - #24 San Francisco

In no other region are there more than two teams ranked in the top 16.