BOULDER — When you are the unanimous choice as the No. 1 team in the nation, when you are the two-time defending national champions — and the overwhelming choice to make it a three-peat — conventional wisdom suggests that you are competing with a target on your back.
The pressure of such expectations should be substantial, right?
Wrong — at least if you are the Colorado Buffaloes. The Colorado cross country team has never fit the mold of conventional. Instead, Mark Wetmore’s Buffs tune out noise from the outside, tune in to what Wetmore is teaching and more often than not, do what the Buffs have done as well as any program in the nation this century:
They have fun, they revel in the opportunity to improve — and they win, to the tune of five men’s national titles since 2001, and the heavy favorites to make it six this year.