The NCAA Men's and Women's Skiing Committee pushed back its date for allowing alternates to replace individual qualifiers to its championships during the committee's annual meeting June 3-5 in Indianapolis.

The previous date was noon Eastern time on the Friday before the Wednesday on which the championships traditionally start. The new date is the Sunday before the championships start, at 8 p.m. Eastern time. This makes next year's substitution deadline March 2. Next year's championships will be March 5-8 at Dartmouth.

The change increases the likelihood that competing schools will be able to use an alternate, but in order to do so, that school must pay for the alternate's travel. Under the previous arrangement, the alternates had to be in place before the teams traveled to the championships. That made the old date formula unrealistic for schools that might need an alternate, which generally happens because of a student-athlete's injury or illness at the site.

The committee also modified slightly the way it will allocate the individual qualifying spots for each region. Rather than looking at the top 30 finishers by region from the previous championship in each race, the committee will examine the top 20, then use the same formula as it used previously to determine regional allocation of qualifiers.

Regarding rules, the committee made no substantive changes but did add a pyramidal start to the options that may be used when conducting a Nordic (cross country) race. Under a pyramidal format, the distance between the four rows of starters would be five meters with a distance of two meters between each lane. The total distance from front to back would be 20 meters. The presiding jury decides which start to use.