We had to wait and keep this a secret a little longer than we would have liked, but the announcement of Erik Boal as DyeStatCal editor means very good things for coverage in California.

He released his Top 50 rankings today as well, not tied to Monroe's rankings.

Scott Joerger, on , said:

Will your rankings be influenced by Monroe's Top 100 National list? Or do you two work separately on these?

Keith Chann, on , said:

Not much longer. Good things are coming, I promise

Scott Joerger, on , said:

How close to the season do you need?

Coleman, on , said:

Yes we are coming out with pre-season rankings, but they won't be out until a little closer to the season. We are still working through the details - should have more to share soon!

Scott, is DyeStatCal doing this top 50 team preseason rankings again this year (2014)? About this time last year the DyeStatCal rankings began, and Prepcaltrack began their list last week so that is why I ask now. thanks

DyeStatCAL's weekly in-season rankings start tomorrow, with an overall Top 25 and Top 10 by Division (with Albert lending his hand with the small schools once again). The release schedule can be viewed on our XC Rankings Index Here.

I can see why you would say that looking at cross country results, but I assure you there's nothing creative going on. Our rankings are based purely on the top performances of the top 5 returners. We convert key XC performances as well as 1600/3200 times to a projected XC performance, giving the XC performance preference (we ding 1600s a lot in particular).

Even so, the edge that Campolindo has is their track results. If you look at their 3200 times I think you will see that they are stronger across the board.

But rankings are rankings, and everything changes when the racing begins!

For the DyeStat National Rankings, there are 25 girls teams and 31 boys teams in the national top 120, and 6 boys & girls teams in the top 25. Here are where the CA teams stand:

Girls Teams
2. Great Oak
3. Simi Valley
15. St. Francis
17. Saugus
18. Buchanan
19. Capistrano Valley
32. La Costa Canyon
33. Davis
34. Campolindo
35. Yucaipa
36. Bonita
58. Mira Costa
59. Serrano
70. Rancho Bernardo
71. Trabuco Hills
72. San Clemente
73. South Torrance
77. Aptos
97. Dana Hills
98. Northwood
99. Palos Verdes
107. Edison
108. Bella Vista
114. Claremont
115. Clovis North

Boys Teams
4. Arcadia
7. Polytechnic
14. Dana Hills
15. De La Salle
24. Madera South
25. Brea Olinda
32. Westlake
33. Redondo Union
35. Jurupa Hills
42. California
43. Warren
44. Rancho Buena Vista
49. Palos Verdes
66. Loyola
67. Del Campo
82. Canyon
83. Clovis North
84. St. John Bosco
87. Saugus
88. Carlsbad
93. Cathedral
94. Carlmont
95. St. Joseph Notre Dame
96. Bellarmine College Prep
97. Crescenta Valley
109. Great Oak
110. Vista Murrieta
96. Bellarmine College Prep
97. Crescenta Valley
109. Great Oak
110. Vista Murrieta

Boys Pre-Season Rankings by Division are now posted. Take a look!

Girls Rankings by Division are now posted. Thanks Albert for lending a hand with the small schools. Please check them out and let us know your comments!

Boys teams 1 to 5 are now posted! Thanks to everyone who provided feedback and details on various teams. I hope everyone feels good about where these ended up.

Tues and Weds we will be posting Girls and Boys recaps, and will be doing our pre-season top 10 by division. Thanks to Albert Caruana for partnering with me on this and providing his expertise and knowledge with divison 4 & 5 in particular.

Stay tuned there's more to come...

David Garcia, on , said:

Close...

I predict 1. Arcadia 2. LB Poly 3. Dana Hills. 4. De La Salle 5. Brea Olinda

Hope you enjoyed the girls pre-season rankings. Girls Top 10 by Division come on Tuesday - come back and check them out!

Girls Top 50 Countdown Concludes with a very tough top 5. See who's tops the list!

I have 4 for both boys and girls. Might have to dig a little deeper to find the missing team on both sides.

Thanks for all the hard work with the rankings Scott. I like that I can get something new each day.

Boys teams 6 to 10 are now posted. What do you think - would you rank them this way? Who can name the top 5 Boys and Girls teams?

DyeStatCAL Top 50 Countdown - We're into the big guns now! Girls 6-10 Teams are Posted!

I'm afraid I had to do another re-ranking, as Rancho Buena Vista got deleted from my data (who could have done that?) Sorry for the rookie mistakes, but all is fixed now.

Look for girls 6-10 tomorrow!

MatthewXCountry, on , said:

Thanks Matthew! And yes that's the challenge, when you are looking at teams above the top 10 or 20 you are basically looking "in the pack". Often what differentiates a team is the strongest 5th runner, and it's not always easy to predict who that is (and I'm sure we're often wrong). Our rankings are mathmatical, inputting the top 1600, 3200, State, Sectional, and top invitational (Mt. Sac, Stanford, and Clovis) marks into a model and setting them on a level playing field. So the rankings are objective in that way, though you could easily argue the creation of the model has some subjectivity! One more good mark, one missed PR and that ranking can move 5 to 10 places.

And that's why pre-season rankings especially should be taken with a grain of salt. I hope it gives people a general idea of where they are at as a starting point, but no doubt they will change a lot in a month!

We are working out the details of on-going rankings during the season, but it will probably be bi-weekly including divisional and overall state rankings. Stay tuned.

Boys 11 - 20 Rankings are now posted! Only top 10 on each side to go!

Can't wait for the rest of the rankings and for the season to start.

This is great! After looking through teams 50-11 on the girls side, I am shocked at how similar they look. Any one of these teams could easily place top 10 in a power merge at state. Wow CA is really really deep on the girls side!

We're gettin' down there now! Girls Teams 11-20 are posted!