gibbz, on , said:

That was posted on October 3.
Westlake Classic was on October 4.
Orem was missing two of their top 6 at the Westlake Classic, which would have moved them up with Davis and Lone Peak.

As for meets that had actually happened before that post was made?
-Westlake finished third at their Pre-Regional meet (82/79:09) while Herriman was fifth (108/79:51)
-Westlake finished fifth at BYU (138/86:35.8), with Desert Hills placing third (125/86:15.2) and Mountain View seventh (166/87:04.7).
-Westlake would have won the combined-flight race at Wasatch Rendezvous over Mountain View 35-63, but timewise it was closer at 82:28.3 to 82:40.1

So yes, aside from Desert Hills at BYU, Westlake had beaten all those teams. But the margin was never huge, and team results don't point out everything about the level of performance the individual athletes from those teams have shown over the multiple weeks of racing.

But this is all beside the point, because since that post, the Westlake Classic happened where Westlake ran their best race yet. That moved them up a group.

RunningPrince, on , said:

Already posted the ratings on the Utah forum.

Looking at the Pat Amato Invite (CO) right now... looks like Laramie WY did almost exactly what I outlined above. If their #1/2 runners were as fast as they could be, then that's going to move them up in the next update!

EDIT: Looks like Laramie's top duo (and normal #3/4) weren't as fast as they have been, unfortunately, but it is an improvement for their #5 (Freeman).


Pat Amato CO Ratings estimate (200.0 ~ 14:37)

Boys =

1 - Jonah Henry, Sr - 15:37.7 - Laramie High School - 179.3
2 - Chris Henry, So - 15:40.9 - Laramie High School - 178.2
3 - Shane Rhodes, Jr - 15:49.5 - Cherry Creek HS - 175.3
4 - Ethan Gonzales, Sr - 15:50.7 - Broomfield High School - 174.9
5 - Connor Lockwood, Sr - 15:54.6 - Arvada West High School - 173.6
6 - Jake Lucero, Sr - 15:58.7 - Douglas County - 172.1
7 - Daniel Book, Jr - 15:59.6 - Cherry Creek HS - 171.8
8 - Keaton Schelir, So - 16:00.4 - Fossil Ridge - 171.6
9 - Sean Paiz, Jr - 16:03.9 - Thornton High School - 170.4
10 - Satchel Caldwell, Jr - 16:04.9 - Boulder HS - 170.0


1 - Jonah Henry, Sr - 15:37.7 - Laramie High School - 179.3
2 - Chris Henry, So - 15:40.9 - Laramie High School - 178.2
20 - Jacob Morgan, So - 16:17.5 - Laramie High School - 165.7
32 - Jonathon Freeman, Jr - 16:37.2 - Laramie High School - 159.0
34 - Heath Geil-Haggerty, Jr - 16:38.3 - Laramie High School - 158.6
53 - Kevin Baldwin, Sr - 17:01.7 - Laramie High School - 150.6
116 - Calder Kempema, Sr - 17:59.7 - Laramie High School - 130.8

watchout if you have time and haven't already seen it go look up the results at the Westlake Classic in Utah on September 4th, a lot of very good nationally ranked teams in that boys Varsity race and very very close score. Only 13 points separating the 5th place team and the 1st place team.

Laramie absolutely has a chance. They are sitting on the end of the national bubble (US#50-55) and around NW#7-10. All they really need is for their #5 to be mixing it up with their #3/4 guys, Jacob Morgan and Heath Geil-Haggerty. If they can do that, they'd be looking very good for a top-5 finish in the NW. They have a good front two, and a solid enough #3/4, so that's the only piece missing at this point. The step from potential NW top-5 to potential NXN Invite would probably mean their #3/4 have to close the gap even more on their front duo though... say, within 30-45 seconds. But for a potential top-5 NW finish, the #5 runner is the concern.

Watchout. How about Laramie, Wyoming? How do they stack up with the Utah teams and the other Northwest teams? They have had some great success in Colorado and South Dakota and are well ahead of everyone in Wyoming. Do they have a chance?

cerutty fan, on , said:

Ha! Fair enough!

If we're going for football analogies here, I'll say that a meet with runners only competing against those in the same grade level is a bit like the NFL Combine.

Had West Virginia not been blown out 37-0 by #25 Maryland the week before, their narrow margin of victory over previously unbeaten Oklahoma State would likely have been enough to rank them ahead of the Cowboys.

I don't think you're crazy for agreeing with 44 out of 60 pollsters, but I do think you are crazy for following college football

You might find it interesting to know that 44 of the 60 voters in the AP College Football poll had Oklahoma State in their top 25 this week, and 0 had West Virginia in their top 25 this week, despite the fact that West Virginia beat Oklahoma State 30-21 last weekend.

Though maybe my opinion will change in the next few weeks, this week I would have voted the same - maybe all 45 of us would be crazy, but we'd still be in the majority. Just goes to show that I'm certainly not the only rankster who would place a team that to this point has seemed to be better ahead of a team that beat them when they met on the field.

Sometimes, the teams that seem to be better are going to lose, or teams that win might not have been the best to date this season. That happens, especially in cross country when there are dozens of teams on the field at the same time, and especially team scores are determined not only by the athletes and single competing teams, but the entirety of the field they are competing against. Team scores in a cross country meet are a representation of how well a team does on that day, on that course, against that field. The distinction of whether Team A is better than Team B is more complex than that, especially since we have more than one meet to judge teams with.

Note: I'm not saying the difference between Oklahoma State and West Virginia in college football this year is the same as the difference between, say, Brea Olinda and Canyon (Anaheim) boys cross country, it was just the first scenario that came to my mind.

Two things to say here.

1. I really do appreciate the lists you've put together! It's fun to check out the teams.
2. I think it's crazy to put more weight into your algorithm than the reality of head-to-head competitions that have taken place.

When Lone Peak lost to American Fork at Wasatch by 14 points they were also without their third runner.

Thanks for justifying Canyon's position on the list. Would like to add that their 8-10 runners swept the most recent frosh/soph race vs. brea and elmo 1-3 and finished with 21 pts. The depth is there!

Unless I'm mistaken, Bingham and Lone Peak have raced twice this year.

Nebo Invite - Bingham edged Lone Peak 121-135. Team times were also pretty similar (78:10.4 to 78:26.7). I'd call that a very close race.

Grass Relays - Lone Peak beat (re: had a faster team time than) Bingham, though this meet was early enough that it wasn't really included in the rankings.

But beyond all that... I'd say that Lone Peak has been quite a bit more inconsistant than Bingham. Neither team ran their best race at Nebo, but I'd say Bingham's top five were closer to their best than were Lone Peak's.


Of course, it's also possible that I've overrated the Wasatch Invitational results, which would boost the rankings for Lone Peak and American Fork... though I think the Lone Peak runners also ran better at their Pre-Region meet (and the Wasatch Invite ratings are in line with other ratings for AF), so that might not be the complete answer (if it is the case).

Hey I love all this talk about running stats. Thanks for the list! But I was wondering why lone peak seems stronger than Bingham even though every race I've seen Bingham has beat them fairly handily. Am I missing a race or performance or sickness or something?

Good explanation, thanks for taking the time to explain to Ogden. They will rise above the bubble and do have a Top 5 that have all run under 15:45 on a legit 3 miles, at altitude. Unfortunately, Utah has region & State way early (16 & 23 Oct), a month before NXR-SW, so they will just have to prove themselves there. Thanks for what you do for HS XC, your ranking are important to our kids.

RunningPrince, on , said:

Ogden, Riverton and Timpanogos are all on the national bubble (top 53ish in the nation)... you can see the roughly projected NXN scoring in the post about the team groupings above.

Westlake, Desert Hills and Herriman are also on the Southwest bubble, but a little further back (they'd be in the low/mid 400's for projected NXN scoring). Mountain View is in this group as well.

One thing that I also find incredible about Utah is according to Milesplit after the 5 teams that you already have ranked listed there are teams that fallow such as Westlake (previously ranked on deeper list), Riverton (previously ranked on deeper list), Desert Hills, Timpanogos, and Herriman (4A Utah State Champions) all right there behind them. Just is amazing with how deep the young talent is in Utah, is wish the list was deeper just so I could see how the rest of these Utah teams compare, but a list of 40 is wonderful. Thanks so much! If at all possible let me know how some of these other Utah teams would compare to a list like this! Thanks!

MURICA, on , said:

Yes. Thank you for bringing that up, it's an important topic to discuss - while one team might be ranked above another, that doesn't mean the teams are separated by much at all. On both sides, there seems to be an early top-4 that have separated themselves from the pack. The pack is a little closer on the girls side, though.

Rough groupings for the boys:

Group1.0 = #1-4 (NXN scores would be projected around 95-135 points)
Group2.0 = #5-8 (NXN scores would be projected around 185-225 points)
Group3.0 = #9-22 (NXN scores would be projected around 255-295 points)
Group3.5 = #23-53ish (NXN scores would be projected around 305-375 points - no real gap to make the groups smaller than that)

#22 Liverpool is kind of straddling the groups, but they are slightly closer to Group 3.0 than 3.5 (and their team scores against Saratoga in Group3.0 and Fayetteville-Manlius in Group2.0 certainly reflect that).

Biggest gap, at the moment, is from #4 to #5, though from #8 to #9 is also a bit of a jump (although #9 Henderson hasn't really raced much yet, with last weekend their first notable race). All of the top 4 seem like potential NXN Champions if things go their way; the next four teams all seem like potential trophy contenders, but clearly a step or two behind the title contenders at this point in the season.

40 deep is great! Watchout it seems to me like there is a bit of a gap between 4 or 5 and the rest of the field. Do the speed ratings show that? Gig Harbor beat North Central quite handily at Firman and Dana Hills was not as impressive at their own invitational as they have been in past years. Those two, along with York, usually come along very well at the end of the season, but from my view, the talent loaded in the top 5 teams maybe too much to overcome. Where are the biggest gaps in these rankings? Thanks for all the hard work!

Texas has a couple of teams that aren't far from the rankings, and could very well end up ranked in the next update with good races this weekend, in addition to US#40 Southlake Carroll.

Though neither state quite made the national rankings, Massachusetts and Rhode Island both have a team on the national bubble.

Florida and Michigan boys teams are a bit further back and not on the national bubble, but are on the radar.

Yes, the difference between those states and Utah is pretty significant, at least at this point in the season.

Thanks for undertaking thankless task....
The fact that many in top 40 today may not be there by Thanksgiving is just the way things are in a sport in which no two venues are comparable and factors such as altitude and weather and course surface on any particular day can skew results.
Question are Utah teams so good that 5 are ranked as compared to ZERO for Michigan, Mass. and R.I.? Forget Texas and Florida.

Mattman714, on , said:

Canyon didn't have any runners missing, but didn't run as well as they have in other meets. They were better at the Laguna Hills Invite the week before the Cross Country Classic.

If I was going 50 deep, Brea Olinda would have been ranked.

How can you rank Canyon (Anaheim) CA ahead of Brea Olinda CA when Brea has beaten Canyon definitively this year at both the Cross Country Classic meet on 9-21-13 and at their league cluster meet yesterday? I don't believe Canyon had any scoring runners hurt for either of those meets.

Ogden is a very good team, and certainly on the bubble for both regional and national accolades (in a national race, they'd be about 10-15 points from the #37-40 teams).

I don't really take into account who wins what races early in the season. Instead, I look at what the athletes run, because the caliber of athletes you have is what determines how good your team can be. Also, you're never going to get clear rankings if you play the "who beat who" game early in the season, particularly in areas where there are so many good teams that they beat up on eachother throughout the year (such as in Utah).

As for the teams you mention, though, it can be noted that both Orem and Davis were missing a scorer at Bob Firman: Davis was without Kimball Potter, and Orem without both of their frosh varsity guys (the Riding bros, who I have pegged as their #4 and #6). Ogden had everyone there. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make excuses for their teams performances, but I have to take missing runners into account. Ogden had the better day, and deserved to place higher in the meet, but in answering the question of who would seem to be the better team (at this point) requires me to consider all the angles.

Food for thought: Orem beat Ogden at every spot at Firman except #5. And their #5 that day was their normal #7; their #4, who beat Ogden's #4, was their normal #5.

Davis v. Lone Peak: Yes, Davis has beaten Lone Peak this year (at BYU). And yes, everyone was there on that day. But that doesn't mean that Lone Peak's best vs. Davis' best is always going to end in that order (just look at the Ogden/Orem/Davis situation for an example).

There are many different ways you can look at rankings: You can rank teams based on who has beaten who (though that would get convoluted pretty fast unless every individual on every team is always on top of their game and the team standings at every meet matches expectations every time), you can rank teams based on who would come out on top of they all ran today, you can rank teams based on who has the best potential, you can rank teams based on what their average race would look like, etc. ... for my rankings, what I do is look at how good the individual athletes have been over the past 3 weeks, over the past 4 weeks, over the past 5 weeks, (etc.) and take their best races from those time periods and average them together and score out the teams like they run in a meet. This takes into account many variables that people tend to want as significant factors (myself included): How good you are when you're at your best, good you've been on average if you didn't have a good race in a few weeks, and a more recent outlook answer to the "what have you done for me lately" question. Yes, it ignores team standings, but team standings are a measure of how the teams compared on THAT day on THAT course, rather than either how good (whether on average or at their best) the teams are this year, or how the teams would compare if you lined them up and raced today.

I'll pay more attention to how the team standings at meets look once we get to championship season, because that's the goal for pretty much every team: win a championship, or place as well as you can at the state/regional/national meet (or whatever end-goal you have as a team). At that point, I think how well a team places on those days matter (you have to run well as a team when it counts, and when you get to that point it certainly counts). Until then, it's how well the kids on the team do when they're running well and what they've done recently.

Why will you Not recognize Ogden, UT? They beat Orem & Davis at both Bob Firman and won at Murray. Davis has also beaten Lone Peak!