cerutty fan, on , said:

Bingham has run similar team times than teams that have finished in the top half at NXN in the past.

While Bingham's #5 runner is their team's weak point, that doesn't mean the score from the front four, plus say 140 from their #5, wouldn't be competitive for a mid-pack finish at a meet like NXN. They are as good as they are because their front quartet is so strong (same with the Park City UT girls).

By the way, a VERY imperfect comparison: California (Whittier) scored 343 points at Bob Firman ID (finishing 13th out of 23) on September 21. They were also at the Clovis Invitational on October 12, and finished 18th out of 23 with 369 points. Bingham scored 186 at Bob Firman. I'm not saying that Bingham would have necessarily scored 200 points at Clovis (that's what the score ratio would work out to), but I'm suggesting they wouldn't have scored over 300 (10th was 308, 15th 361). For the record, overall, I think California (Whittier) ran notably better at Bob Firman than Clovis: Rojas was consistent, and Sam Bautista ran better at Clovis, but Pacheo and Escheverria both countered Bautista's improvement.

For Bingham, a good comparison to a past team might be Columbus North IN in 2011 (just picking one with a similar front quartet - there may very well be better comparisons out there). Imagine how Columbus North IN would have done at NXN in 2011 if they didn't have their #5/6 runners: their #5 would score 141 instead of 108, a swing of 33 points, however their front quartet would still score 166 combined. That would bump their team score from 268 to 301 - moving them from NXN#9 to NXN#11/12. Or, pretend like their #5 wouldn't have finished as well as CN's #5, but rather finish dead last (aside from Bingham's #6/7). That would add another 11 points, moving their score to 312 - putting them in between #12 Fayetteville-Manlius (302) and #13 York (318).

Bottom line: the #3/4 runners are more important for a mid-pack team than the #5 runner, as long as the field is limited in size. And Bingham has pretty solid #3/4 runners - on the NXN Nationals caliber team scale.


Also, I'd hardly say that I agree with your last sentence - there are currently ZERO boys teams and ONE girls team from the South region, and only ONE on each side from the Heartland region, while California and the Southwest have a whole lot of teams. It's certainly not balanced representation, but it shouldn't be if teams from one region are just better than teams from another.

Thanks again for explaining this stuff, I appreciate your patience.

I guess we differ in opinion in this instance. I look at the raw numbers (results) in this situation and feel like Bingham shouldn't even be in consideration as a nationally ranked team. Sure, they are very strong in their state, but with a fifth man that is routinely 40-60 seconds behind their fourth man and about 2:15 behind the top ranked individual runners on the national level, I would say there are too many teams that are going to score lower. There are probably a minimum of 20 teams in California alone that should be ranked ahead of them from what I can tell. At Woodbridge Classic it looks like Bingham would have finished around 10th to 15th in the sweeps race, and about 10th to 15th at Clovis as well.

Again, it feels a bit emotional, like teams from every region have to be in the list or people get upset maybe?

Doug Soles, on , said:

Thanks Doug, that's going to help a lot! I'm sure Texas teams would have started to reappear in the rankings after their regional races get included (next weekend), but hopefully I can find a way to include those teams in next week's update.


EDIT: Update - expect the count of girls teams in the top 40 to rise to 3 (The Woodlands, Southlake Carroll, and New Braunfels)... boys, still might not get any ranked, but the pack of teams are certainly closer now.

Rob,

When we were there we asked if the course was the same and the lady that handed out the packets said the course was different from previous years. It was very competitive there and I think the course was running much slower this year compared to years past. It is too bad because a lot of good performances have been overlooked there this year because the course change was not clarified. Also there were some patches of mud. 3 of my kids fell because of them, including one athlete that had to dnf.

It was a great meet though and I guarantee some of those Texas teams will be ranked soon, they were solid.

Thanks for all you do.

Doug

Circumstances change the order. And by that, I mean you have to take into account multiple circumstances when doing rankings:

1. How would you do against how the NXN National race is likely to unfold, based on previous seasons? In other words, a historical perspective.
2. How would you do against other teams at NXN Nationals were they to run exactly as they have been rated (which takes into account the last 3 weeks, last 4 weeks, last 5 weeks, etc., and once you start to include state meets and beyond significant additional weighting is added to those meets)? In other words, a national mock meet score.
3. How would you do against other teams within your potential NXN Regional field? How many teams are included in your potential NXN Regional field? In other words, a regional mock meet score.
4. Do you factor in how they would do against a standard National-Caliber field along with the regional score? If so, how?
5. Once state meets have begun, who has beaten who at these championship meets?

My rankings need to include all of the above. Those factors don't always align, and because of that it's not a simple formula where you can say without some consideration that "Team A is rated at .8931" or "Team A would score about 350 points at an average NXN Nationals race" -- that can (and does for me) provide the ROUGH order (that is circumstance #1 above), but it cannot be the ONLY factor. For instance, take Davis UT and Bingham UT:

Historical NXN Scores (not weighted towards state): Bingham ~307, Davis ~328
Historical NXN Scores (including state weighting): Bingham ~330, Davis ~352

NXN-Southwest Mock Meet Scores (not weighted towards state): Bingham 231, Davis 235
NXN-Southwest Mock Meet Scores (including state weighting, though with Utah the only state meet that means it's not 22 complete teams): Davis 152.5, Bingham 155

Regional/National Hybrid Scores (not weighted towards state): Bingham ~272, Davis ~277
Regional/National Hybrid Scores (including state weighting): Bingham ~214, Davis ~219

Actual Utah 5A State Meet results:
3. Davis 107
4. Bingham 115

Utah Mass Merge scores:
4. Davis 209.5
5. Bingham 266

Utah Power Merge scores:
4. Davis 179
5. Bingham 203

So, here's a case where Bingham should be ranked higher if you go by raw numbers. However, the teams are close, and Davis beat Bingham at their state meet and came out ahead in all measures (aside from team time, where they tied), so Davis should be ranked ahead (as you see in this week's Regional update, and will see in next week's National update).

How do you account for that in your rankings? It prevents you from posting rankings strictly through cold hard numbers, because head-to-head is now an important factor in the rankings, even if the other factors all lined up.

I would be interested to see the cold hard data behind the rankings. For instance, if Team A scores 413 in a mock combined national meet, and Team B scores 373, why not just rank the teams on that and let the numbers speak for themselves? There are several different sources (dyestat, prepcaltrack, xcnation, flotrack, etc.), but I get the feeling everyone's rankings are emotionally influenced and based on future predictions or past season's results because nobody ever really lays their cards on the table in terms of explaining exactly why which team is in each position.

Caroline Sanders, on , said:

Solidly on the national bubble (scoring ~400 in an average NXN Nationals field with their seasonal ratings).

Highland Invitational was in August -- not even factored into the rankings.

These rankings were, obviously, before state. However, I think most people would agree that Ogden didn't have a particularly good day on the boys side - worst race of the season for their #2, #3, AND #5. Significantly so for their #2 and #3 (though their #5 wasn't too far off his usual). They didn't bring it when it counted, and as this was a state meet, that's obviously going to cost them in the rankings. They can mostly make up for it with a good race at NXN-SW, but until then...

May I note that Timpanogos boys beat Ogden boys both times they raced each other. Once at the Highland Invitational, and once at State EVEN with Timpanogos' top runner having a major lung malfunction. WHERE IS TIMP?

SteveU, on , said:

I think I'd go further. In the several years that I have been watching national rankings, I think Rob's rankings have been better than Marc Bloom's (no disrespect intended). The mathematical analysis Rob does is a fantastic.

Thanks, Steve!

Rob, I truly give you a TON of credit for your work. As good as Marc Bloom was with his Super 25, I feel like you've reached the same level, at least. It's obvious you put a TON of care and time into it. And, I think this is a VERY imperfect science to start with and they'll always be folks who dissent. But I just can't imagine how anyone could do a better job than you.

johnhussxc, on , said:

Remember when I was talking about how well teams like Westlake UT would score at the national meet? Well, Severna Park is very close to that level as well (~395ish). For St. Xavier, did you mean the team in Louisville KY or Cincinnati OH? The latter is ranked, and the former is on the bubble (just ahead of Severna Park, scoring ~385). Robinson is a bit further back, but are also a competitive team at most spots down the lineup.

The differences between Severna Park/Robinson and Tatnall:

Tatnall has a significant edge at both the #1 and #2 runners; that has more and more of an effect the more elite the meet is.
The difference at runners #3-5 isn't all that significant, ranging from ~5 seconds to ~15. So yes, both Severna Park and Robinson can keep up at those spots, and depending on the field could make it a very tight race: a race with less front-runners, such as a non-elite state meet, where there wouldn't be a huge difference at the top, would mean the race is determined almost strictly by the #3-5 runners, where the teams are fairly close and would result in a close team race; in a meet bringing together all of the best teams in the Southeast, or nation, that difference at the #1-2 spots is too much to ignore, and Tatnall would pull away.

Chris Nickinson, on , said:

My best guess is the combination of lack of depth in previous years spilling over to this year (fewer national-caliber teams going into the season, bigger gap back to the rest of the pack in the region) and injuries on the top returning programs: Southlake Carroll's top returner, Connor Hendrickson, hasn't run a race (that I've seen) since September 7th and two other top-5 returners have missed one of their two meets since then (Jacob Pickle and Johnny Kemps); Marcus' standout junior twins, the Hendrix brothers, just debuted this last weekend in the JV race, and aren't near where they have been the last couple years, and their other two returning top-4 haven't shown a whole lot of improvement either. Of the three other teams that looked like they might be national caliber this year (The Woodlands, College Park and Strake Jesuit), there has been mixed results, though Strake Jesuit was almost ranked (they were one of the last 3-4 teams out). Also, it's puzzling why Nike South was so slow - it wasn't run in hot weather (it was in the 70's at race time), there weren't strong winds during the race, according to the nearest weather station, and it hadn't rained all that much throughout the week leading up to the race so the course shouldn't have been in poor condition. Yet the times for the top teams were almost a minute slower than last year. My only guess is that the course was changed, which is hard to take into account because Nike South is really the key meet for analyzing the region.

You know when you watch the NCAA tournament selection show and the studio panels, coaches, etc. have heated debates about the last 5 teams in or out? I feel like national xc rankings are similar but with a multiple of 100 (or more) times. Rankings are always going to be hard in a sport with a lot more variables to results than many sports, and it is complicated by the sheer number of teams. It seems reasonable to ask why this team or that team isn't ranked 30th-40th, and Watchout does a good job explaining the rankings, but a lot of the times I think the answer is that there are slight variations between these teams and there are more than 10 teams that could be in the final 10 spots. I always look at the rankings as brackets versus absolute number rankings. As you move down the list, the number of potential teams for each bracket increases. As a result, there are always going to be good arguments for teams that are off the list being on the list.

I noticed there weren't any teams from MD or VA in your top 40 rankings. I was curious as to why teams like Severna Park and Robinson were left out, both of which have made big statements at quality invitationals this season. You included Tatnall and St Xavier and I think both Severna Park and Robinson are capable of running with, or at least very close to, them.

The Northwestener, on , said:

FTFY

Rob, any hypothesis on the lack of good Texas teams this year?

The most accurate national ranking out there. Thanks Doug!

watchout, on , said:

Well said!

A note for NEXT Week. Ridgefield, CT, had an eye opening victory Thursday At Fairfield County conference meet topping ranked Darien 27 to 59 with first runner Trevor Hopper winning and fifth guy 10th. Sixth and seventh runners were back a bit. Top 5 spread was good, 1:01 with leader breaking course record set last year by mile ace Henry Wynne.
Of course this is only one race but it looks like Ridgefield boys, like female counterparts, might be No. 1 in CT and possibly in New England, for now. On other hand, Ridgefield finished only seventh at Manhattan, so they probably are on the bubble nationally with state and New England meets coming.

I struggle sometimes.

No, no Hawaii team has been ranked or made it to NXN. There was one team that was on the NW Bubble back when I did the Fleet 15 rankings back on the old DyeStat (for DyeStatNW)... but only one, and that was quite a while ago (and it was a girls team, when the region was definitely in a slump in terms of girls depth).

Toughest areas to track? That would be anywhere where there is a lack of results (posted online), especially if there is a significant variety in how those results that do find their way to the internet are in different formats (i.e., athlete and/or team names often spelled differently, as well as some results being in Raceberryjam's format, others in Sydex's format, others in Hy-Tek format, some in PDF or another non-text format, etc.) ... so it's a much easier question to ask "which areas are the EASIEST to track?" And that would be Washington, Oregon, Michigan and to for the most part Idaho and Alaska - all of which have virtually all of their results on Athletic.net. Minnesota, with Raceberryjam's website, and Utah with Runnercard are also pretty easy to keep track of.

Best group of 4-7 runners - good question. I'd say the two that stand out in that regard is American Fork and Christian Brothers. Teams like Dana Hills are also very deep, but don't quite have the same firepower. Another good question would be how big of a drop-off there is from the #4/5 runners to the #6, and to the #7... (in other words, who would be hurt the least if their #4/5 runners had an off day while their #6/7 runners didn't):

To answer that, here's a breakdown of the standard deviation of the #4-6 runners' ratings, and #4-7 runenrs' ratings:

Gig Harbor WA - 11.58 - 13.01
Christian Brothers Academy NJ - 3.69 - 3.83
American Fork UT - 1.01 - 1.52
Arcadia CA - 5.47 - 8.20
Fayetteville-Manlius NY - 2.68 - 9.02
Brentwood TN - 13.92 - 12.74
Loyola CA - 5.78 - 6.17
Dana Hills CA - 2.35 - 2.75
North Central WA - 3.09 - 6.85
York IL - 5.57 - 12.48
Northport NY - 8.43 - 14.55
West Chester Henderson PA - 2.51 - 3.24
Madera South CA - 4.56 - 7.04
Liverpool NY - 5.45 - 7.81
Ogden UT - 4.25 - 4.31
Lone Peak UT - 3.46 - 4.37
Bingham UT - 7.81 - 7.28
Corona del Sol AZ - 4.05 - 4.55
Carmel IN - 3.56 - 3.52
Central Catholic OR - 1.89 - 2.13
Warren CA - 5.48 - 6.93
Tatnall DE - 2.49 - 4.38
Saratoga Springs NY - 10.19 - 14.75
Cincinnati St. Xavier OH - 1.60 - 2.36
Davis UT - 1.75 - 2.24
Mountain Vista CO - 2.93 - 6.61
De La Salle CA - 8.52 - 8.90
Darien CT - 5.22 - 6.09
Kamiakin WA - 1.55 - 1.68
Riverton UT - 4.39 - 6.83
Brea Olinda CA - 3.60 - 3.67
Bishop Hendricken RI - 2.74 - 2.73
Orem UT - 2.26 - 3.36
Bozeman MT - 2.14 - 7.89
Wayzata MN - 2.22 - 2.43
Nathan Hale WA - 4.55 - 6.41
Chaminade NY - 2.60 - 3.26
La Costa Canyon CA - 6.13 - 6.43
Cardinal O'Hara PA - 6.81 - 10.56
West Plains MO - 6.10 - 6.65


(in other words, to have a shot at the podium if all these teams were to race today, Gig Harbor and Brentwood would NEED good days from their #4/5 guys, because the drop-off back to #6/7 would be too significant; CBA and American Fork wouldn't be hurt so much; FM could handle an 'off' race by either their #5, but not both #4 and #5.)

Watchout: how do you keep your sanity with teams from 50 states vying for attention (has team from Hawaii ever been ranked or invited to NXN?)
What is toughest area to track?
Agree, you have to compare top 5 runners. Have a feeling that 5th runners and maybe 4th too may be more crucial than ever this season. Any thoughts who has best group of 4-7 runners?

Let me re-iterate once again, my rankings are based on how each teams' top 5 runners stack up, not who beat who at this meet or that meet (at least, not until the state meets and beyond).

Westlake UT: I agree that there isn't a whole lot separating these teams (Utah's #2 through #7 or 8), and you see that at all the meets in Utah this year. However, once you start making the field more and more elite, those little differences become bigger. Westlake is on the national bubble; in an "average year" NXN field, they would be scoring about 380-385 points. If you threw the top 22 teams in the Southwest in the same race on the same day, they'd score about 260-265 points. The last team from Utah that made the national rankings, Orem, scores about 355 points in the national field but about the same (260-265 points) in the regional field.

Michigan: SteveU pretty much nailed it... the girls in Michigan are very very good, and as a state Michigan isn't too bad on the boys side - they have a few teams on the Midwest bubble. But the boys just aren't at the same level as the girls. Highland Milford or Waterford Mott might just crack the rankings in the end, but they just aren't quite there yet.

Utah's awesomeness per capita: This will be the second year in a row where Utah is, by a significant amount, the best state per capita. The only state that might come close this year is Wyoming (mostly due to their tiny population) - they have 2 good boys teams (both on the national bubble, about on par with Westlake actually)... but they don't have a team that has run like a potential NXN Top-10 team yet, and they don't have comparable teams on the girls side (Campbell County is solid, but not on the national bubble)


Finishing order at Manhattan: I agree, not only because of the distance (a lot can happen with another kilometer to go), but because it is still just an invitational - a tune-up or practice for the championship meets, which is what most if not all of the best teams in the nation are focused on.

Don't cry for Michigan. While I do think I agree that 3-4 girls teams are top-40 worthy from my home state, I don't think the boys scene is nearly as strong. Maybe Highland Milford or someone will rise up for the end of the year.

Bsarno1, on , said:

Bsarno1, on , said:

Maybe we could get Nike to turn NXN into a bracket of 16 teams that race each other head-to-head over a few months to crown their champion!

Think Manhattan placings may not be fair indicator....2.5 miles vs. 5k is only 0.6 miles different but that is enough to alter dynamics of race. Not sure if Darien is best in New England.
Bottom line, cross country teams almost defy a nation ranking and reputation counts until state and regional meets sort out teams.
Is Darien best in New England? is Saratoga Springs really that strong this year? can any state challenge Utah as no. 1 hotbed per population. Where do Michigan teams fit in?
Would love to see CBA goes head to head with all their top guns...