Great effort and insight by each of you posters above. Thanks for sharing here!

Who's up for some fine racing this Saturday at Dana Hills? I'll be there up above the press box capturing what I can!

I appreciate the feedback guys. I'm continuing to tweak my methods and, while I will keep my basic approach, I think I can make some adjustments that will take your feedback into consideration.

Once the teams have raced a few times, and especially after a sweepstakes race with head-to-head battle at a national caliber invitational, the pre-season rankings are a distant memory and in my opinion are worth zilch. You either bring it or you don't keep your ranking. Rankings have to be a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately? sort of calculation, again very heavily weighted to the most recent big invitational. For instance, the teams that competed in the sweepstakes race at Woodbridge should be judged on that and that alone. They can not be based on a previous season, low key early season races or future speculation due to a team notoriously doing well at the end of the year; in that case they should be ranked higher at the end of the year after they've proven themselves.

Totally agree PV should be #2, or at least ahead of anyone they beat this past weekend.

Look at the team scores from this past weekend.

1. 57 Arcadia - No dispute!
2. 154 PV - Ranked behind teams they beat by 3 and 52 points.
3. 157 Great Oak - Ranked ahead of team that beat them by 3 points.
4. 203 Warren - Ranked behind team they beat by 3 points.
5. 206 Madera South - Ranked ahead of teams that beat them by 3 and 52 points.
6. 209 CV - Ranked behind teams they beat by 19, 91, and 116 points.
7. 223 JH - Ranked behind teams they beat by 5, 77, 77, and 102.
8. 228 BO - Ranked behind team they beat by 97 points.
9. 278 Clovis North - Unranked, behind teams they beat by 22, 22, 27, 47, and 237 points.
10. 300 Poly LB - Ranked behind team they beat by 25 points.
11. 300 Canyon Anaheim - Ranked behind team they beat by 25 points.
12. 305 Fountain Valley - Ranked behind teams they beat by 20 and 210 points.
13. 325 Glendora - Ranked ahead of teams that beat them by 20, 25, 25, 47, 97, 102, and 116 points.
14. 331 El Toro
15. 344 Desert Vista
16. 381 Del Campo
17. 429 San Pedro
18. 438 El Modena
19. 440 Rancho BV
20. 483 Beaumont
21. 494 Newbury Park
22. 515 Homestead
23. 603 Quartz Hill
24. 614 Santee
25. 629 Hart
26. 641 Knight

The two that really stand out as being over-ranked are Glendora and Homestead. Clovis North was clearly overlooked entirely.

It's a lot easier being a critic

[quote name='Scott Joerger' timestamp='1380147286' post='867778']
The weight of past performance would never exactly drop to zero, but it would be significantly impaired to where it wouldn't help. For instance, if I continue to drop pre-season performance 1% per week, in 6 weeks it will be 6% lower, which for a 16:00 boy would be 57 seconds slower.

And I do agree that you need to credit people for bringing it when it counts - at championship time. I haven't settled on a calculation for that yet, but it will probably be 2x or 3x more important that previous performances.
[/quote]

Again, I think I understand. I've read how you and others rank and never have done it, hence my question.

I didn't really mean get credit (or extra credit) for bringing it when it counts, though. I suppose that would be basing rankings on past performances of other years.

Ultimately, for me, when I see rankings of any kind in sports, I think the higher ranked should beat the lower ranked *today*. It's obviously not that way for most rankers I see in HS XC, and I understand that, to a point.

So, all that to say my real point is at some time during a season I think past performances should be meaningless or almost meaningless *except* for the last performance. If someone pushed me, I might say except the last 2 performances. So maybe I'm not as far off some ranking systems as I thought.

Put another way, how many times does one team have to beat another to be ranked ahead of it?

[quote name='Keep the Faith' timestamp='1380146845' post='867772']
I think I understand you. At some point, though, does the weight of past performances would drop to zero? In other words, at some point, maybe league finals, of CIF Finals, or somewhere before the State meet, is the only race that matters in ranking the last one? Maybe there's another way or explanation as to why not, and I'd be ok with that perhaps, I'm just wondering. Thanks either way.
[/quote]

The weight of past performance would never exactly drop to zero, but it would be significantly impaired to where it wouldn't help. For instance, if I continue to drop pre-season performance 1% per week, in 6 weeks it will be 6% lower, which for a 16:00 boy would be 57 seconds slower.

And I do agree that you need to credit people for bringing it when it counts - at championship time. I haven't settled on a calculation for that yet, but it will probably be 2x or 3x more important that previous performances.

[quote name='Scott Joerger' timestamp='1380127897' post='867009']
I hear you and I did struggle with that. I'm giving full weight to performances in the last three weeks, and that puts teams that didn't perform as well at Woodbridge ahead of Palos Verdes. As those performances get older they will lose weight if those teams don't perform at a higher level soon.

I'm trying to keep this as mathematically based as possible, and the reader should keep that in mind. This isn't necessarily who I think will go the farthest or win state, but it's where their performances rank them today.
[/quote]

I think I understand you. At some point, though, does the weight of past performances would drop to zero? In other words, at some point, maybe league finals, of CIF Finals, or somewhere before the State meet, is the only race that matters in ranking the last one? Maybe there's another way or explanation as to why not, and I'd be ok with that perhaps, I'm just wondering. Thanks either way.

[quote name='Doug Soles' timestamp='1380124134' post='866967']
Hi Scott,

I know you guys have a way of ranking and I respect that. Truthfully though, Palos Verdes should be #2 in my opinion. Very impressed with their performance on Saturday, and their top guys really ran well. It shouldn't be held against them that they weren't ranked highly to start the season. It should be a testament to how good their coaches are to move them up that much. Besides, their history has shown that they run better as the season progresses. Kind of a scary thought actually.

Keep up the great work.

Doug
[/quote]

I hear you and I did struggle with that. I'm giving full weight to performances in the last three weeks, and that puts teams that didn't perform as well at Woodbridge ahead of Palos Verdes. As those performances get older they will lose weight if those teams don't perform at a higher level soon.

I'm trying to keep this as mathematically based as possible, and the reader should keep that in mind. This isn't necessarily who I think will go the farthest or win state, but it's where their performances rank them today.

[quote name='Scott Joerger' timestamp='1380122178' post='866962']
Week 3 and the big Cross Country Classic as well as the Mt. Carmel Invitational results brought some more clarity to this week's rankings.

For the Boys, Arcadia reclaimed the #1 spot after a dominating team performance in the big Team Sweeps race at XC Classic. Brea Olinda moved from 20 up to 9 after showing what they can do at full strength, and Long Beach Poly was a big mover, juming from 24 to 13 on a great XC Classic Performance. The Dana Hills boys moved up for 13 to 5 after a solid performance at Mt. Carmel, as did Westview of the SDS, making it's first appearance in the rankings at #20.

For the Girls, XC Classic performances were enough to bump Buchanan from 10th to 3rd, and Serrano from 18th to 12th. Also from those results we see San Clemente back in the rankings at 13, and Palos Verdes debuting at 16. Mt. Carmel XC Invitational shed light on some great teams as well, including red hot Arroyo Grande, which moved from 11th to 5th, Rancho Bernardo, which moved from 21st to 6th, and Cathedral Catholic, which is making their first appearance in the top 25 at 23.

Please keep in mind our rankings are based on the top performances of the top 5 runners on each team season-to-date. Beating a team on one occasion does not necessarily move you ahead in the next rankings (though it helps a lot!). Last year's results are still being factored in with a 2% reduction, and we will continue to reduce that impact over time.

As always, comments and questions are welcome. Let's hear it!
[/quote]

Hi Scott,

I know you guys have a way of ranking and I respect that. Truthfully though, Palos Verdes should be #2 in my opinion. Very impressed with their performance on Saturday, and their top guys really ran well. It shouldn't be held against them that they weren't ranked highly to start the season. It should be a testament to how good their coaches are to move them up that much. Besides, their history has shown that they run better as the season progresses. Kind of a scary thought actually.

Keep up the great work.

Doug

Week 3 and the big Cross Country Classic as well as the Mt. Carmel Invitational results brought some more clarity to this week's rankings.

For the Boys, Arcadia reclaimed the #1 spot after a dominating team performance in the big Team Sweeps race at XC Classic. Brea Olinda moved from 20 up to 9 after showing what they can do at full strength, and Long Beach Poly was a big mover, juming from 24 to 13 on a great XC Classic Performance. The Dana Hills boys moved up for 13 to 5 after a solid performance at Mt. Carmel, as did Westview of the SDS, making it's first appearance in the rankings at #20.

Edit: Also important to point out that Palos Verdes Boys moved from Not Ranked to #7

For the Girls, XC Classic performances were enough to bump Buchanan from 10th to 3rd, and Serrano from 18th to 12th. Also from those results we see San Clemente back in the rankings at 13, and Palos Verdes debuting at 16. Mt. Carmel XC Invitational shed light on some great teams as well, including red hot Arroyo Grande, which moved from 11th to 5th, Rancho Bernardo, which moved from 21st to 6th, and Cathedral Catholic, which is making their first appearance in the top 25 at 23.

Please keep in mind our rankings are based on the top performances of the top 5 runners on each team season-to-date. Beating a team on one occasion does not necessarily move you ahead in the next rankings (though it helps a lot!). Last year's results are still being factored in with a 2% reduction, and we will continue to reduce that impact over time.

As always, comments and questions are welcome. Let's hear it!