What's the most difficult state to qualify for state in Cross Country and why?

I can tell you it isn't Utah. Almost every team in the state gets to run at State. With 6 classifications in such a small state it is almost embarrassing how many teams win a state championship. Why there aren't 3 classifications is beyond me. There are only 18 teams in 6A. That makes no sense whatsoever. For how amazing XC has been in Utah recently it is sad how the championship season is set up.

Coachy, I think you're missing the point. The plural comes from Championships. We don't say Worlds Championships. We say World Championships, and Worlds for short. So for your examples above, it would be City Championships and County Championships.

But back to your point, we always said City/County when referring to the race. It was not plural. States was plural, though.

It doesn't grind my gears either way, but I think the plural from Worlds comes with the numerous races (various events, men's and women's, different distances). Anyway, not really a grammatical argument as much as a perceptive argument (Is it just one race? Is it a collection of races?).

In NJ we have something called the "Meet of Champions" where we have (or had) the individual State champions & teams from each Group (1-4) and the private schools entered into one race to determine who is the best runner & team of them all. Same thing for track & field.

Yes I understand. But you don't say Cities Championship right? Do you say Counties Championship? Only one is plural. Do we say Leagues Championship?

I don't use the plural for any of them. I say State Championships. Again, the plural comes from Championships, not City/County/League/State/World.

I digress and thanks for the reply.

California Southern Section I'd argue is the toughest, though I've heard that it's tough in some sections in NY where some teams get unlucky by their section being particularly strong in some years and having limited spots. I'd say in those cases it's more by design where it's tough. Southern Section is just stacked, especially in the top 2-3 divisions.

My high school was Southern Section Division 1. Our divisions were all determined by enrollment size.

The structure to qualify to state as a team was:
League Champs: Top 3 in league
CIF Prelims (Mt. Sac): Top 4 in your qualifying heat (4 heats) (2 weeks Later)
CIF Finals (Mt Sac): Top 8 (?) (1 week later)
State (Woodward Park)

I do believe they do provide at large bids for ranked teams in stacked leagues (Some of the OC leagues were crazy).

I was a decent HS senior (16:03 at Mt Sac) and this is where it landed me as an individual in 2009:
League Championships: 5th (16:03)
Prelims: 21st (16:04)
Finals: Did not Qualify

As a team to just get to sectional finals it was:
1st heat: 4th place avg: 16:04, 20 boys under 16:00
2nd heat 4th place avg: 16:07, 22 boys under 16:00
3rd heat 4th place avg: 16:18, 16 boys under 16:00
4th heat 4th place avg: 15:59, 21 boys under 16:00

You mean the state where the number one team in the nation just put five in the top 12… and LOST?

Utah’s classification makes sense when you look at how each group is determined. Most of it is done geographically. 80% of Utahans live within a 100-mile stretch of each other. Everyone else is scattered throughout mostly rural areas. The classification takes that into account. If you want to argue 6A and 5A should be combined then perhaps you have a point. But the rest would make no sense if combined.

One correction is that it 7 from CIF Southern Section Finals that make it to State since it is the largest section in the state. At large bids are given to any team outside the top 3 at league finals and are ranked within the top 16 and appear in the rankings put out by Rich Gonzalez in at least two of the four weekly rankings leading up to the post season. One great example of this like you mentioned is the South Coast League in Orange County. Some years they have all five teams make it due to how competitive that league is with:

Dana Hills, El Toro, San Clemente, Tesoro, and Trabuco Hills.

Montana and North Dakota have every team qualify

California is really tough. Check out the below cross country schedule to make it to Footlocker from October to December-

League Championship

Region qualifier to Section

Section Championship qualifier to State Meet

State Meet Championship

Footlocker qualifier

Footlocker Championship

Making the Footlocker Final is a bonus, minus that meet you're still running 5 quality races in 5-6 weeks. It looks daunting but it's fun to race.

According to my math, in Indiana there were 2,082 boys listed as finishers spread across 25 Sectional Meets. A total of 250 runners qualify for the State Meet (25 teams x 7 runners each and the top 15 individuals from non-advancing teams in 5 Regional Meets).

250 / 2,082 = 12%

This obviously doesn't account for JV runners or Total Participants.

The OP asked which state is hardest to get to state. Getting to state is easy, winning is much different. Have they merged 4A,5A and 6A? Curios if that changes the order at all. And I honestly think for Track and XC the geography of Utah doesn't matter for classifications. You could easily have 3 classifications that were competitive. Everyone would go to the same invitationals anyway. State would just be way more competitive.

The geography matters because to combine classifications would mean small schools in the north would be in the same group as small schools in the south despite there being a 4 hour plus drive in between the two groups. And, like in every other state, classification isn’t driven by cross country. It’s driven primarily by football and basketball, and those sports don’t want teams traveling from one end of the state to the other every week to play each other during the season.

What does "bloody" mean in your sentence?

Yeah, but Utah has an easy qualification process. Hedengren didn't even have to race during the year and was allowed to race at State. So many kids are able to do this, whereas in most states there are minimum race requirements to compete at the state meet.

High School Distance runners now compete from January to December with literally hundreds of "national" caliber meets in the sports of XC, Indoor Track & Field, and Outdoor Track & Field. The USA uses athletes we do not develop them.

This is ‘Merica and we speak ‘Merican

In both 2014 and 2015, Edina boys team failed to qualify for the state meet, but they autoqualified for NXN. They are in a very tough section. In 2014 they took 9th at NXN

Also in 2015, Wayzata boys team didn’t make state but they got an at-large bid to NXN