Let's talk Ohio HS XC

I usually don't look much at speed rating but like you, I do find them interesting to look at now and then. Place is a lot more important and metrics like speed ratings do not account for all individual race situations. What about the guy that only runs with enough effort to win? There are also instances that a team mate might drop back to help "pull" another team mate along.

There is some info on tullyrunners.com that helps explain speed ratings:

Absolutely. However, as alluded to, I'm am looking at this weekends results and also taking into consideration course. This weekend had a lot of fast courses; I'm aware of Lancaster's beat down of Coffman last week, but Coffman improved this week and closed gaps in their lineups, particularly at 3# (which allowed them to exploit the gap between TSF #2 and #3).

On a course that ran fast, with Tommy Rice running a 15:06, Mass. Jackson looked extremely vulnerable. I would not have them that high personally (just using this weekend,...a whole season worth of racing is a different top 10 lol)

I looked at the Stark County results and agree about Jackson's 4 & 5. They need to tighten up.

There were a few other things...

If Glen Oak could get their 3-5 to move up a bit they could be really good. I know it's a big "if," but still. Tommy Rice is one of the best in the state and #2 is solid.

It is amazing how far Louisville has fallen in a year unless they were resting guys. The Stark County Championships are usually a big deal for those teams in the county and coaches usually run their top teams. Last year Louisville was #4 at the State meet. In 2020 they were 8th. At the Starks this past weekend they had 4 of 7 over 19:00 and an average time of 18:21. It also wasn't that long ago when the Chaplik brothers, Zach Fresenko, and Nick Fresenko (earlier 2010s), were at Louisville. I guess old suburbs like Louisville don't reload like the newer suburban schools like Mason, the Hillards, the Dublins, etc.

In the D2/D3 race Marlington was dominant, unsurprisingly. They look to be more dominant than the 2020 Woodridge team. I don't generally pay much attention to merged results since they are from different races with teams that didn't race against each other but in those Marlington has 53 and Jackson has 66. Marlington averaged 16:06 to 16:16 for Jackson.

East Canton also seems to be going through a rough patch. They have a strong front runner in Holland but a big drop off after that.

There are a lot of schools similar to GlenOak that have a really solid 1-2 but not enough behind them. Nobody is catching Mason, but it should be really competitive for second.

The girls D1 state meet should be awesome. Davidson and Mason have looked great against strong out of state competition, and Westlake has a really good team too. Perrysburg will be in the mix as well. That's probably going to be the most exciting race from a team standpoint.

marlington also wasn’t 100 percent they should improve more in spots

I have to ask: why is the new consensus that Coffman is ranked higher than Davidson? Didn’t Davidson beat them just a couple weeks ago? And I wouldn’t bet on Davidson peaking early, they usually peak quite late. I would personally put Davidson at 2 and Coffman at 3 unless Coffman has another great race.

True. HD beat Coffman at Michigan St.

Speaking of speed rating accuracies, how accurate was that 196 SR that Ackley got here? (this is the fastest other than Rocky Hanson and Newbury Park guys)

I guess we will see whether Davidson or Coffman will win their OCC race in 2 weeks, since the other 4 teams (Orange, Bradley, Liberty, UA) have little chance of winning.

Fair point, I probably had some bias as they've run against Lancaster and TSF the last two weeks, while Davidson had a week off then ran against a bunch of out of state teams. But I'd take Lancaster over either of them at this point. Will be interesting to see the regional meet in 4 weeks.

HD beat Coffman 3 weeks in a row before losing to them at state last year.

*confused shrug*

Great oak not Newbury Park. Great oak still lost to them at NXN though

Well, since we're talking about this year and the current rankings, I figured recent race results are relevant.

Are you suggesting that they aren't? Should we just base the rankings on speculation? Or last year?

I'm not sure why you're confused or shrugging.

Recent race results are very releveant, I'm just saying it's very hard to figure out who is better than who and oftentimes results don't make any sense. That's all.

That was also by one point I believe. However it doesn’t matter in this argument

Marlington beat Jackson head up. They don't run divisions separate at this meet. They just score it out separate and together after the race.

Why is no one talking about the upcoming Darby dash? That meet will show us real insight into how the OCC division will turn out.

The only team of real significance in the Darby Dash is Hilliard Davidson, but they aren't running their varsity, so it doesn't show how OCC's will actually play out.