Mathison lost to 3 guys at NXN and has head to head wins against none of them. Salhman outside of woodbridge, where its common knowledge he wasnt 100%, has only lost to his teamates. Outside of woodbridge, beating L&L had exactly 0 impact on team points except for at NXN. The only time beating L&L would have lowered NP's team points, he did so.
If milesplit was sincere about the "entire season" justification they proffered on twitter they would have to rank L&L ahead of Sahlman, L&L went 5-1 against Sahlman. L&L were both ranked ahead of many people that beat them at NXN, so its not clear that this logic shouldn't rank them ahead of Sahlman.
It is also not clear that the regular season for Mathison was better than other people he lost to at NXN. Daniel Simmons (AF)- lost two races all year; NXN (2nd to Sahlman), Timpangos (3rd- lost to the 14th and 41st place guys at NXN), had quality wins at Utah State and NXRSW . Tyrone Gorze only lost at NXN to Simmons and Sahlman; Gorze had Quality wins at Woodbridge (beating a less than 100% Sahlman), Oregon State, and NXRNW.
Cole Mathison was the last individual qualifier at NXR-MW and placed second at Champs-MW (lost to Hunter Jones), and placed 4th at NXN. Cole had Quality wins at NikeTown, Indiana State and Champs nationals. Obviously Milesplit can responded to Cole's regional losses that Cole "beat them when it matters." If we accept that premise, Sahlman's losses to L&L don't matter, because he beat them at NXN, Sahlman avenged all his Woodbridge losses at Clovis and/or NXN. Simmons' loss at Timpangos doesn't matter because he beat the guys he lost to at NXN.
Sahlman, Simmons, and Gorze have a head-to-head win over Mathison. Mathison does not have any head to head wins over these 3. Sahlman has beat everyone he has lost to this season at least once, and won NXN. Mathison ran champs and NXR and didn't win either regional meet. Simmons and Gorze won the only regional meet they could run in, as running Champs West would have left their teamates high and dry.
The only possible way to get Mathison as US #1 is to weight Champs Nationals more than NXN. Mathison lost to more people in the this year than Simmons and Gorze combined. Gorze has a win with an asterisk over NXN champ Sahlman. Keep in mind that milesplit themselves believed that Simmons and Gorze had better seasons prior to the national Championships and ranked both of them ahead of Mathison. Sahlman was one spot behind Mathison going into NXN, one would think that two people ranked that closely would flip spots when two people ranked next to each other race, and one of them was the clear winner.
Sure MileSplit can point to "well, we selected the NXN winners for other catagories", but this does not counter my main assertion that Mathison is only #1 because there is a bias against NXN. The only viable team on the guys side that opted against NXN was Jesuit (La) and MS #2 pre meet, they lost to NXRSW #11 at Runninglane, so obviously even with a heavy weight against NXN, NP was number one. The same rationale applies to girl's teams and individuals. The fact someone from NXN won does not mean milesplit wasn't biased against NXN but rather that Irene Riggs and Saratoga Springs were so much better than the alternative, that they overcame the bias that is clear in a closer call like the boys individual rankings.
TDLR: Milesplit's "the whole season" justification is pretextual because Mathison lost to guys at NXN that had better seasons than him and, Mathison's #1 ranking can only be justified by weighting Champs Nationals more than NXN.