Toughest state for XC (pound for pound) is....

I was going to add the top 40 at NXN but it's difficult to figure out everyone's state, with them competing under club names that don't match school names.

A better indicator would be FL finalists divided by total XC participation in the state. California is not the 28th best state in XC, even accounting for its large population.

Interesting but there is a bit of a flaw here. You're assuming that every region is equal in difficulty. For example, this year there are 7 qualifiers combined from Utah and Washington from the west region. I think it's typical for them to have one a year. Was this because California and Oregon had a down year? Or was it because the individuals were so much better this year? There's no way to tell based on this metric. More to the point, the relative strength of Utah and West Virginia in XC does not have an direct affect on how many either sends to FL.

US census data wrote:

I was going to add the top 40 at NXN but it's difficult to figure out everyone's state, with them competing under club names that don't match school names.

No problem, that's easy to do.

Boys (left column includes FLN athletes, right column does not)

6 = Utah = 6

5 = Washington = 5

5 = Texas = 4

3 = California = 3

3 = Illinois = 2

3 = Pennsylvania = 3

2 = Minnesota = 2

2 = New York = 2

2 = Arizona = 2

2 = New Jersey = 2

1 = Ohio = 0

1 = New Mexico = 1

1 = Wisconsin = 0

1 = Virginia = 1

1 = Kentucky = 1

1 = Oregon = 1

1 = Massachusetts = 1

Girls -

7 = New York = 7

5 = Texas = 3

4 = Colorado = 4

3 = Illinois = 2

3 = California = 3

3 = Washington = 3

3 = Minnesota = 2

2 = New Jersey = 2

2 = Virginia = 2

1 = Oregon = 1

1 = Vermont = 1

1 = Ohio = 1

1 = Kentucky = 1

1 = Oklahoma = 0

1 = Utah = 1

1 = Missouri = 0

1 = Indiana = 0

FitzyXC wrote:

A better indicator would be FL finalists divided by total XC participation in the state. California is not the 28th best state in XC, even accounting for its large population.

In addition to having the largest population, CA would almost certainly have the largest participation by a very wide margin... so it would not raise the ranking much.

FitzyXC wrote:

A better indicator would be FL finalists divided by total XC participation in the state. California is not the 28th best state in XC, even accounting for its large population.

A better indicator would be to look at multiple years than one year.

This year, however, California didn't have many US Top-40 finishers at either FLN or NXN. Still had great depth, but not the nationally elite individuals we see pretty much every other year (as they usually have more than half of the FLW qualifiers, for example). Part of that is just a down year in terms of individuals from the Golden State, part of that is that some regions are just tougher than others, and part of that (related to the above) is that some states had good years this year while others didn't (compared to their usual).

Including Footlocker and the top 40 at NXN, with boys and girls combined, there are some changes but a lot remains the same. Montana is the toughest state per capita, but Utah is a solid #2.

NEW RANK State FL final/NXN top 40 per million

1 Montana 4.042792964

2 Utah 3.979905097

3 Washington 1.933217737

4 Vermont 1.598105286

5 North Dakota 1.486787661

6 Colorado 1.193033638

7 New Jersey 1.137411347

8 West Virginia 1.07933431

9 Rhode Island 0.950058286

10 Virginia 0.874888014

11 Pennsylvania 0.708528694

12 Kentucky 0.691345074

13 New York 0.670860335

14 Missouri 0.667899275

15 Minnesota 0.565618858

16 Illinois 0.545569384

17 Oklahoma 0.53314126

18 Oregon 0.52204682

19 New Mexico 0.485630438

20 Massachusetts 0.458181122

21 Texas 0.397684506

22 Ohio 0.34672549

23 Iowa 0.328261151

24 California 0.322113442

25 Tennessee 0.315153941

26 Arizona 0.312890282

27 Georgia 0.309672529

28 Indiana 0.308460992

29 Connecticut 0.279790951

30 South Carolina 0.216199201

31 Alabama 0.209216576

32 Michigan 0.202354598

33 Wisconsin 0.175840067

34 Florida 0.053187783

35 Wyoming 0

36 South Dakota 0

37 North Carolina 0

38 New Hampshire 0

39 Nevada 0

40 Nebraska 0

41 Mississippi 0

42 Maryland 0

43 Maine 0

44 Louisiana 0

45 Kansas 0

46 Idaho 0

47 Hawaii 0

48 Delaware 0

49 Arkansas 0

50 Alaska 0

Montana had a lot of great individuals this year. The WA representatives lacked a little bit this year. Next year with a healthy Kai Wilmot, Joe Hardy and Johny Dressel Washington will be one of the best states for sure.

watchout wrote:

No problem, that's easy to do.

Girls -

1 = Indiana = 0

Indiana had 2 girls at footlocker

Kanye North wrote:

watchout wrote:

No problem, that's easy to do.

Girls -

1 = Indiana = 0

Indiana had 2 girls at footlocker

Yes, but my post was tallying the # of runners in the top 40 at NXN this year (and also tracking how many of those were at FLN), since the OP didn't know who all was from what state.

It would be interesting to see how this would stack up in a multi-year comparison of a slightly higher cut-off (to make up for regional disparity)... say, top 26 at either FLN and NXN since 2008. Top 26 because that's where there is the most significant drop in average boys+girls times during that stretch and because it's a low enough number that it would be rare that a region had much more depth at that level that didn't make it to nationals, and starting in 2008 because that is the year NXN added individuals (and before that, a FLN-only look would be missing multiple individuals ever since 2005 - I think 2004 was the only year every region got 2 spots from NTN to FLN). I'm sure California would be well inside the top 20 (as they certainly should be) given that kind of outlook, and some states that were way stronger this year than last year would be placed in better perspective of recent tradition.

Hahaha Vermont 4th ;)