So there was another post about ranking states on XC quality/depth. I started making a comment but I realized that it was complicated enough to warrant an entire post. It takes into account population. I am using the top 50 rankings from Milesplit.
The equation I came up with goes like this: R/P.
R is the total 'ranking score' where you reverse the rankings (1 equals 50 points, 2 equals 49, so on...) and add a state's total points up. P is the % of US population that state makes up (rounded to the hundredth of a percent). E.g. Texas has a population of 28.3 million, so 8.69% of US population.
1. Colorado: 14,709 (253 raw score)
2. Delaware: 5,000 (15 raw score)
3. Texas: 4,097 (356 raw score)
4. New Mexico: 6,406 (41 raw score)
5. Arkansas: 4,022 (37 raw score)
6. Iowa: 3,608 (35 raw score)
7. South Carolina: 2,857 (44 raw score)
8. Wisconsin: 2,584 (46 raw score)
9. New Jersey: 2,383 (66 raw score)
10. Oregon: 2,205 (28 raw score)
11. Utah: 1,900 (19 raw score)
12. Michigan: 1,569 (48 raw score)
13. Massachusetts: 1,517 (32 raw score)
14. Arizona: 1,442 (31 raw score)
15. Ohio: 1,341 (48 raw score)
16. Tennessee: 1,304 (27 raw score)
17. Washington: 1,145 (26 raw score)
18. Indiana: 780 (16 raw score)
19. Virginia: 654 (17 raw score)
20. California: 527 (64 raw score)
21. Florida: 450 (29 raw score)
Ranked without taking population into account:
Texas: 356
Colorado: 253
New Jersey: 66
California: 64
Michigan: 48
Ohio: 48
Wisconsin: 46
South Carolina: 44
New Mexico: 41
Arkansas: 37
Iowa: 35
Massachusetts: 32
Arizona: 31
Florida: 29
Oregon: 28
Tennessee: 27
Washington: 26
Utah: 19
Virginia: 17
Indiana: 16
Delaware: 15
This is the boys' rankings. I'm not taking the time to do the girls', sorry.