Coppell and Northwest Nelson runners compete at the 2024 Lovejoy XC Fall Festival
Currently, the new standard to winning the boys UIL 6A state meet is to get your team to run a team average under 15:55 and to have a sub 60-second split.
Each year, the requirements get faster in terms of the average and tighter or closer in terms of the split or spread.
Now of course, that is without the effects of weather, unfavorable course conditions or anything unforeseen. The weather and course conditions will always be a possible determining factor, but for certain teams it will only be a caveat and not the nail in the coffin.
For reference, the 2015 state meet had very unfavorable weather and course conditions. It was raining and muddy and difficult spectate in let alone to compete in.
However, The Woodlands who had just run a 15:37 team average with a 30-second spread at the Region 2-6A Championship meet would go on to run an average 50-seconds slower. Their path to the state title was their ability to still run compact. Despite only being able to run a 16:27 average, their spread was only 19-seconds, enabling them to win.
Back to the point, the formula to win state in each gender and classification changes from year to year, however two things remain, you'll have to be faster and tighter than everyone else.
Looking at things this season, there are a record amount of teams who have already run sub 16-minute averages and several of them have spreads under one minute.
Here are the UIL 6A boys teams who have done this. If they were all to race at the state meet, Southlake Carroll would be the top team through one scoring runner.
Caden Leonard currently leads the state with his 14:37 run two weeks ago. You can see how most of the top teams have a low-stick runners who put them in a good early position.
Things change at the number two runner position. Currently, Austin Vandegrift would take the lead position from Carroll based on their top two runners Hudson Haley and Kai McCullough. They both have sub 15-minute runs this year and create a very tough 1-2 combo.
Haley and McCullough are only separated by five seconds. The number three spot shows them maintaining their top position, but Carroll pulls in by two points. Nevertheless, Vandegrift's number four runner is currently six-seconds faster than the Carroll number four and their team lead would be 15 points.
The top four teams pretty much stay the same as their scorers come through in this exercise. However, we can see teams like Round Rock, Waxahachie, and The Woodlands use their tight and minimal gaps to move up throughout.
It looks like one runner over 16-minutes will disallow a team to get onto the podium this year. Shockingly, it is a possibility having a runner over 15:45 might even eliminate podium chances.
Still, this is cross country and there are still a lot of things mathematically that will keep a team in the hunt until the end.
At this point of the season, Carroll and El Paso Eastwood have gap times over one minute and they look to be in good position for a podium finish. Spreads over 50-seconds could be damaging and leave teams exposed.
With the ability Northwest Nelson has to run tight and with a 15:31 average, they still would have optimistic chances at the podium. The same can be said the Bridgeland, Waxahachie, and The Woodlands.