Florida, LSU Men Shoulder-to-Shoulder After Season’s First Turn; Oregon Women Still Solid No. 1

NEW ORLEANS – We’re nearing the quarter-pole, so to speak, of the collegiate indoor track & field season. Still lots of race left, but those who are truly national championship contenders have moved to the front. After spending a week at No. 2, Florida reclaimed their spot as the nation’s No. 1 men’s team, by the slimmest of margins, over now-No. 2 LSU. Essentially it’s a statistical tie atop the latest Division I National Computer Rankings released by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) on Tuesday. Oregon’s women remain No. 1 after spreading their advantage further after last weekend.

PDFs: Top 25 | Full by Team | Event-by-Event
TFRRS National Top 10 (2011 NCAA Performance List)
Previous Rankings | Rankings Guidelines & Rationale
Regional Index: Top 15 Teams by Region

Performances by Florida’s Will Claye in the triple jump and Gray Horn in the heptathlon at last weekend’s Texas A&M Conference Showdown added considerable ranking points to the Gators’ score. Claye’s jump of 55-3¾ (16.86m) is the current best of the collegiate season and only teammate and national defending champion Christian Taylor is scored higher in the rankings that take into account marks from 2010.

Oregon’s women gain many improvements to their national-leading ranking score last week at the UW Invitational in Seattle. Brianne Theisen notched a collegiate record in the pentathlon (4,507) for first-place points while also leaping over 6-0 (1.83m) in the high jump to be scored seventh nationally in that event. Distance marks were improved by Zoe Buckman (mile) and Jordan Hasay and Alex Kosinski (3000m).

About the Rankings
For more on the rankings and links to guideline and rationale information visit …
/rankings/division-i-rankings

The purpose and methodology of the national team computer rankings is to create an index that showcases the teams that have the best potential of achieving the top spots in the national-title race – not as a method to compare teams head-to-head.

The Regional Index is determined using a similar method as national rankings, but on a smaller scale, comparing teams versus others within the same region. The result is a ranking that showcases squads with better all-around team potential — a group makeup critical for conference or similar team-scored events. A team may achieve a better regional ranking than a counterpart that has a better national ranking. Historically, some teams are better national-championship teams than conference-championship teams, having a few elite athletes that score very well in a diverse environment where teams do not have entries in more than a few events. Some teams are better at conference championships or similar team-scored events where they enter, and are competitive, in many of the events.

How a team fares in a national championship, conference championship, or scored meet with only a couple or few teams (like a dual or triangular) can be very different, given the number of events, competition, scoring, and makeup of entries — thus the rationale behind each of the ranking systems. Similar arguments about team makeup and rankings can also be found in swimming & diving and wrestling as their sports also have a similar trichotomy when it comes to team theory.