Our lowly Math Intern warmed up by using a simple formula for determining the strength of a School's results for all 6 years that Penn State ran Cross Country in the pre-NCAA years. He simply assigned a point value in reverse order to all participating teams in the field each of the 6 years. There were team totals of 19, 23, 23, 23, 24 and 25 teams for a maximum total of a 137 points. He then added up the totals to reveal....
Penn State was the top team in the nation despite never winning the title outright. Two second places, two third places and at least a 5th place finish in each of the years helped the Nittany Lions outpace four-time Champion Iowa State and two-time Champion North Carolina State. Oregon actually sneaked into second place overall.
The XC Rankings (1975-1980):
1. Penn State 124 points.
2. Oregon 113 points.
3. Wisconsin 110 points.
4. Iowa State* 108 points.
5. Michigan State 90 points.
6. North Carolina State* 71 points.
7. UCLA 70 points.
8. Colorado 63 points.
9. Kansas State 62 points.
10. Virginia 58 points.
11. Cal Berkeley 53 points.
12. Tennessee 47 points.
13. Arizona 44 points.
14. Texas 42 points.
15. Colorado State 40 points.
* Multiple team titles.
