I'm the coach for one of the universities involved, here's what I experienced and was told what happened:
The draft legal race was scored differently than years past to make it more heavily weighted. This year the total points for each place were 2.5x years past, in addition the space between each placing was 5 points instead of one. Exl - winner of DL race in 2016 received 100points, 2nd place 99 etc. This year the winner received 250, 2nd place 245 etc.
The timing company scored the race the same as years past thus the team totals were far off, Colorado dominated the DL race this year.
As to why the coaches didn't catch it is because USAT doesn't allow us to protest, and doesn't announce results until the awards ceremony itself. USAT officials are the ones in charge of catching mistakes and protesting penalties, results, etc during the non draft race, athletes were not notified of penalties until well after the finish and weren't allowed for protest on their own behalf. Same for results, we weren't allowed to protest and we didn't know the results until teams were called to the stage.
In fact, the team who was at first awarded the championship, Navy, seemed to be aware on race day that it was a lot closer than USAT made it seem. The announcer said repeatedly, "they don't seem to believe it, but the math says they are the winners." Looks like Navy was right.
The draft legal race was scored differently than years past to make it more heavily weighted. This year the total points for each place were 2.5x years past, in addition the space between each placing was 5 points instead of one. Exl - winner of DL race in 2016 received 100points, 2nd place 99 etc. This year the winner received 250, 2nd place 245 etc.
The timing company scored the race the same as years past thus the team totals were far off, Colorado dominated the DL race this year.
As to why the coaches didn't catch it is because USAT doesn't allow us to protest, and doesn't announce results until the awards ceremony itself. USAT officials are the ones in charge of catching mistakes and protesting penalties, results, etc during the non draft race, athletes were not notified of penalties until well after the finish and weren't allowed for protest on their own behalf. Same for results, we weren't allowed to protest and we didn't know the results until teams were called to the stage.
In fact, the team who was at first awarded the championship, Navy, seemed to be aware on race day that it was a lot closer than USAT made it seem. The announcer said repeatedly, "they don't seem to believe it, but the math says they are the winners." Looks like Navy was right.
Last edited by:
peace242000: Apr 25, 17 11:40