So we've had to make massive changes.
The important exercise in ranking DIA, NCR D1, and D1AA teams together is to see how they all match up. That was the purpose of ranking everyone together. And in the end we found out what we needed to know thanks to one game.
Seriously, we had Tennessee as the best D1AA team around, and we knew that if we were wrong, we weren't far wrong. But then Virginia Tech, a team that was winless in their conference, a DIA/NCR D1 conference, beat Tennessee. Really there's nothing more to look at. That result, close as it was, outlines the fact that playing tough games every week makes you a better team. It means that Mount St. Mary's, Southern Virginia, and Mary Washington (all 2-6 in the Rugby East) are most likely better than Tennessee, Louisville, or any of those guys.
(This is, by the way, what some Rugby East people have been telling us, to be fair.)
So what that also means is that we will probably go back to ranking D1AA alone, and then a DIA/NCR D1 ranking alone. Might there be D1AA teams that are better than some DIA teams? Yeah, sure. But overall, that result fueled almost all the changes in this week's rankings.
We also make a few other moves, mostly based on results that were slow coming in.
