It’s a huge weekend in Men’s DII college rugby as most leagues get moving.

Here's a rundown:

Great Midwest

One of the toughest leagues in the division sees five games on the slate. Minnesota-Duluth played, and beat, Northern Michigan last week to open up this weekend for the All-Minnesota tournament. So now NMU has to bounce back against a tough Marquette team. 

This is an early playoff-ramifications clash.

Last year’s national runner-up, Wisconsin-Whitewater, a team that has an alumnus in the USA Rugby World Cup squad (Ben Landry), is ready to get started. Whitewater has had some significant turnover over the year—most of the central group that led the Warhawks to multiple national titles over the last four years have graduated.

However, don’t count them out. The tight five, led by prop Dom Swanson, locks Nick Hammel and Casey Osterberg, and helped by No. 8 Tyrell Lovings, all starters in the the 2018 national final, is experienced and tough. The backline is almost completely new, but Whitewater can still play.

 

Northern Lights

With most of the Minnesota teams that aren’t NSCO in the All-Minnesota tournament, it’s North Dakota State vs North Dakota, and we’ll see who is good then.

Bank on NDSU, who went out early in the national playoffs last year because they drew Iowa Central CC, and North Dakota State still scored 17 points on the Tritons.

Front-rower Logan Balvik, lock Gareth Heintz, flanker Tucker Renfrow, center Kolton Goepfert, and fullback Luke Gulbranson all return, but can they reload at other positions?

Great Lakes

Friday sees varsity squad Bethel against Ferris State. The Pilots have some work to do to get into mid-season form, and will likely be looking at Grand Valley State as their main rival, once more. GVSU hosts Central Michigan on Saturday.

MARC

We had a quick look at Villanova last week and they then rolled over their East Stroudsburg. James Lyons scored three tries in that game and had this to say about his team:

"Last fall we definitely utilized our depth and rugby knowledge to outlast teams," Lyons said. "In the second half, we tended to put other teams away after a close first half, and used different styles to maintain leads or pull away. Also having a backline and forward pack that had worked together for years also helped tremendously."

And this year?

"I think that we show some promise. Obviously we lost some key forwards from last season which is tough but kept out backline fully intact." 

Bloomsburg vs York is a key early clash in what is always a very competitive conference.

Southern Conference

Having recognized that no one likes losing by 70 points and no one likes winning by 70 points, on a regular basis, the SoConn has been split into Premier and Challenger divisions. This pits the very strongest in the Premier, and that’s why you see Appalachian State against Furman, The Citadel against East Carolina, and UNC Wilmington against North Carolina.

Tough games all the way through. Watch out for Furman, though. They usually warm up against DI competition, often South Carolina and Georgia. They've never beaten both in the same preseason ... until now.

Cardinals

The Cardinals Conference has split up, as well, creating a DII league and a Hybrid league with includes NSCRO teams. With NC State off to DIAA, this league is wide open. Best game this weekend is probably Old Dominion vs. Virginia.

 

Rugby Northeast

Two games are on the slate for RNE. Norwich enters as a league favorite but a pretty hefty loss to Brown has us wondering how strong the Cadets are.

After going 33-4 over the past three years, Norwich has seen some excellent leaders graduate. Head Coach Bob Weggler said that “[William] Rambin is our captain has done a great job managing our leadership council so far this season. [Jonah] Fanuef, [Nate] Rolling, [and Jeffrey] Minicucci have all played a lot of rugby for us over the years and will help lead a young team this year. It's a good group of guys but we're young. We've got some talent, athletic ability and some speed that is so crucial in the game of rugby." 

They might be a bit of a work in progress, and Bentley could be in an excellent position to trip the Cadets up this year.

Gateway

There are no easy games in the Gateway and, with their league season so short, no room for slipups. Principia said goodbye to their longtime and beloved coach Ward Patterson, but the Thunder Chickens are still very talented. 

9/13/19	Ferris State	at	Bethel	Great Lakes
9/14/19	Northern Michigan	vs	Marquette	Great Midwest
9/14/19	UIC	vs	Illinois State	Great Midwest
9/14/19	Northern Iowa	vs	Western Illinois	Great Midwest
9/14/19	UW Platteville	vs	UW Whitewater	Great Midwest
9/14/19	Milwaukee	vs	UW Stout	Great Midwest
9/14/19	UND	at	NDSU	Northern Lights
9/14/19	SDSU	at	Winona State	Northern Lights
9/14/19	St. Thomas	at	St. Johns	Northern Lights
9/14/19	Mankato	at	MSU - Moorhead	Northern Lights
9/14/19	Moravian College	at	Villanova	MARC
9/14/19	East Stroudsburg	at	TCNJ	MARC
9/14/19	Bloomsburg	at	York	MARC
9/14/19	Scranton	at	Shippensburg	MARC
9/14/19	Appalachian State	at	Furman	Southern PL
9/14/19	The Citadel	at	ECU	Southern PL
9/14/19	UNCW	at	North Carolina	Southern PL
9/14/19	UNCG	at	Elon	Southern CL
9/14/19	Lander	at	WCU	Southern CL
9/14/19	College of Charleston	at	Coastal Carolina	Southern CL
9/14/19	Wake Forest	at	Campbell	Southern CL
9/14/19	VMI	vs	Northern Va Griffins	Cardinals
9/14/19	Madison Dev	vs	Emory and Henry	Cardinals
9/14/19	Duke	vs	Queens	Cardinals
9/14/19	Radford	vs	Roanoke	Cardinals
9/14/19	Southern Virginia	vs	Washington and Lee	Cardinals
9/14/19	Hampden-Sydney	vs	Richmond	Cardinals
9/14/19	William and Mary	vs	George Mason	Cardinals
9/14/19	VCU	vs	Christendom	Cardinals
9/14/19	Old Dominion	vs	Virginia	Cardinals
9/14/19	Norwich	vs	Bentley	Rugby Northeast
9/14/19	Providence	vs	New England College	Rugby Northeast
9/14/19	Northern Colorado	vs	Colorado Mesa	Rocky Mountain
9/14/19	Western Colorado	vs	Weber State	Rocky Mountain
9/14/19	Montana State	vs	Idaho State	Rocky Mountain
9/14/19	Umass Dartmouth	vs	Endicott	Colonial Coast
9/14/19	Roger Williams	vs	Western NE	Colonial Coast
9/14/19	Mass Maritime	vs	Wentworth	Colonial Coast
9/14/19	Stonehill	vs	Wheaton	Colonial Coast
9/14/19	Bridgewater State	vs	Johnson & Wales	Colonial Coast
9/14/19	Central Michigan	at	GVSU	Great Lakes
9/14/19	Washington University	at	Principia	Gateway
9/14/19	Southern Illinois	at	St. Louis U.	Gateway
9/14/19	Pitt State	at	John Brown	Gateway
9/14/19	UMS&T	at	UMKC	Gateway