How Auburn Men's Rugby Ended Up in No Man's Land
How Auburn Men's Rugby Ended Up in No Man's Land
One of the issues within American collegiate rugby, especially past the most elite teams, is how one defines a division.
For much of the history of collegiate rugby, when there’s been a divisional split, what division you’re in depends on you. You basically announce that you’re D1A (if you’re accepted), D1AA, D2, etc.
The advent of the National Small College Rugby Organization (which is now NCR and covers more than small college) created a specific metric—how many students are in your potential player pool—for qualification in each division’s playoffs.
New Enrollment Limits for NCR Divisions>>
Attempts have been made to create metrics to define the various divisions. USA Rugby’s points system, which was used mostly in women’s college rugby, worked somewhat well, and generally most metrics work somewhat well.
The problem is that no metric or system works 100% of the time. And it’s that 1% or 2% that gets noticed.
The Auburn Question
So we come to Auburn University. A huge university with an impressive athletic history (Bo Jackson, Cam Newton, Charles Barkley, Josh Donaldson, Kirsty Coventry, Ruthie Bolton), Auburn was, for quite some time, held up by this writer as an example of how you can’t collate a university’s size or athletic achievements with the success of its rugby team. When the old CRC was first conceived, we’d all go back and forth on why some college teams with non-elite rugby teams but big names were invited and others weren’t. Why not invite Auburn, Oregon, or Texas? Because their rugby team wouldn’t do well? OK then … but why those other guys?
To be fair, Auburn, while wasn’t particularly strong in rugby, in recent years, under the eye of Nick Prather and Sam Parks, Auburn has picked it up. They won the SCRC D2 twice while also recording the highest GPA and most community service hours of any club sport at the school. Their success earned them a big spread in the alumni magazine>>
All of this is enormously good news not only at Auburn but for the college game. When big colleges resistant to rugby see good news (the community service hours are probably the program’s biggest win, to be honest) it helps the sport and helps the sport grow. College rugby has had to work extra hard to get a toehold in the football-or-nothing Southeast. So Auburn getting good press locally is really good.
But now Auburn rugby has fallen afoul of a new initiative from NCR. Using a specific metric, in this case the number of male undergraduate students, NCR has determined that Auburn has to move up to D1AA. On May 17 Prather and Parks sent NCR an impassioned plea to reconsider, but to no avail. It took NCR almost two months to deal with this question, on July 11; NCR Men's Division I and II Coordinator said that while there is wiggle room for some, Auburn was just too big.
The new eligibility rules state, in part, that men’s teams can only stay in D2 if their full-time male enrollment is less than 10,000 students. There is in this rule a bit of wiggle room. If a school is between 10,000 and 10,500 they can still be in D2 but would eventually have to apply for a waiver to do so. According to the US Department of Education, Auburn has 11,290 full-time undergraduate males. Being almost 13% above the limit was too much, said Dufek.
Parks and Prather argued that the enrollment metric isn’t sufficient. Yes Auburn Rugby has seen some success, but they actually only run a roster of about 34. Of those, however, six of them are ROTC and actually can’t play rugby on the weekends because of their ROTC commitments. Two were injured. Four were enrolled in the Delta Airlines flight program and guess what day they use to get their flying hours? That’s right, Saturday.
So really for the 2022-23 season Auburn could only truly rely on a roster of 22. That’s not enough to play D1AA. In fact, 34 isn’t enough. As big as Auburn University is, the rugby team still hasn’t achieved D1-level depth. Yet.
(Note: NCR's rule mostly refers to a playoff pathway. Teams in NCR often play in a wide-ranging conference, but it’s what playoffs they enter the is really at question.)
No Man's Land
The upshot is that Auburn will remain in SCRC’s D2 and play that season. They will operate as an independent team and won’t have a postseason pathway because NCR will want them in D1 and Auburn wants to stay in D2. Prather did reach out to CRAA to see if a bowl game was in the offing in December. They were turned down. The reason for that is a whole other issue within the game.
CRAA set up a bowl game last fall for University of Kentucky as a precursor to UK joining CRAA fully as a member of the newly-minted Midwest Conference. Kentucky ultimately changed their minds and joined NCR. That left CRAA with a bad taste in their mouth and even though Auburn had nothing to do with UK’s reversal, the logic goes like this: “Why would we deny a full CRAA member a chance at a bowl game in favor of a team that might or might not become a member?”
Meanwhile, we checked in with NCR’s Dufek about this issue and he said that NCR is doing its best to have a clear definition of what teams should compete in what divisions. This can be seen elsewhere, with the Southern Rugby Conference having two teams that played as D1AA in the fall of 2022 now in D1, and two teams that were D2 (NC State and UNC-Charlotte) are now moved up to D1AA. One other team, Southern California, was also moved up to D1 due to male undergrad enrollment numbers. USC just barely exceeded 10,000 and if they wanted a waiver would probably get it.
“There’s always exceptions to the rule” said Dufek. “And there’s always the option to appeal. But we have to start, and draw the line in the sand, somewhere.”
Dufek said the plan is supported by “just about all local and conference groups.” Which is course is the point—it’s one team here, and one team there which doesn’t quite fit the model.
“It’s all a step in the direction to give divisions an identity,” added Dufek.
A Few Questions To Be Considered
Ultimately Auburn’s situation raises some questions:
Should NCR revisit their policy based on individual team issues? Should their new 10,000-student rule be phased in over a year or two instead of instituted just two months before the start of the fall season? (The original plan was publicized in March, but that still means the rule is instituted the very next season.)
Why is this 10,000-student rule not in place for women’s teams?
If a rule makes it impossible for a team to field a team or fulfill 2nd-team fixtures, who, really, needs to address that? Is it just a case of telling the team "be better at recruiting" ?
In the end it’s pretty clear NCR is trying to define their divisions over and above how a college team feels about where it should be, but college rugby is so varied in how it is organized that every now and then a team doesn’t get covered by the umbrella.