Here is our final Men's DII 15s rankings for the 2019 fall season. 

Picking the #1 is fairly easy. The big concern on Queens had been that they hadn't played opponents whose strength we were sure of, and they had a loss to NSCRO team Southern Virginia in there, too. Even so, Queens we never lower than #8, and bumped up to #2 after the first rounds of the playoffs.

Who's No. 2?

There's a large gap between #1 and the rest, as no one has really been close to Queens (except Southern Virginia, a non-league game that the Royals clearly took a bit lightly). So Whitewater takes #2 on the basis of having lost only one game, and that one 10-5 in the mud. #3 is Vermont which could easily have beaten Whitewater in the Round of 16, and then after that is Memphis, which lost by only a try to Whitewater in the quarterfinals.

No. 5-No. 10

So having established that group of four, we look for #5. Now Missouri S&T took 3rd in the nation after beating Norwich. In addition, S&T beat Illinois State, the one team to beat Whitewater. So, sure, S&T was hammered by Whitewater, but join the club ... that's not rare. It's still clear that S&T should be ranked above Norwich and Illinois State, and by extension Furman (they lost to Norwich in OT).

We know that S&T won close games over Illinois State (13-10), and Norwich (42-36), and Norwich beat Furman in overtime. Illinois State gets a little boost because they beat Whitewater 10-5 in the Great Midwest final.

So those four all seem to be a unit, but if we lock them all together then if we don't rank a team at #5, that team gets bumped down to #9. That's a bit rough if you think a team is close to that high echelon. So that brings us to Villanova. Like Vermont and S&T, Villanova was a solid conference champion. The only issue was that Villanova lost in the Round of 16. That loss was 24-13 to Memphis, and in fact that game was within a try until the final minute.

So we're looking at Memphis being just a try short of Whitewater, and Villanova really just a try short of Memphis. Is that better than losing by over 40 to Whitewater (which is what S&T did)? Well, maybe not, but it seems like Villanova isn't all that different from S&T-ISU-Norwich-Furman.

You could shuffle all of these teams and come out with a different winner. Norwich, ranked #1 until this week, is still a very strong team, but we're having a tough time bolstering a higher ranking now that they lost two in a row. 

The bump for Memphis moved up Middle Tennessee State because MTSU was close to Memphis. 

Virginia

And finally, Virginia. Here's our problem with Virginia. We don't like teams that bail on games. Virginia opted out of the Cardinals Conference final with Queens, and that's why we dropped them out of the Top 40—as punishment. But there were extenuating circumstances, namely some injuries and the fact that Queens and Virginia had played the week before. Queens had won that game, making the second game kind of moot.

And then we look at that game and see that Virginia scored 28 against Queens, and allowed 51, which is a lot of points, but far fewer than anyone else allowed. And we didn't drop GVSU out of the Top 40 for not showing up to a playoff games—mostly because they did it the right way and for the right reasons. So we're bringing Virginia back, but with a warning that forfeits do not set well with the rankings.

Here it is:

Goff Rugby Report Fall 2019 Men's DII College Rankings Dec 9 2019
Rank	Prev	Team	Conference	Notes
1	2	Queens (NC)	Cardinals	Beat Norwich (1), UW-Whitewater (4)
2	4	UW-Whitewater (WI)	Great MW	Beat Missouri S&T (6), lost to Queens (2)
3	5	Vermont (VT)	New England-Wide
4	8	Memphis (TN)	SCRC
5	6	UMS&T (MO)	Gateway	Lost to UW-Whitewater (4), beat Norwich (1)
6	7	Illinois State (IL)	Great MW
7	11	Villanova (PA)	MARC
8	1	Norwich (VT)	Rugby Northeast	Lost to Queens (2), Missouri S&T (6)
9	3	Furman (SC)	Southern
10	10	Loyola-Chicago (IL)	Great MW
11	20	MTSU (TN)	SCRC
12	9	UMass-Lowell (MA)	Rugby Northeast
13	24	Pitt State (KS)	Gateway
14	12	Boston University (MA)	New England-Wide
15	13	Bentley (MA)	Rugby Northeast
16	14	Marquette (WI)	Great MW
17	15	Montana State (MT)	Rocky Mountain
18	16	Lehigh (PA)	MARC
19	17	Northern Colorado	Rocky Mountain
20	18	UNC (NC)	Southern
Goff Rugby Report Fall 2019 Men's DII College Rankings Dec 9 2019
21	29	SLU (MO)	Gateway
22	19	MSU-Moorhead (MN)	Northern Lights
23	21	Grand Valley State (MI)	Great Lakes
24	22	Bethel (IN)	Great Lakes
25	23	Minnesota-Duluth (MI)	Great Midwest
26	25	William Paterson (NJ)	Tri-State
27	26	Central Michigan (MI)	Great Lakes
28	27	Colorado Mesa (CO)	Rocky Mountain
29	28	UNC-Wilmington (NC)	Southern
30	30	RPI (NY)	Tri-State
31	31	Thomas More (KY)	MCRC
32	Unr	Virginia (VA)	Cardinals
33	32	Coast Guard (CT)	New England-Wide
34	33	Northern Michigan (MI)	Great MW
35	34	UW-Platteville (WI)	Great MW
36	35	USMMA (NY)	Tri-State
37	36	Marist (NY)	Tri-State
38	37	Shippensburg (PA)	MARC
39	38	York (PA)	MARC
40	39	UNC-Charlotte (NC)	Southern
Goff Rugby Report Fall 2019 Men's DII College Rankings Dec 9 2019