It's early days in the college rugby fall but we've got some activity already.
We're listing D1A, NCR D1, and D1AA teams all together because they're playing each other, especially during non-conference time ... which is now. What we will do is label each team as to where they are competing ... as follows:
CRAA D1A: Black Bold
NCR D1: Green
NCR D1AA: Blue
D1AA in CRAA or ACR: Red
Trinity, the rugby team at Dublin University, just hosted Notre Dame and Navy, and now they send players to the Midwest to play Indiana and Ohio State on the same day. Trinity has something like five teams so they can handle the two games. This will be a really good opening challenge for both teams. Likely we'll see a more polished Trinity side handle both Big 10 teams, who will want to impose themselves physically.
Belmont Abbey (ranked by GRR #13 among NCR D1 teams) is at Mary Washington, which has moved to D1A and gets a #15 ranking in that category from us. Word is UMW should have a strong team this year. Navy hosts Delaware and the Mids left their younger players at home when they went to Ireland, and it's those players, for the most part, who will get their first runout.
Another D1A/NCR D1 crossover is Mount St. Mary's (newly shifted to D1A and ranked #18) vs Thomas More (NCR D1 #4) in a neutral site in Pittsburgh. MSM is looking to build on their CRC win in the spring, while Thomas More is going to have to fill some big shoes after key graduations.
Oklahoma takes on Arkansas in a fun non-conference game further west, while it's MARC vs Liberty with St. Joe's vs Binghamton.
Colgate plays a tough D2 opponent in Cornell. This is clearly just a warmup for both. Meanwhile, Iowa State (ACR 7s champs) vs Southern Nazarene in Kansas City gives both of these teams a chance to get some rankings love next week. Also crossing divisions is Kentucky, hoping for an SCRC title this year in D1AA (UK is under NCR this year along with the rest of the conference) and they visit Marian, who we haven't ranked in NCR D1 this week ... but they could easily move up with a good result against the Wildcats.
Finally, the only conference game we had on the slate was Oklahoma State at Kansas in the Heart of America, but that's been called off (maybe that's why we see so few conference games this early in the fall).
