Rugby teams from PAC-12 universities already have their own conference, the PAC Rugby Conference, but only six of the 12 teams participate; that may change in time as Oregon State University hosts a tournament of northern PAC-12 schools this weekend.

 

The Beavers are one of those six in the current conference, as are the Utah Utes, who will play in Corvallis, Ore. this weekend. But three more teams not in the conference will get a taste of a marriage between the PAC-12 and rugby. Washington, Washington State, and Oregon will all join OSU and Utah in the round-robin tournament.

 

Teams will all play each other in a series of shortened games.

 

"One of the things we saw was that in the Pacific Northwest, teams kind of went straight from the winter break into league games," said Oregon State Coach Anthony Lally. "So we needed a tournament to get them locked and loaded anyway. And at the same time we're looking to expand PAC play in some way. We know there's interest."

 

Stanford is reportedly watching this tournament with interest. 

 

Utah already got a head start on game time, playing, and losing to, St. Mary's this past Saturday. But they are happy to make another trip over the mountains to the West Coast.

 

"We support this effort and think it's a good thing," said Utah Head Coach Mark Drown. 

 

Meanwhile, Lally has some work to do with a rebuilding Oregon State team that finished 6th out of six in the PAC Conference last year. 

 

"We're finding our style of rugby," said Lally. "We had moments of playing some exceptional rugby, but when we fell out of that, it really hurt us. We're working more on being a skills-oriented team and we're building toward that."