Trine Move to CRAA Highlights an Interesting Question
Trine Move to CRAA Highlights an Interesting Question
Trine University Rugby has confirmed that it will be shifting from NCR to CRAA for the fall of 2025.
While this is just one team, as opposed to an entire conference (as when, for example, Lonestar announced a shift to NCR) it brings to the fore an interesting topic.
Trine was competing in the Big Rivers Conference, and struggled there. The struggling, said Head Coach Danny Breda, was in part due to Trine's inability to ease into competition. NCR developed a policy a couple of years ago that any school-supported team has to be in D1 or in D3; they can't be in D2 or D1AA.
Breda said he had repeatedly asked to get a season at a lower division in order to develop the young team's competitiveness. Trine started their program in the fall of 2022 playing largely D2 teams. But what they wanted was to move through D1AA before being elevated to D1, and that's because Trine only started building its roster in 2022 and is still a very young team—school-supported, yes, but not established competitively. NCR didn't agree, and that essentially prompted the move.
Breda told GRR that the right competitive level for Trine right now is D1AA. And he pointed out that other teams in the Big Rivers got a chance to build their programs through lower divisions, playing in the postseason there. Principia and Thomas More both won NCR D2 titles. Iowa Central was a USA Rugby D2 semifinalist. Rio Grande played in small college, and Marian in D2. Aquinas went from one season of 7s straight into Big Rivers.
"There are other things I think CRAA does really well," added Breda.
Trine will play an independent D1AA schedule in CRAA with a path to a postseason. Their schedule is still being built out but they already have several opponents lined up.
This move marks yet another change for NCR's Big Rivers, as Wheeling has left to join the Atlantic Coast Rugby Conference along with five teams that were formerly in Rugby East. That would, at first glance, reduce the conference down to six. However, there's an expectation that they might add another team.
Overall, the Trine move highlights a politcy from NCR that has, in general, received praise as a more specific definition of what constitues a D1 program vs a D1AA program. However, there also appears to be room for evaluating a team on a case-by-case basis, especially for just one year.
