College Men
The Great Lakes Men’s DII Conference has come down to this weekend, as Grand Valley State takes on Oakland University.
GVSU is normally the favored team in this conference, and in fact did very well last year, winning the Great Lakes, beating Northern Iowa in the first round of the playoffs, and losing to eventual national champs Minnesota-Duluth 24-3 - a very creditable scoreline.
Coming off a tough loss to Kentucky, South Carolina has what amount to a must-win this weekend in the SCRC.
In writing about the Chesapeake Conference, where there seemed to be an inordinate number of close games, we decided to see if our impressions were correct.
So we looked at the stats in Men's DI College rugby. We looked at which conferences had the most close losses (7 points or less) and also who had the most, what we'll call "competitive losses," which means losses of 14 or less.
For a new conference, the Chesapeake Collegiate has been a rousing success.
Few conferences can boast so many close games, and the conference itself is still hugely competitive, with five teams still in with a shot at a conference title.
Showdown denied could well be showdown accentuated in the Southern Rugby Conference.