Photo: Jennifer Childress •
The following is an overview of women’s collegiate rugby in the U.S. Since the landscape is ever-shifting, it’s rare to find a conference or division that remains the same from season to season. And even teams within a specific league aren’t necessarily competing toward the same things after the conference title has been awarded. Nonetheless, this is a start if you’re new to women’s college rugby.
If you’re not new, then skip directly to this spreadsheet. It breaks out teams by division, then conference, and also seasonality. This is for 15s only. Sevens is too new to put anything down on paper (in terms of how teams qualify for playoffs).
DIVISIONS
There are four divisions that account for the majority of women’s college rugby being played today:
National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA, i.e., varsity league, is a lone entity)
National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO, partnered with USA Rugby)
Each division is composed of conferences, and they supply reps to the regional post-season. There are also hybrid conferences, i.e., leagues that include both DII and NSCRO, or DI and DII teams, and those leagues can structure those hybrid competitions however they want. And then there are a handful of Independent teams that don’t compete in a conference and create their own schedules.
Every conference looks different in terms of league play. If you want to understand a particular conference better, then check the aforementioned spreadsheet. The conference names are linked to their home pages.
PLAYOFFS/CHAMPIONSHIPS
Each conference or league moves through its regular season and names representatives through a number of means (conference championships, standings, round robin, etc.) to regional playoffs:
• NIRA: 15s national championship contested in fall, 7s national championship contested in spring. League has 15 varsity members and is separated into Tier 1 and Tier 2. The coaches poll determines seeds into the 15s post-season. First round is played at the higher seed, and then this year’s semifinals/final will be contested at Army West Point Nov. 18-20.
• NSCRO: 15s national championship contested in the fall, 7s national championship contested in spring. League has more than 100 women’s teams. Fall 15s season sees all-NSCRO conferences and hybrid conferences name representatives to the Round of 16 and quarterfinals, which occur at four sites. This year’s final four will convene at Life University, Marietta, Ga., Dec. 3-4.
• USA RUGBY DI* & DII: There is no 15s national championship for either division. Separate fall and spring champions are named. USA Rugby does contest DI and DII national championships for 7s in the spring. (For an example of how conference reps flow into the regional post-season, check out DII Fall Championship bracket.)
*There is one caveat new to this 2016-17 season. A DI Elite national champion will be named in the spring. Those teams that have designated themselves “DI Elite” will enter the DI spring Round of 16 alongside other DI teams. After the quarterfinals, the victors will move onto the DI Elite national semifinals, and the losers will move onto the DI spring semifinals. (READ MORE).
The aforementioned can bring some confusion into the post-season. For example, a team like Penn State is designated “DI Elite” and plays fall 15s in the DI Big Ten conference. The Nittany Lions will play for the conference title but will not take the automatic berth to the DI fall playoffs. Instead, it has committed to the DI spring Round of 16, where the team will hope to advance to the DI Elite semifinals.
But every division has unique classifications. In NIRA, Brown, Dartmouth and Harvard compete toward the Ivy League conference title but then switch to the NIRA post-season instead of following the USA Rugby DI fall championships. In NSCRO, you’ll see teams like Lee University compete toward the NSCRO fall 15s title as an Independent team but then join the spring USA Rugby DII South Independent conference to fill out the league’s schedule.
MISC
Keep in mind that there are going to be hiccups: An at-large bid to regional playoffs doesn’t get filled; a team switches conferences last minute and now the conference only has three teams (losing its automatic berth to playoffs); a conference belatedly informs its ruling organization that it’s playing toward a spring, not fall, championship.