It’s still early in the USA Rugby Division I College Fall Championship season, and so the rankings are going to move around as teams build toward consistency or experience unexpected success.
Four teams joined the ranking this week. Minnesota is the reigning Midwest champion and its first league game resulted in a 45-point win over Wisconsin (the Gophers first scheduled match was a forfeit win against Iowa State). Eight of the Minnesota’s 10 tries were finished through the backs, while flanker Brooke Doerscher dotted the other two. Meanwhile, Iowa fell off after a 52-17 loss to DII Winona State, which is competing in the DI regular season this fall before rerouting to the DII fall playoffs.
Also representing the Midwest region – not the conference – is Big 10’s Indiana, which surpassed Notre Dame after a 41-31 win over the Irish. Lauren Procter, Aly Gamble, Gaby Malave, Emma Jones, Tori Eastes, Maria Bashmakov and Estelle Genoud dotted down for the Redstorm. Michigan State, which shut out Purdue last weekend, beat Notre Dame by a similar margin, and will face Indiana on Oct. 5. Before then, however, the Spartans will play Michigan, which has yet to play a league game. Notre Dame regularly features in the post-season and its staying power sees the Bend, Ind., program on the tail-end of the rankings. However, another loss will nullify that rationalization.
The Northeast conference‘s Northeastern joined the ranking after a 62-35 win over Boston College. The Maddogs spread the scoring around but scrumhalf Anya Hsu was particularly effective with three tries. Boston College scored the majority of its points in the fourth quarter.
North Texas is also new to the ranking and swaps with Angelo State, which tied Oklahoma 19-19. UNT is 2-0 with wins over Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Texas A&M (49-17 vs. Texas) and Texas State (46-24 vs. 2018 conference champ Sam Houston) won their season-openers in the Texas conference and will be tracked for rankings consideration.
In the Rocky Mountain, Montana State dropped a spot after tying Utah Valley on the road. There is some sensitivity for away-game results – Bozeman is seven hours from Orem – and this weekend’s rematch in Montana will inform the subsequent ranking. Utah Valley had lost a 75-14 match to Utah State so that’s still a relevant result keeping the team off the rankings (Montana State lost to Utah State by six points, at home). The ranking is also watching Wyoming, which is on the road to New Mexico this weekend.
Finally, all of Davenport’s matches are included in its record since the Michigan team is an independent program (same with Navy and Princeton, once the Tigers activate). But the Panthers are not being punished for their shutout loss to Lindenwood University, the DI Elite national champion. The Lions play, and beat, Women’s Premier League teams so drawing comparisons with DI teams isn’t useful. However, this weekend’s Davenport vs. Navy will be very useful for the rankings.
The rankings will track the following games this weekend:
BIG 10
Michigan @ Michigan State
Purdue @ Notre Dame
(Ohio State @ Notre Dame NL)
INDEPENDENT
Davenport @ Navy
Boston Univ. @ Princeton
MIDWEST
Iowa @ Iowa State
Minnesota @ Northern Illinois
Wisconsin @ Northern Iowa
NORTHEAST
UMASS @ Northeastern
ROCKY MOUNTAIN
Utah Valley @ Montana State
Colorado @ Air Force
Wyoming @ New Mexico
TEXAS
UT San Antonio @ Texas A&M
Sam Houston @ Texas