The following rankings are produced by The Rugby Breakdown – not the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA). The NCAA varsity league polls its coaches, who rank teams with a point system, and then publishes “coaches polls” as rankings. TRB’s rankings consider non-league games and will update every week. But, again, the official rankings belong to NIRA.
RELATED: Learn more about NIRA
NIRA produced a pre-season coaches poll, which was used as a starting point for this first edition. The rankings are divided by competition – Tier 1, Tier 2, Division III. The tiers include both Division I and Division II schools, while DIII is comprised solely of DIII schools. But there are no restrictions in terms of playing within one’s competition and there are plenty of cross-tier and cross-division games throughout the season.
The records reflect varsity matches only, but as mentioned, non-league games, especially against established, reputable programs, do have sway.
RELATED: NIRA Week 1 Recap • NIRA Week 2 Recap
In Tier 1, Army West Point (3) bumped up to the top of the list after beating Harvard (2) by 24 points. The Black Knights B side then beat Molloy by 50-plus points, and for the moment, that was enough to jump past reigning national champion Dartmouth (1). The Big Green were supposed to open against Notre Dame College (5), but the Falcons forfeited week of. Dartmouth will play its first varsity match against Tier 2 Brown this weekend.
The Falcons will face Davenport University in a non-league match, and this healthy rivalry will be beneficial for insight into both squads. Quinnipiac (4) dropped a 47-point loss to Harvard in week one and then put in a gritty 23-22 win against DI Elite’s Penn State. The Panthers and Nittany Lions are representative of non-varsity opponents that carry weight.
Tier 2 has been the competition of interest. American International College (1) and Mount St. Mary’s (2) swapped positions after a thrilling two-point match, and West Chester’s (5) 11-point win over Brown (3) saw the Rams take the #3 spot. NIRA newcomer Queens University of Charlotte (6) debuted with a 27-point win over Sacred Heart (4) and thus gained a spot in the rankings. LIU Post (7) and Molloy (8) stayed put and are looking for their first wins of the seasons.
Division III has some nuance to it. Four of the six teams are fully functioning 15s programs, while NIRA debutant New England College (5) and Castleton (6) have been playing abbreviated games thus far. For the latter two teams, their records reflect all of their NIRA matches – regardless of opponent – but for those teams that play 15s, and that will ultimately be vying for the DIII championship, only their 15s results are recorded. So the University of New England (4), for example, beat NEC and Castleton in five of six 10s games last weekend, but its record is blank because the Nor’easters, a DIII title contender, was playing more of a friendly.
With that said, the biggest news out of DIII was Colby-Sawyer’s (2) win over Norwich (1), a 15s victory that put the Chargers atop the rankings.
Stay tuned for more updates as well as features from individual NIRA programs.
WEEK 3 MATCHES
TIER 1
Dartmouth v Brown
Quinnipiac v Army
TIER 2
Queens v LIU Post
Sacred Heart v AIC
DIII
Colby-Sawyer v Bowdoin
Norwich v New England College
Castleton v Molloy (T2)
NON-LEAGUE
West Chester v Bloomsburg
Notre Dame College v Davenport
Univ. Maine v Univ. New England