The NCAA Directory lists 30 institutions that sponsor women’s rugby as an NCAA Emerging Sport. They play their championship 15s rugby in the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) and National Collegiate Rugby (NCR). The following is an overview of who is playing where, head coaches, schedules and any other pertinent details for the impending fall 2026 season. This post will update as more information is released but feel free to message Jackie Finlan with details. [lead photo: Jackie Finlan / The Rugby Breakdown]

Important Notes:

• There is a misconception that only teams competing in NIRA have NCAA Emerging Sports status. That’s untrue. A program can have said status and compete in NCR or the third organization overseeing women’s college rugby in the U.S., the College Rugby Association of America.

• There are women’s rugby programs that hold a varsity status within their athletic departments but do not have official NCAA Emerging Sports status. These programs do not count toward the 40 teams needed for women’s rugby to be considered for official NCAA championship status, but they do have athletic department support in the form of full-time staff, financial aid, rugby-dedicated facilities, etc. Examples include Southern Nazarene University, Drury University, St. Bonaventure University, among several others.

• For the list below, if someone served as a head coach for a program before it achieved varsity status, those years are included in the head coach’s number of seasons at the helm. For example, Ashley Potvin served as University of New England’s club head coach for four years before it transitioned to varsity, and those four years are included in her head coaching stat: 4 club + 11 varsity = 15 seasons.

NIRA

All NIRA members have NCAA Emerging Sport status. There are a smattering of pre-season games in late August, and then the 15s regular season kicks off the weekend of Sept. 5. Semifinals are Saturday, Nov. 14 at the higher seed, and finals are Saturday, Nov. 21 at a TBA site. NIRA does not offer a 7s season but the following teams compete in the CRAA or NCR (CRC 7s) championships in late April. With that said, NIRA’s DIII teams have mobilized around 7s and have held two springtime 7s championships thus far. Read more.

DIVISION I

DI is the most robust and stable of the NIRA competitions. It has added American International College (AIC) to the lineup, providing the two-time reigning NIRA DII champion out of Springfield, Mass., with more local competition. AIC features in the DII section of this post. With the addition of the Yellow Jackets, there are 13 teams competing in DI. The league is mourning the loss of Quinnipiac University, one of the oldest NCAA Emerging Sports programs, which was dropped from its athletics department at the end of the spring 2026 season. Learn more about the Bobcats’ legal fight to be reinstated.

Brown University (Providence, R.I.) – Head coach Ros Chou, Ph.D. (5th season). Schedule forthcoming. With Karameli Fa’ae’e moving to Princeton, USA Eagles Rachel Johnson and Cody Melphy have been added to coaching staff for this fall.

Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.) — Head coach Katie Dowty (12th season). Schedule forthcoming

Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.) — Head coach Mel Denham (10th season). Schedule. Opens Sept. 5 and plays Sacred Heart, Brown, Dartmouth, Navy, Lindenwood, AIC in the regular season

La Salle University (Philadelphia, Pa.) — Head coach Kelsie McDowell (2nd season). Opens Aug. 24 with a pre-season game against Mount St. Mary’s and will face the Mountaineers again in the regular season in addition to Princeton, Army, Navy and Long Island. DII West Chester and NCR’s Temple are also included as non-conference matches.

Lindenwood University (St. Charles, Mo.) — Head coach Trevor Locke (4th season). Schedule forthcoming. Colton Hernandez has left his role as assistant coach.

Long Island University (Brookville, N.Y.) — Head coach Alex Artus (2nd season). Schedule forthcoming

Mount St. Mary’s University (Emmitsburg, Md.) — Head coach Maggie Myles (4th season). Schedule forthcoming

Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.) — Head coach Karameli Fa’ae’e (1st season). Schedule forthcoming. Alumna Lauren Rhode was named as an assistant coach in spring 2026.

Queens University of Charlotte (Charlotte, N.C.) — Head coach Danny Harlow (3rd season). Schedule. Season begins with Aug. 29 friendly against the North Carolina U23s, and then AIC, Lindenwood, Sacred Heart, Emory & Henry (non-conference), Army, Brown, Navy, Mount St. Mary’s feature in the regular season.

Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, Conn.) — Head coach Michelle Reed (12th season). Schedule forthcoming

U.S. Military Academy (West Point, N.Y.) – Head coach Jenn Salomon-Clayton (2nd season). Schedule forthcoming

U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis, Md.) — Head coach Murph McCarthy (9th season). Schedule. The Midshipmen have games starting Sept. 5 and will play Brown, AIC, Lindenwood Harvard, Queens and Army in the regular season.

DIVISION II

There are five DII teams, but again, AIC is playing up in DI this fall. Additionally, University of New Haven moved to NCR ahead of the fall 2026 season, and DIII Bowdoin College is once again returning to the DII competition.

American International College (Springfield, Mass.) – Head coach Annekkia Ritter-Truxal (1st season). The AIC alumna just finished grad school and took over from Director of Rugby James Bonti ahead of the fall. Schedule forthcoming

Davenport University (Grand Rapids, Mich.) — Head coach Greg Teliczan (14th season). Schedule. The Panthers open Sept. 5 against NCR’s Aquinas College and then proceed to play DII Frostburg, DII West Chester and DIII Bowdoin in league games, and DI Lindenwood and Sacred Heart in non-conference games.

Emory & Henry University (Emory, Va.) — Doc O’Neill (4th season). Schedule forthcoming

Frostburg State University (Frostburg, Md.) — John Baker (1st season) has been named interim head coach after Jeff Horton left the post, and the program is actively accepting applications for the assistant coach position. The Bobcats’ schedule is already set, though, and opens Sept. 5 against DII Emory & Henry. DI Princeton, Long Island and Mount St. Mary’s; DII Davenport and West Chester; and DIII Bowdoin follow.

West Chester University (West Chester, Pa.) — Head coach Tony DeRemer (23rd season). Schedule forthcoming

DIVISION III

As mentioned, Bowdoin College is playing up in DII again and eligible for that post-season. The remaining three teams have played 7s round robins in the fall and have added in 15s friendlies where possible. There hasn’t been a DIII 15s final since 2023. Also, Thomas College moved to NCR for fall 2026.

Bowdoin College (Brunswick, Maine) — Head coach Laura Miller (4th season). Schedule. The Polar Bears open Sept. 26 against DII West Chester, then follow with DII Frostburg, the first of two games against Maine rival Univ. New England, then DII Davenport and DI Princeton.

Guilford College (Greensboro, N.C.) — Head coach Christine Newcomb (4th season). Schedule forthcoming

Univ. New England (Biddeford, Maine) — Head coach Ashley Potvin (15th season). Schedule forthcoming

Warren Wilson College (Asheville, N.C.) — Angelica Rodriguez (4th season). Schedule forthcoming

NCR

Varsity programs have long participated in CRC 7s, but there is a growing presence of teams heading to NCR for their 15s rugby (with that said, some developing programs are still playing non-15s, e.g., 7s or 10s, in the fall). For fall 2026, University of New Haven and second-year Thomas College have moved to NCR (read more). It’s pretty simple — there are many more competition options in NCR than NIRA, making travel and like-strength-opposition decisions easier. Again, and this is very important, if a NIRA team moves to NCR, it does not mean that it has lost its NCAA varsity status, as indicated by the NCAA directory.

A team’s NCAA division doesn’t impact with which NCR competition it aligns, and when NCR releases its fall 2026 schedules, we’ll better understand where they’re playing. At the time of print, three teams have released their schedules for some insight.

Adrian College (Adrian, Mich.) – Head coach Eric Enright (2nd season). Schedule forthcoming

Alfred University (Alfred, N.Y.) – DOR/Head coach Dr. Nicole Bernsen (3rd season). Schedule forthcoming

Lander University (Greenwood, S.C.) – Head coach Makayla Lowe Richeson (3rd season). Schedule forthcoming

New England College (Henniker, N.H.) – Head coach Rupert Leeming. Schedule forthcoming

University of New Haven (New Haven, Conn.) – Head coach Emily Record (6th season). Schedule forthcoming

Norwich University (Northfield, Vt.) – Head coach Baylee Annis (4th season). Schedule. The DII team starts with an Aug. 29 match against Univ. New Haven and then plays McGill University in Canada, Maine, St. Bonaventure and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in September. October is Northeastern B, Colby, Rhode Island and Roger Williams.

Thomas College (Waterville, Maine) – Head coach Farrah Douglas (2nd season). Schedule. It’s a tournament slate for year two. Thomas College is hosting the first of three events on Sept. 12, and then also traveling to Babson, Univ. Maine Farmington, New England College, Bryant and Brandeis. The schedule also includes a Nov. 7 playoff tournament.

Vermont State University Castleton (Castleton, Vt.) – Head coach Erin LaMountain (4th season). Schedule forthcoming

Walsh University (North Canton, Ohio) – Head coach Kelly Wallenhorst (3rd season). Schedule. Walsh opens up Sept. 4 against Ohio State before playing a pair of Michigan teams — Aquinas and Michigan — at home. October is a doozie with games against BYU, Penn State, Southern Nazarene and St. Bonaventure.

Teams we’ve lost

Understandably, organizations aren’t trying to publicize the teams that last lost their varsity status, which doesn’t necessarily mean that rugby disappears from campus but perhaps transitions to sports club status. Former NCAA varsity women’s rugby programs include: Central Washington University (Wash.), Eastern Illinois University (Ill.), Manhattanville College (N.Y.), Molloy College (N.Y.), Newberry College (S.C.), Quinnipiac University (Conn.) and the now-closed Alderson Broaddus University (W.V.) and Notre Dame College (Ohio).