Western Michigan has agreed to play in the ACRC Bowl Series after Maryland pulled out.

Maryland, the #2 team in the ACRL, opted not to play in a game that would have pit them against the #2 team from the SCRC (still to be decided). But Western Michigan, which shocked some to make the MAC final before losing to Bowling Green in the final.

So the ACRC Bowl Series at the Charlotte Rugby Athletic Center in Charlotte, NC starts with a high school game - William Hough HS v North Meck. Then comes the college games, with Boston College (ECRC #2) against Iona out of Rugby East, and SWC #2 Texas State taking on ACRL #3 NC State. All of those first three games are on Friday, Nov. 21.

On Saturday, the action begins with WMU against the SCRC #2 at 9:30am.

Then:
Bowling Green v AIC. Two conference champions, MAC v ECRC.
Michigan v Kutztown. Michigan is 4th in the Big Ten, but that is a league where the top four are almost equal. Kutztown finished 2nd in the Rugby East.
West Virginia v Stony Brook. Two conference champions, Keystone v Empire.
UMass v North Texas. North Texas is the SWC champion. UMass is 3rd in ECRC
Army v Life. What is essentially a fall national championship with the Rugby East winners (Army) and the 2013-14 DIA runners up, Life.
SCRC #1 v Clemson. Two conference champions, SCRC and ACRL.

Interestingly, these games bring to the fore the question of what is a compelling matchup. The marriage of the ACRL and SCRC - what would be the ACC and SEC in football - makes sense in that these conferences are fairly evenly matched, and are also high-profile colleges in any sport.

But sometimes those in the game choose a name over ability. Faced with this question, Michigan was given the choice of what team they wanted to play. They asked for a "name program," and then chose Kutztown. Kutztown, of course, is not well-known in most college sports circles, but it is very well-known in rugby circles. So what a "name program" is can change. Life is a name program in rugby, and Army is a name program pretty much anywhere. Clemson is a well-known university in any sport, and their likely opponent Nov. 22, Tennessee or South Carolina, is the same. But AIC v Bowling Green is as compelling a matchup as any in the game this fall, and those colleges don't usually merit much notice in other sports.

Thus the ACRC Bowl Series is a testing ground for the different ways of viewing the college game. There are well-known college brands, such as Clemson, NC State, Army, Michigan, and the SCRC winners. There are colleges who get some notice nationally in football or other sports, such as Bowling Green, West Virginia, North Texas, UMass, and Kutztown. And there are colleges we never see playing sports on TV, such as Iona, Life, AIC, and Stony Brook. Rugby brings them all together, and perhaps the Bowl Series will show that rugby, in the end, is the most important.