Pick 'em Game Week 11
So, we misread the schedule. Week 10 is not done and dusted yet. Lindenwood at Army is slated for this Friday at which point we will declare our Week 10 Winner!
This week’s prize is another $10 Gift Card to Rugby Imports! To play, submit your picks here before Friday night.
But we did get a comment from our leader through Week 9, Kaleb Boleyn who plays for Northern Iowa.
We just happened to run into the LEADER of our Pick 'em game this past weekend. We asked his secret. Kaleb Boleyn kept his methods close to his vest. pic.twitter.com/KIt6xVZD8G
Gamebreakers in Men's D2 College This Week
We've got our Men's D2 College Gamebreakers, with most of them coming in conference championship or playoff seeding games.
Several of this week's Gamebreakers got big points hauls.
Federico Gubana, Marist
Marist beat RPI to win the Tri-State and Gubana scored two tries, kicked five conversions, and punished RPI indiscipline with four penalty goals to score 32 points all by himself.
Demond Shavers, Illinois State
The ISU scrumhalf was a spark throughout the game, running down ballcarriers on line breaks, keeping the attack going with little snipes around the edge, working his runners, and scoring a try in a tight Great Midwest final win over Northern Iowa.
Week 11 Power Index Powered by Silverbacks Elite Rugby
The NCR D2 Playoff picture is set. Are we extremely confident in how the Power Index rates and handicaps D2 games? Not yet.
We did not have enough baseline data to have very accurate preseason rankings. Some teams like Adrian went out and played (& beat) higher rated teams from D1A. Some good teams stayed in their conference and had limited opportunity for growth due to strength of schedule. Others barely posted results due to opponent cancellations and forfeits.
So, the Index has a rudimentary picture of D2. But these teams have run their conference gauntlets and deserve the press. Save the Southern Conference Championship, the bracket is set. Here is our way too early D2 bracket picked by the Power Index.
Surging Davenport Looks to Mid-South Starter
Davenport’s win over Notre Dame was a weird one in the sense that a lot of the stats, aside from the scoreline, were very comparable.
If you track time of possession, time on attack, meters gained, gainline percentage, turnovers, tackles made and missed, and most other metric the game would look pretty even.
But Davenport won 30-0. Panthers Head Coach Dustin Steedman thought it was a lot more competitive than that.
“Notre Dame was definitely our best test thus far, preparing us for the high-pressure defenses to come,” said Steedman. “Their defense was suffocating at times—most of the time—and it was nice to see my guys step up and control the pace of the game and still find the ability to find the try zone with pressure in our face.”
Gamebreakers This Week in DI College
We have some playoff and conference championship games to spice up our Men's DI College Gamebreakers this week.
Chris Johnson, Fordham
The senior hooker scored two tries and nailed down the set piece as Fordham beat Syracuse.
Miles Powell, Texas
The Longhorn fullback accounted for 19 of his team’s 44 points in a win over North Texas. Powell scored a try, kicked two penalties, and added four conversions.
Christian Olney, Ohio State
The Buckeyes fullback has been really effective this season and he scored two tries as well as nailed down the deep defense in OSU’s win over Wisconsin.
Men's DII College Games This Week
It's kind of a pause before the storm this week in Men's D2 college rugby.
The NCR playoffs start with play-in games before the Round of 16 next week. One of those games won't happen. After playing the MARC semifinal and final last week, Bucknell just had too many injuries. They lost three starters in the semifinal and further injuries meant they can't play Virginia this weekend. For Bucknell, it's a rough ending to a pretty special season, and for Virginia it's a frustrating beginning to the playoffs as too many of their opponents have forfeited this fall. And it's also perhaps a message on how tough two-game weekends, especially Saturday-Sunday, are.
DI-Level Games This Weekend
This week's men's DI college games are lumped into one list just because it's easier to do that with a smaller number of games.
We're into the playoff time, which is why some programs aren't on the field.
Big Ten Holds Four-Game Championship Weekend in Chicago
Saturday sees the Big Ten complete its season with every team in the conference playing a finals game.
The championship will be between Indiana and Ohio State, a rematch of a game GRR attended earlier this fall, which Indiana won 33-31.
This was a game that Ohio State had in hand and then saw a series of penalties, and a couple of key momentum shifts turn the game around — Ohio State led 31-14 and Indiana scored three tries in the final 30 minutes to take the game back.
DIAA-Level Men College Rankings Week 11
We didn't expect this to be a particularly difficult ranking to update this week, but it was.
Why? Well first off our #2 team lost, and lost to our #15. That's not so problematic; Tennessee deserves to be #2 and could be #1, so they move up, and Mary Washington is fine at #3. But the question arises as to who goes to #4. Normally we've think Notre Dame, but Notre Dame lost 30-0 to Davenport. Now, yes, Davenport is a DIA team, and one actually threatening the top 10 there. But being shut out 30-0 isn't exactly a great thing.
IUP Eyes DII Playoff Glory
IUP capped off a fairly dominant season in the Allegheny with a 46-0 shutout of Kent State in the conference final on Sunday.
With the Allegheny not having too many teams able to hang with the top echelon, the playoffs was one semifinal—Kent State vs West Virginia—on Saturday for the chance to play the Crimson Hawks on Sunday.
Kent State did well to get by WVU but it was always going to be a tough task against IUP. the Crimson Hawks entered the game 8-1, with two of those victories forfeit wins, and that one loss being against Wheeling University. They played Kent State twice, beating them 40-5 and 24-12, running out a younger lineup for the game.
Small-College Men's Wrapup; Contenders and Nailbiters
The Men's Small College scene is undergoing some adjustment even despite the fact that through all the changes in college rugby, the small-college world hasn't changed that much.
Small colleges still run their competition through the same oversight group (now called NCR) as they always have. But new programs are springing up ruffling the traditional order of things. Here's a bit of a look at what's been going on.
Nailbiter Weekend
In the Great Midwest, University of Chicago faced off with Wisconsin-Stevens Point for the small-college final, and it was a wild game. Chicago ran out to a fairly comfortable lead and were up 25-12 with very little time left, but then Stevens Point went to work, scoring a try, and then another, making it 25-24. There was time for more, but somehow Chicago remained poised and ran out the clock.
Kansas Edges Minnesota to Win Heart of America
Kansas defeated Minnesota 17-14 to take the Heart of America Conference championship. wrapping up a weekend of playoff rugby.
It was a tense weekend for KU as they scored at the death to beat Iowa State in the semis. Minnesota won comfortably over Arkansas to make the final. In the 3rd-4th game Iowa State, despite having two key starters out with concussions and running on a relatively young team, put Arkansas to the sword 51-10.
Minnesota kicked off to Kansas and looked to pin the Jayhawks back. But KU captain and flyhalf Chandler Owens, using the wind, launched a kick all the way down the field to get his team out of trouble.
NCR Women's College Playoff Brackets Set
National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) has announced the final teams for both its Women's Division I and Small College playoffs.
D1
The playoffs feature 16 Division I teams including ten conference champions and six at-large bids.
(NCR's Women's DI is made up of conferences and teams that until this season were playing as DII.)
In the West Region, University of North Dakota will make its first-ever playoff appearance, facing undefeated University of Northern Iowa. Both University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and Bowling Green University qualify as the #2 seeds from their conferences.
The Midwest Region includes two teams with perfect records in Grand Valley State University and Marquette. Purdue enters as the Illinois Conference winner, while Iowa State comes in as an at-large bid.
Army Wins C-in-C Trophy, Looks to Lindenwood
Army beat Air Force 72-23 Saturday to win the Commander-in-Chief Trophy.
The trophy, which isn't an actual trophy but should be, is figuratively given to the US service academy with the best record among the three teams. Army beat both Navy and Air Force to garner bragging rights for the year. It's also interesting to see that all three games were played in the fall. Often one has to wait months to find out who gets this honor.
Commander-in-Chief Trophy Games:
September 11: Navy 65 Air Force 0 (Shea Cup)
October 23: Army 24 Navy 17
November 6: Army 72 Air Force 23
Unsure How It Would Pan Out, Georgetown Wins Conference
Georgetown, and pretty much everyone else, went into this year's MARC DII season blind.
The Hoyas, perhaps, were more blind than most. While, yes, everyone was coming out of a pandemic, Georgetown was also changing coaches and joining a new conference. Unsure of where they stood, they just kept playing. Bolstered by several players who draw their experience from accomplished high school program in the US and, for some, overseas, the Georgetown team had not only rugby experience, but rugby-culture experience.
Anf they rode that all the way to a Mid-Atlantic Conference D2 championship.
"This is not some lucky run," said Georgetown lock and captain Ali Taha Brown. "We have great leadership on this team. The officer corps and the coaching staff and the players are all working together for a goal."
