NCR D1 Fall 2023 Rankings Final Week
Well we had a bunch of stuff happen, didn't we?
In the end, the rankings held up pretty well. Notre Dame College, which we moved to #1 at Week 10, was indeed the best team in NCR's D1. St. Bonaventure or Brown? Well we knew it was close, and it turned out to be. Bonnies beat Brown by two points and we're not too bothered that Brown was ranked one spot ahead at #2.
We did ponder putting Indiana at #2, and there is an argument for that. But overall when you look at the level of competition and, if not common opponents, then common opponents of opponents, St. Bonaventure's body of work is a little stronger. So, yes, IU, you could argue #2, but to unseat a team that makes a final you have to have a really unimpeachable case. And losing 26-13 as opposed to 33-10 isn't going to do it.
Savvy Fordham Takes Bowl Game in Houston
In a Bowl Game clash between two very different teams, Fordham met Southern Nazarene in Houston during NCR’s finals weekend.
SNU came in as a new D1 team in NCR but, thanks to some geographic isolation and an independent schedule, not a clear path to the playoffs. Ultimately, with SNU still being new to this level, a bowl game made more sense.
For Fordham, a 3-4 Liberty Conference record hid the fact that they had lost three of those games by a try or less, and their loss to Siena wasn’t much worse.
While SNU is a school-supported team, and very athletic, they are still young and still finding their feet in some ways. And while Fordham is a club team, it has some school support and a bunch of players who know the game and know each other.
That was the setting in which this game was played.
IUP Caps Comeback to Win DII
It was a weekend of comebacks and IUP capped it all of with a little comeback of their own to win the Men’s DII NCR championship Sunday in Houston.
Having ended the fall of 2022 as runners up, IUP salved that pain with their second-straight CRC 7s title. But they wanted the 15s crown, and had attacked this season with that goal in mind. In their way? A University of Memphis team that had shot up the rankings with explosive win after explosive win.
This was how the was stage set for a sunny, chilly, windy Sunday final.
Late Try Sees Babson to Small-College Championship
A last minute try from Charlie Price pulled victory from the jaws of defeat to secure Babson the 2023 National Collegiate Rugby Small-College championship over a determined Wayne State.
A sunny and very windy day welcomed the finalists and Babson played with the wind and quite the wind it was.
In fact the breeze gave and it took away. More on that in a moment.
Babson was able piece some attacking movements together but Wayne State's defense made it all very difficult. Ultimately the pressure did result in a penalty which flyhalf Reed Santos expertly put over.
Wayne State was able to leverage their power in the scrum and their speed to turn the tables on the Beavers. All of that led to a penalty right in front of the posts that flyhalf Jayden James put over the bar for three points.
Notre Dame College Takes NCR D1 Title in Impressive Fashion
In a game that had pretty much everything, Notre Dame College put a stamp on an excellent fall with an emphatic 33-10 defeat of St. Bonaventure to win the National Collegiate Rugby D1 championship.
This win was also the culmination of a journey for a program that went 1-7 in the fall of 2021. Several players confirmed that while experience together had a hand in the turnaround, their unity and their shift in team culture was massive factors in the team’s growth.
At Least They Played The Game
As for the game, there was real doubt that the game would be played. A long lightning delay midway through the previous match, a bowl game between Sam Houston State and Alabama, put the schedule under some pressure. Aveva Stadium is not permitted to have games kick off after 8:30PM local time.
Sparkling Semi Sees Memphis Past UNI
In one of the most exciting and competitive DII semifinals you’d ever want to see, Memphis defeated Northern Iowa 43-39 to advance to NCR’s DII national final.
The lead changed eight times in this game, which featured some thrilling attacking rugby and, despite the final score, some tough defense as well.
Memphis signaled their intent to go wide with and scored early doing it. A darting run from wing Christian Flynn, and, after the forwards backed up the attack, scrumhalf Caleb Schmidt sniped over.
Northern Iowa looked a little shocked but they dealt with it well. Nick Marker raced in on a strong run, and then a break from flanker Ben Hoeger set up another chance for Marker and he scored again.
IUP Holds On in Blistering DII Semi
In a game that really didn’t go to plan for either team, IUP weathered a tenacious University of Vermont side 19-6 to advance to the Men’s DII national championship game.
IUP opted to play into the wind during the first half and hoped to survive that (knowing UVM kicked quite well) they could use the wind in the second half to put the game away. The Catamounts, for their part, were looking to get some points early and make IUP chase them.
That’s not quite how it turned out.
Vermont did get the run of the territory for quite some time, but IUP showcased their pace, running out of trouble whenever they got a turnover. Wing Ryan Hornickel would be quite influential here and made some ground. And once IUP got inside the UVM 22 flanker Dylan McAnulty unleashed a monster stiff-arm and was in under the posts. Hornickel converted and it was 7-0.
Wayne State Mounts Comeback to Overhaul Humboldt
Wayne State College mounted a stirring, wind-aided comeback to overhaul a 15-0 deficit and defeat defending small-college champs Cal Poly Humboldt Friday in the NCR Men’s Small College semis.
Led by a very smart game from flyhalf Jayden James, a huge scrummaging contribution from tighthead Trent Draper, and with blindside flanker Sean Munemo putting in a full shift, Wayne State inched their way back into the game.
Babson Storms Past Catholic to Small-College Final
Despite what the experts said, Babson vs Catholic in NCR’s Men’s Small-College semifinals was not a close game.
Catholic had experience in the national final four and were also a little older, but their composure left them early and Babson, which has blown a 26-point lead in the quarterfinals before eking out a victory, ran out to an early lead and never let up.
The result? Babson 52 Catholic 0, with the Massachusetts business school booking a place in Sunday’s final.
Early-on Catholic struggled to get out of their 22. They tried to run a backline play in their own end and the connections didn’t connect. Babson pounced on the loose ball and the forwards marched ever close rto the tryline before lock Brice Muller stretched over.
Rugby Games Live on TRN This Week
It is, if course, NCR finals weekend this weekend and The Rugby Network has those games for you.
Tour Match
But before that happens, UCLA hosts Oxford University Thursday night.
Oxford University on tour to California at UCLA 8PM Eastern Time>>
Then we go into the NCR championship slate of games:
Friday DII and SC Semifinals
Babson vs Catholic 1PM ET>>
Wayne State vs Cal Poly Humboldt 3PM ET>>
Small-College Semifinalists All Used to Success
Going into the NCR Small-College season, many felt that Cal Poly Humboldt and Babson had a serious shot to make it to the final.
Even the (mostly) trained monkeys working in the offices of GRR World Headquarters thought so. CPH had, of course, won it all last year, while Babson had emerged as Small-College 7s champs, so it seemed logical.
And it has come to pass, while perennial contenders Wayne State and 2022 #4 Catholic University join them, making the semifinalists almost the same as last year.
NDC vs St. Bonaventure Part Deux; This Time for a Trophy
The final of the NCR Division 1 has already been played—OK, not played per se but these two teams have already met, will the outcome be the same?
Just about a month ago Notre Dame College defeated St. Bonaventure 28-19 at NDC in South Euclid, Ohio.
In this game, St. Bonaventure repeatedly tried to test NDC in the wide channels and burn the Falcons with their speed. They managed it once, scoring a well-taken try on the outside, but that was their only try as they relied on four Wilson Koina penalty goals to get points. Notre Dame College’s patient and aggressive defense did indeed give up penalties, but they prevented tries.
The Story of This Year's Men's DII Semifinallists
The men's DII college championships, regardless of who has run them, have been fraught with caveats over the last several years.
It's the "yeah, but" issue that has sometimes undercut the event. For the most part, men's DII college rugby is made up of teams from moderately-sized universities with passionate coaches and players and rarely much in the way of school financial support. They are club teams, and they play hard and train hard. However, at the championship weekend, which has always involved four teams playing semis and finals over two or three days, the profile of the teams changes a bit.
Rugby Remains Strong at Lindenwood
We at GRR pondered how to write a headline for this article.
Lindenwood University just cut 10 spots. We heard the news over the weekend and many people who heard it immediately assumed that rugby was one of those sports or assumed rugby was in danger. But rugby, for both men and women, is still going strong at Lindenwood.
Why?
Well, first of all, Lindenwood cut men's lacrosse, men's swimming and diving, men's tennis, men's track and field (indoors and outdoors), men's wrestling, women's field hockey, women's gymnastics, women's swimming and diving, and cycling for both men and women.
Who Plays in the Toughest Conference?
After reflecting on the past weekend in college rugby, we at GRR World Headquarters got down to looking at college conferences.
As we've talked about before, we do judge conferences in part based on which conferences work for the teams involved. Some of the criteria for judging conferences is how many close games there are and whether the teams involved are of a like background and set of goals.
Lately, the conferences have come together and shifted into a situation where most of them are made for teams with common goals and backgrounds. Not all are consistently competitive.
We looked at D1A, NCR D1, and D1AA conferences that played this fall (skipping one or two whose play extends into the spring). Here's what we found:
