Draft Day Approaches. Check out GRR's 6-Show Pre-Draft Series
The Major League Rugby Draft is set for Thursday night with the first pick being announced some time after 6:30PM ET.
Now, the draft is being announced tomorrow, but the picks are made earlier—this allows Major League Rugby to announce the picks quickly and not spend hours waiting for team to make their choices. (With 39 picks, if teams took an average of five minutes to make a choice the should would still exceed three hours.)
In addition, several deals have been made to trade draft picks, and the league doesn't want last-minute trades to delay it all.
So the draft sequence is this:
(Uodate: Atlanta has confirmed that they are moving to Los Angeles, so when you "Atlanta" know it's actualy going to be LA.)
A Look at the D1AA College Schedules Around the Nation This Fall
Goff Rugby Report has most of the D1AA schedule for the coming fall.
While we don't have all of the Lonestar schedule yet, but most of it, and we don't have the schedules of leagues that kick off in the winter. But here it is, just about 240 fixtures through the fall and into the spring for some.
A couple of games to keep an eye on at first glance: Iowa State vs Southern Nazarene to kick off September, IUPUI at Western Michigan on September 9, Tennessee at South Carolina September 16, NC State at UNC Chapel Hill in a new-look D1 era in the South on September 23, James Madison at new MARC team Virginia Tech on September 30, South Carolina at Clemson October 7, Minnesota at Iowa State October 14, Boston College at UMass October 21, Louisville at Western Michigsn October 28, Oregon at Boise State November 4, and NCR playoffs throughout November.
A Cautionary Tale From Alderson Broaddus
The demise of Alderson Broaddus University is something of a cautionary tale within American collegiate rugby.
The Major League Rugby Collegiate Draft: Pre-Draft Shows 1-3
the Major League Rugby Draft will be held next week.
Goff Rugby Report has a look at it and we look at it, as usual, from a college player perspective.
Why, for example, is the number of players declaring for the draft down 41% from 2022.
Which players are looking like they might be nicely poised to be drafts?
Here goes:
Episode 1. Some advice to players:
NCR Finalizes Championship Dates, Venues for 2023-24
National Collegiate Rugby confirmed its finalized championship weekends for the 2023-24 season.
One of the big successes of NCR is their ability to confirm championship dates and venues early on in the cycle, which makes it much easier for teams to plan.
The Women's 15s championships will be held in Houston, Texas at AVEVA Stadium on December 2-3.
The Men's 15s championship will also be held at AVEVA Stadium, with Small-College and D2 semis on December 8, and then finals as well as bowl games on December 9 and 10.
How Auburn Men's Rugby Ended Up in No Man's Land
One of the issues within American collegiate rugby, especially past the most elite teams, is how one defines a division.
For much of the history of collegiate rugby, when there’s been a divisional split, what division you’re in depends on you. You basically announce that you’re D1A (if you’re accepted), D1AA, D2, etc.
The advent of the National Small College Rugby Organization (which is now NCR and covers more than small college) created a specific metric—how many students are in your potential player pool—for qualification in each division’s playoffs.
College Fall Schedules: D1A and NCR D1
Men's D1A and NCR D1 conference schedules for the fall are here.
We're displaying these together mostly because there are a couple of conferences that include teams from both CRAA's D1A and NCR's D1. While it's generally considered true that NCR's fall D1 playoffs are not as challenging as the CRAA D1A playoffs in the spring, with the mix of teams in the Rugby East and Big 10, there's no reason to separate them in this list.
But, it might be useful to know the affiliation of each conference so fans and players can track what playoff path the teams will follow. We do not list the schedules from conferences that play in the winter/spring because those schedules aren't set yet, but we will list them in our breakdown of conferences.
Some Players to Watch at the Collegiate Shield
Thursday, July 13 brings the Collegiate Rugby Shield back to Herriman, Utah as a pre-Major League Rugby draft event.
In fact, the Shield is touting the fact that it had more players than “any other MLR Redraft Event.” While technically true, there aren’t really a lot of these so being the biggest wouldn’t be hard.
Still, 11 players who suited up for the 2022 Collegiate Shield were drafted and that’s an impressive showing.
Returning this year are coaches Tui Osborne and Ray Barkwill. Osborne will run the Canyons team and Barkwill takes over the Peaks team. Rugby ATL player Kurt Coleman is Barkwill’s assistant and Chicago Hounds player Charlie Abel will assist Osborne.
College Stars Get Close-Up Look at Sevens Eagle Life
While the USA Men's 7s team has some immediate concerns this summer, namely qualifying for the 2024 Olympics, there has to still be an eye toward the future.
The 7s program Development Camp brought in 10 players who have a shot at the USA team in the future. They aren't the only players who are in contention, however.
"We made a decision not to bring in a lot of the boys that we know a lot about," said USA Head Coach Mike Friday. Donovan and Darius Law, EJ Freeman, Will Chevalier, and Noah Brown were not there.
"We had Orrin Bizer because he's had some injuries and we had Nic Hardrict in because he's had a number of injuries that he's had to contend with, But overall we have a number of guys who we haven't had a lot of time with."
The list of the young players in camp is:
Flooding Hits West Point Rugby
The flooding in the Northeast has had a direct impact on the rugby facility at the US Military Academy at West Point.
Flash floods slammed Vermont and Upstate New York this week hitting the Hudson River Valley especially hard.
The flooding swamped the Anderson Rugby Complex at West Point just as the Army Summer Rugby Camp was to kick off. That camp has been canceled and, as you can see from the photos above, there is ample reason for that.
The Anderson Rugby Complex is downhill from much of the USMA facility and is much closer to the regular level of the Hudson River. So, logically, flooding elsewhere would surge downhill. The facility damage and the damage to the local infrastructure made holding the camp impossible.—people simple cannot get on-post.
CRAA Makes Schedule Changes
Editors Note: Some of this stuff has proven to be "to be confirmed rumors" rather than confirmed-for-sure happenings. We are working on separating the wheat from the chaffe on this and will post an update, which will also be linked in the body of this article. For now we will leave the article as initially published until we have confirmed exactly what to change.
Collegiate Rugby Association of America is making some major schedule changes for the 2023-24 season which could have wide-ranging ramifications for the college game as a whole.
The central part of the changes is the move of the D1A 7s tournament to December.
NCR Names Top Student-Athlete List
NCR Press Release—National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) named 760 student athletes as 2022-23 Scholastic All-Americans. Growing by 60% since last year, the Scholastic All-American list includes 238 women and 522 men from over 148 schools.
This annual program recognizes high performing student athletes across college rugby. To qualify as a Scholastic All-American, student athletes must maintain a 3.5 GPA or higher for the academic year and be rostered for 50% of the Fall 15s A-side matches or rostered for 50% of the A-side Spring 7s tournaments. This selective group of Scholastic All-Americans represents about 1 out of 20 student athletes competing in college rugby.
Syracuse University, Leinster Rugby Launch Partnership
Syracuse University and Leinster Rugby have entered into a partnership.
The partnership is a combined rugby and study agreement.
Through it Leinster is sending a coach to Syracuse for the next three years. Leinster Rugby will aos run a week-long rugby camp as well as a weekend coaching clinic in August.
What's notable about this agreement is that it is with the University, not the rugby club. So the school is behind the plan and sees how the rugby camps and increased rugby support can enhance the university's recruiting.
Laughs and Smiles As Sagapolu, Gray Accept their Sorensen and Scholz Trophies
Mae Sagapolu and Lewis Gray received their Washington Athletic Club trophies Saturday at a Gala event in Seattle as they were recognized as the two best collegiate rugby players in the country.
Those attending the dinner were treated to a superb speech from former 1991 World Cup winner Cassie Law about the lessons rugby taught her in her life and career. Those attending also heard a stirring recalling from Bonnie Puleo, one of Rudy Scholz's 13 grandchildren, of the struggles and challenges the USA faced in winning the 1924 Olympics rugby gold medal. MA Sorensen once again had everyone laughing with her inumpeachable insitance that props rule the world.
As for the award winners ...
New Mexico Tech Seeks Head Rugby Coach
New Mexico Tech is looking to hire a Rugby and Intramural Coordinator.
This is a full-time position with an annual salary between $38,440 and $45,680.
The position works under the direction for the Director of Recreation and Well-Being Center. The Rugby and Intramural Coordinator is responsible for providing day-to-day development and operational leadership of both the Men’s and Women’s rugby programs. The position also requires the candidate to management of university intramural activities.
