Big Ten Sets Schedule, Makes Changes
The Big Ten Universities conference has released its schedule for the fall of 2022.
The Conference has a new commissioner in Joe Rasmus, and a slightly new format as the conference is looking to expand. University of Notre Dame, not technically a Big Ten University but certainly a school that has a long history with Big Ten schools, has joined the conference. Rasmus said he is looking to bring more Big Ten schools into the fold over time, and as a result the conference has been split into East and West divisions, making the prospect of travel for some of the colleges a little less daunting.
The conference in its current format was founded in 2012 with the advent of D1A Rugby. The Big Ten and D1A remain aligned in their mission.
Indiana On a Roll, and Wants to Stay There
It's been a pretty long season for the University of Indiana.
After starting the 15s season in August with a coaching change, the Hoosiers ran through a tough Big 10 season, taking the #1 seed out of the regular season into the final, where they were edged by Ohio State.
Ohio State Comeback Highlights Big Ten Finals Day
Then IU got right back into business, playing in and winning almost every tournament they entered through the snowy March and rainy, windy April.
Big 10 Names All-Conference Sevens Selections
The Big 10 Conference has named its all-conference 7s players following a full series of tournaments through the spring.
Indiana, which won the conference championship and was relatively dominant throughout, leads the conference with four players on the 1st team, including conference MVP Will Chevalier, and two more on the 2nd team.
In addition, Indiana 7s head Coach David Fee has been named Coach of the Season.
Conference MVP
Will Chevalier - Indiana
Coach of the Season
David Fee - Indiana
Big 10 All-Conference 7s Team 1st team
Forwards
Noah Brown - Indiana
Aidan King - Penn State
Patrick Murtaugh - Indiana
Backs
Will Chevalier - Indiana
Vince Carso - Ohio State
Dalton Musselman - Penn State
Case Fleck - Indiana
Indiana Rolls to Win in Big 10 Series Stop at Purdue
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The eight teams of the Big Ten plus Notre Dame made their way to Purdue for Leg Two of the 2022 Big Ten 7s Series. Indiana sat atop the standings after week one in Champaign.
The pool draw placed the Hoosiers with Wisconsin as well as hosts and local rivals, Purdue. Indiana cruised through to the championship semi-finals with two comfortable wins. The hosts beat Wisconsin and did just enough on point differential to beat out other 1-1 teams for the 4th Seed in the championship bracket.
The second pool featured Michigan, Michigan State, and Penn State. The Nittany Lions were heavily favored and emerged 2-0. Point differential gave Penn State the top seed in the championship bracket and a semifinal match up with Purdue. Michigan knocked off the rival Spartans for a higher seed in the consolation bracket.
Indiana Opens Big 10 7s Season With Win
For the first time since Spring, 2019, the Big Ten Universities Rugby Conference assembled for a league 7s tournament.
The players have changed since COVID – Minnesota has left the conference while Penn State has joined (for 7s only).
Penn State to Join Big Ten Conference for Sevens Season
The Big Ten sides—Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Purdue, Ohio State, and Wisconsin—were joined by out-of-conference challengers, Dayton, Kentucky, and Northwestern.
The men from the University of Illinois had the honor of hosting the first leg of this year’s Big Ten series.
Penn State to Join Big Ten Conference for Sevens Season
The Big Ten Universities Rugby Conference has admitted Penn State to its Spring 7s competition.
This is a big move for Big Ten University Rugby as it helped elevate the standard of competition with addition of one of the top programs in the country.
(There are actually 14 universities that are part of the NCAA Big 10 conference, including the seven teams that currently play in the BTU rugby conference, as well as Penn State.)
Member programs have expressed their excited about the addition of the Nittany Lions, saying it will motivate and drive athletes across the conference to achieve ever higher standards.
“We’re excited for Penn State to join the league," said University of Michigan Captain George Janke. "It raises the quality of our competition, and further legitimizes the Big Ten as a top destination for college rugby.”
Top D1A Players of the Fall: The Backs Twenty-eight players are listed in Goff Rugby Reports top D1A backs of the fall. This listing only includes players from declared D1A teams—those that were committed to NCR competition will get their due soon. Support Goff Rugby Report. Become a Patreon Patron or make an anonymous donation to help us do what we do! Thanks to everyone who has already supported us! Go here to learn more about how to help out>> Our listing is based on recommendations, what we saw with our own eyes, video evidence, and the judgment of other observers. We are listing only players from teams that competed in a meaningful way in the fall. So even though they played some this fall, players from Life, Lindenwood, UCLA, Grand Canyon, Cal Poly, and Saint Mary's will have to wait until the spring.
GRR Men Small-College Challenge Cup Rankings Fall 2021
The Challenge Division of NCR's Men's Small College competition is a strange one if you think of Small College as one division, but if you instead think of the Cohen Cup as DIII and the Challenge Cup as DIV it makes a bit more sense. With all of that in mind, we decided to take a stab at rankings the Challenge Cup teams. We looked at results, asked some experts (who also asked some experts), and used our own observations of games played at the NCR Championships as elsewhere. This is what we have.
Teams of the Fall: Army
The best men’s college team of the fall is West Point.
There is really no argument here. Their only loss was when they fielded a very different lineup from the one they normally fielded. In the rest of their games, including five conference matches, non-conference games against Queens and Air Force, and, tellingly, a 26-17 victory over Lindenwood, they were victorious.
Head Coach Matt Sherman has found a group that is pretty special. Army always plays hard, but they don’t always play smart, and can get caught up in the intensity of a game rather than the chess match. That almost happened with Navy, a team they beat in dramatic style at FedEx Field but a team the Black Knights felt they should have beaten by more.
Until Lindenwood, they dismissed everyone else, save Dartmouth, in convincing fashion, winning those other six games by an average score of 46-16.
Top D1A Players of the Fall: The Forwards
We're coming on to some end-of-year awards and recognition, and today we unleash our impact players from D1A this past fall.
Now, this is of course a complex listing because there are many teams that used to be un D1A but are now NCR D1, and there are some teams that are both. We have decided to limit our listing here to players on teams not exclusively in NCR (so no St. Bonaventure players, for example).
There will be another list for those guys. We're trying to divide players based on distinct competitions, but it's difficult in that Penn State is listed under both, so, yes, it's complex.
Teams of the Fall: Illinois State and Northern Iowa
The men's DII college season was marked by the emergence and growth of several varsity and school-supported programs, and that emergence might obscure the accomplishments of some of the more traditional club teams.
With five of the final eight in the DII playoffs being varsity or school-supported teams, and three of those teams making the final four, we think it's worth recognizing those that made it to the prominence as club teams.
We're going to look closely at two of those teams for two different reasons—Illinois State and Northern Iowa.
Almost 100 Age-Grade Men in Camp with USA Rugby
For the first time since 2019, USA Rugby High Performance Pathways will host its annual Winter Camp, bringing 97 men’s players to the U.S. Olympic Training Site in Chula Vista, CA from December 27 to January 2.
Winter Camp 2021 will invite some of the best U18, U20 and U23 male athletes to train and compete across the week under the guidance of a robust roster of high performance staff. The annual assembly typically serves as a primary touchpoint for players within the Junior National Team pipeline, increasing development and scouting opportunities for senior national teams going into the new year.
Final D1A Rankings of Fall of 2021
The final D1A rankings for the fall of 2021 have been released with Cal remaining at #1, but with Army making a move.
West Point finished the fall 8-1, with their only loss a 21-10 decision to Dartmouth in which Army rested some regular starters. For some voters, this result was enough to keep Army from being #1—that along with what voters expect will come out of Berkeley this season. In addition, while Saint Mary's hasn't played much, the Gaels have played a bit, and beating Life University was enough to ensure they hand onto #2.
With Ohio State finishing off their fall with a solid victory over Air Force, Indiana, which split their games with the Buckeyes, nudged upward.
Fans Can Nominate Players for the Rudy Scholz Award
Fans can now submit their own suggestions for nominees for the Rudy Scholz Award, given each year to the top Men's Collegiate player in US rugby.
The Rudy Scholz Award is named after two-time rugby gold-medalist Rudy Scholz, who played at Santa Clara and was decorated for his service in two world wars before going on to a successful legal career. The award been presented with the support of the Washington Athletic Club of Seattle, Wash. since 2016. The winners of that award have gone on to represent the USA in 15s—Dylan Audsley (2016), Bryce Campbell ('17), and Harley Wheeler ('19). In addition, 2018 award-winner Connor McNerney became an officer in the United States Navy, while recent winners Peyton Telea Ilalio and Emmanuel Albert are just coming out of college.
Now you can have a hand in picking the 2022 winner. Simply fill out the simple form below.
Player Spotlight: Tavius Sykora Matthess, Iowa Central CC
In these pages you’ll have seen our support for the Bowl Game concept, because we believe it provides nice closure to a fall pr spring season, and it offers teams a chance to play opponents they don’t normally see.
But it also is a selfish thing, because we at GRR see teams, and players, in new circumstances, and that helps us rank teams or spotlight talent. Today, we spotlight talent. In the Bowl Game December 11 between Iowa Central CC and Wheeling, we couldn’t help but notice Tavius Sykora-Matthess.
