Most college rugby programs will be idle or mostly idle this fall, but a few are active, and they all have to adjust to the COVID world we live in.

"With no contact we're working a lot on skills that don't require contact," said Lindenwood Men's Head Coach Josh Macy. "We'll probably be a lot better on ball skills and skills not related to contact."

Lindenwood has brought in alumnus Jimmy Harrison, USA Rugby's Performance Analyst, to help with players in analyzing their performance over some Zoom calls. Having that kind of resource is a nice boon to the Lions program, and gives Macy a chance to get a bit more analytical this fall. Still, as time goes on the players (and other students) will be able to interact more.

First day of virtual classes and excited to see students on campus! Was even more excited to see a new food truck up by the pavilion on Heritage campus...and they're taking food swipes so swing by and say hello and get some tacos for lunch! pic.twitter.com/kd3anqFR6Z

— Lindenwood Lions (@LU_Lions) August 24, 2020

At Iowa Central CC, the team was divided into cohorts of four to six players. Those players used the same balls and did their work before wiping down pads and other surfaces. The team has 12 small groups, four working at any one time, once in the morning and once in the afternoon during the preseason.

The cohorts ate meals together and the team followed protocols from mask-wearing and social distancing to temperature taking.

School has now begun at Iowa CCC, and those smaller groups now have moved to larger groups as the preseason has morphed into regular on-campus time.

Classes start relatively early for the Tritons, while other programs have the luxury of a little more time to see what's going on. At Life University, the players move in on September 8. The plan there is to work on Strength & Conditioning in small groups. Then they will progress into larger groups. Cariaga said he hopes the Running Eagles might scare up a game or two late in the fall.

"We had some out-of-state stuff scheduled but those are basically off—teams were hesitant from both sides," said Head Coach Colton Cariaga.

So you see three similar approaches—small groups, find ways to do something without making it a big pile of rugby players—but also different approaches—individual skills versus small-group team work versus strength and conditioning.