D1 College Rugby Games 9-11 Weekend

D1A, D1AA and NCR's D1 divisions are all in action this coming weekend.

We received the final Liberty Conference schedules last night (thank you Liberty Conference) and that's a big chunk of the NCR D1 schedule right there. Now, of course, just to make things more complicated, most of Rugby East appears to have opted to be members of both CRAA and NCR. So we can talk about an NCR competition, but there's also CRAA's D1A, which is separate.

Who Plays Where and How? Our College Rugby Update

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NCR DI

Tonight's clash between Fordham and Iona could be an interesting one, what with Fordham showing so impressively against Syracuse a week ago. Southern Virginia vs Mount St. Mary's has been called off due to a positive COVID case. But the other Chesapeake Conference game, Queens University at NC State, is still on. These two teams last met in the Cardinals Conference playoffs in the fall of 2018; NC State won 24-7 and went on to take the conference and US championships, while Queens took 3rd, and then won it all in 2019.

Now they're in DI and writing a new chapter to their rivalry.

Also worth a look—Fairfield lost their opener but were close with Iona, and could put a worry into Boston College. New varsity program Nazareth out of Rochester, NY opens its account against an always physical SUNY Brockport.

DIAA

The Lonestar Conference has the Dust to Rust tournament which is a warmup for the regular season, and a chance for these teams to see what they have. Bowling Green, which started its season in impressive fashion last week over Michigan. Now the Falcons open their conference season against Ohio. The game we're looking at closely is IUPUI (close losers to Purdue) vs Western Michigan (close losers to Notre Dame).

CRAA DIA

We've been saying Purdue is better than some might expect, and they did beat IUPUI last week. Not here's a test, as the Boilermakers, this year's upstarts, take on 2019's upstarts in Illinois. Here's hoping Air Force at Navy comes off (these games have been tough for Air Force for various reasons out of their control). This is the Lt. Col. Kevin Shea Cup challenge match.

Notre Dame College is at Army on Sunday and that's a another rivalry-of-respect. NDC often has military vets in their student body and a lot of students there look for careers in the military or in law enforcement. There's a connection there, especially this weekend. 

New Mexico at Colorado will be a curtain-raiser of sorts for USA vs Canada, played at Infinity Park (but not in the stadium). Colorado is favored, but this is a guesswork year.