National Collegiate Rugby's summer has been marked by a series of women's conferences moving to operating under NCR.
The Carolinas Conference, D1 and D2, Mid-Atlantic, and Capital Conference have all shifted to NCR. Now today the New England Wide, Tri-State, and two D2 teams from Colorado will join the organization as well. It's worth noting that New England-Wide remains a hybrid organization with their D3 playing in CRAA. This move essentially ends the existence of ACRA as an independent entity.
While GRR has fielded some complaints about NCR's recruiting tactics (specifically from Vassar Head Coach Tony Brown), ultimately, it's a logical move for these conferences. The more of these lower-division conferences move to NCR, the more logical it is for others to move over. While some conferences that play in the spring might remain with CRAA, it's clear NCR has the majority of women's collegiate rugby teams.
This was not the case last season (US Collegiate Rugby Membership By The Numbers) when NCR boasted about 47% of women's teams, but the recruiting of so many conferences and teams puts them firmly in the majority. NCR's press release says the moves are "further unifying women’s rugby under a single collegiate association" which isn't quite correct. But certainly D2 women's college rugby is now an NCR product, more or less, joining small-college. D1 is getting to that point.
