Dartmouth, Brown Vault to Top of Liberty D1

10.04.2026College Men

Dartmouth reaches 1st as October 2026 begins.

Author: Alex Goff

Dartmouth has taken over 1st in the Liberty NCR D1 after an impressive 62-22 defeat of Fordham this weekend.

With the win the Big Green is 3-0 with four-try bonus points in each game. In fact, throughout the season so far Dartmouth's attack has been explosive and relentless.

They keep the ball alive and at the same time stay strong in contact. Confident that their ballcarriers can handle the hit, the Big Green is exactly that, in support. Richard Wofford was impressive once again but it's a team effort.

Up front they were brutal and in control, and as a result they have scored at least 48 in each of their four games, totaling 211 points and giving up just 63.

Brown kept pace on wins but haven't had the bonus points. They were pushed by Siena and struggled to dominate in that match, so this week against Fairfield was a bit of a question-mark.

Liberty Rugby Conference (LRC) Men's NCR D1 Standings October 4, 2026

October 4, 2026

Liberty Rugby Conference (LRC)

"We knew after last week's lackluster performance that Fairfield would come at us, and they did," said Brown Head Coach David LaFlame. "We didn't deal with that well."

LaFlamme says the Brown team is good, but they haven't been clearly the strong team the way Dartmouth has in their matches.

"We improved in some areas from the week before, which encouraging," said LaFlamme. "We have a bunch of new guys this year working to understand how we play. Both Siena and Fairfield are stronger than in previous years, and ultimately that's good for us in our league. We just need to keep pusing ahead each week."

Next week Brown travels to UCLA for the Scholars Cup series, and that will be a very different test.

And AIC got off the schneid with a 60-0 shutout win over Syracuse. This was after a couple of close matches that didn't go their way.

So it does seem to be a four-team race in the Liberty. Fairfield is solid and sits at 2-2, dropping from 1st to 3rd with their loss. Behind them, Siena, at 2-1, is still tough and losing 21-6 to Brown last week is no failure. They have the horses to rein in teams.