We wrap up our All-D1 Fall ranking and it's been a bit of an experiment.
The longtime conventional wisdom has been that there's some crossover between D1A and D1AA teams (meaning some D1AA teams are stronger than some D1A teams). And with the development of NCR's D1, which includes teams that play in D1A conferences, that's also thought to be true.
But while that was shown to be true December 3 with Kentucky beating Colorado State, it was also shown to be not so true a week later with Virginia Tech winning NCR's D1AA playoffs after going winless in the Rugby East.
For the most part, this All-D1 ranking has told us that splitting up D1 and D1AA in rankings is probably the right way to go from now on.
We do end up moving Virginia Tech and Kentucky up several spots because of their results, and they are ranked ahead of some D1A or NCR D1 teams. But overall there's a separation.
Our biggest mover near the top is, of course, Brown, which goes to #7 from #14 after beating St. Bonaventure and Queens to win NCR's D1 championship. Bowl game wins for Ohio State and University of Notre Dame move them up, and because of Virginia Tech's success we also move up some Rugby East teams.
Look for the winter-spring rankings in the New Year, but we will likely separate them and keep them separated.
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(We have a small change in the rankings since our initial posting after a sorting error got fixed.)
