Now that we're done with the collegiate 7s season, let's look at some rankings, shall we?
We are rankings the Men's D1 teams here, and in doing so we're making no distinction between DIA, DIAA, or any of those other categories (Red, DI Club ...). This is, in part, because in 7s it's kind of silly. No one doubts that Dartmouth, a program that is pretty good in DIAA 15s but not so dominant that there's a campaign to move them up, is an elite-level 7s program. In addition, the R7CC broke the DIA seal with Clemson entering their Gold Division (the reasons for that are ... well ... not germane at the moment). And the CRC doesn't care seeing as they completely broke down the divide between their DI and and DIAA in 15s, so didn't sweat it in 7s.
Fine. So we make a few extrapolations and guesses on the different levels and, fortunately, with the likes of Iowa State and South Carolina playing in R7CC Red and CRC D1 Premier, we can see how they faired crossing over (not bad, as it turned out).
As usual, we have to throw out one or two results because Team A beats Team B who beats Team C who beats Team A. So we have to look at other results. Thus, Harvard is ranked lower than Iowa State, a team they split two games with, because Harvard lost two games by very large margins while Iowa State didn't. It really can get down to that nitty gritty. Had Harvard scored a late try instead of conceding one vs Wheeling, thus making a 35-7 loss 28-14, we might have felt differently.
The #1 Ranking
We were all prepare to pick the winner of the one of the big tournaments as our #1. We didn't really care which one, but we were going to pick one. Life University played exceptionally well in Atlanta, controlled the flow of their games, for the most part, and were only tested twice, by Saint Mary's in the semis, and by Lindenwood in the final, which went to overtime.
Kutztown was in control of their games in the CRC and were only tested twice, by Dartmouth in the final, and Lindenwood in the semis, which went to overtime. You see the problem? We'd love to see Life play Kutztown, but the closest we got was when members of the Life University men's team drove to New Orleans to support their women's team on Saturday. We don't see any difference between these two (well, not true, they play markedly different styles). We have to have them tie.
And then, of course, #3 has to be Lindenwood. Their only losses were in overtime to the teams that won the major tournaments.
Saint Mary's and Dartmouth are basically tied, and really they could play each other 10 times and go 5-5. We picked Saint Mary's because we think they had a bit more in terms of weapons and also a slightly stronger list of opponents.
What About ...
Cal. What about Cal? Cal didn't play in the R7CC or CRC, so how can we rank them? Cal won the PAC 7s in the fall, and they beat UCLA at the time and we really think they would have done very well. Win? Yeah, maybe. End up ranked #1? Maybe. In the top 10 for sure and the top 5 most likely. But ... with no appearance this spring, ranking those Golden Bears is really just speculation.
And Cal Mritime? Well we could have put Cal Maritime in this list, because they had some good results. But they're a DII program, and really it seems to us that they deserve to be in that list. That won't be easy.
Key Rankings Comments
UCLA could have been the best team had they had the best collegiate 7s player, Lucas Lacamp, on their roster in Atlanta. If we were doing a speculative ranking right now for a mythical tournament in two weeks, we might choose UCLA as our #1 ... or at least #4.
UC Santa Cruz, Sam Houston State, Cal State Long Beach, Fordham, and Salisbury are all, in our opinion, about the same. Some teams have benefited from playing in both major tournaments, and in fact Penn State, Indiana, Air Force, and Sam Houston all are ranked higher now than they would have been had they only played in Atlanta.
But look at the results among these teams. Santa Cruz Beat Long Beach by two, and lost to SHSU by two. Sam Houston beat Salisbury by two and lost to them by seven. They also lost to CSULB by five. It's a group of teams that could face off multiple times and we'd have a variety of results. So argue with us if you'd like! We'd probably end up agreeing with you.
