Saturday sees the women’s brackets in the CRC kick off and it’s a wild mix of 16 teams, many of which are varsity programs.

Keep an eye on Lander, which has hardly put a foot wrong this season. They take on Notre Dame College in their last event as a varsity program. Repeat NIRA DIII 15s champs Bowdoin faces repeat NCR D1 15s champs Michigan in a really interesting first-round game. Michigan has a ton of pace and understanding of space, but Bowdoin is very well coached and talented to boot. It’s a pick ‘em.

Here’s how we see the first round:

D1 Premier

Brown vs Minnesota
West Chester vs Southern Nazarene

Brown is heavily favored in this round as they are fast, can bust through tackles, and work well together. They have gone 12-5 in 7s this spring losing to Dartmouth twice, Harvard once, and Canadian sides Trinity Western and Tsunami Misfits once each. 

SNU could well take the other game as they bring a team of athletes mostly from Oklahoma and Kansas that run hard and score.

Navy vs Virginia Tech
Penn State vs New Haven

This is a bit of pick ‘em group but in the end Navy just might have the edge over a very tenacious VT side. Penn State is probably favored over New Haven.

Army vs Northeastern
Lander vs NDC

Do not count out Northeastern. In last year’s CRAA D1 tournament they won it all and they can do some damage here. Army might be building toward the CRAA event in May, but they did win the AIC tournament back in March.

Landed, as we noted, has enjoyed a very good spring, winning the Tropical 7s U23 Open division. They haven’t lost a game in 7s so far.

Bowdoin vs Michigan
AIC vs Mount St. Mary’s

As we said, Bowdoin vs Michigan may be the game of the 1st round. They play at 9:10 in the stadium so make a note to catch that one. AIC vs MSM is a bit of a pick ‘em as both sides have 7s ability. 

DI Club

Clemson vs Boston College
Iowa vs West Virginia

St. Bonaventure vs Oregon
Boise State vs Iowa State

Northern Iowa vs North Carolina
Florida State vs Claremont Colleges

UConn vs Montana State
Ohio State vs James Madison

Many, many questions on this and because there’s not a ton of crossover among these teams we’re not going to do too many predictions. Teams we think will do well: Claremont Colleges—one of the best open-field teams you haven’t seen; Iowa State—not physically big but they have speed and enough power to win rucks; UConn should make it to the semis, we think, and Clemson won this bracket last year—they’ve been in good form again this year.