GRR on X  GRR on Facebook GRR in Instagram GRR Vimeo Library GRR on YouTube RuggaMatrix America Podcasts Support GRR on Patreon

Men D2 College Rankings 2024 Week 9

irish rugby tours

Men D2 College Rankings 2024 Week 9

Towson moves up after an upset win. Photo Grant Smith Media.

Well we've been complaining about it most of the season ...

Whine, whine, whine ... no upsets, no surprises. Well then there was this past weekend.

OK, to be fair, there weren't a ton of upsets, but we did get three worth noting: Salisbury beat Virginia, an upset we thought we might see. Towson beat Scranton, which was an upset we should have seen as a possibility, and kind of thought about it, but didn't say anything. Chicago beat Marquette, which was an upset we didn't think would happen at all, and, again, should have seen it coming.

So that's #16 over #9, #17 over #8, and #28 over #18. What we've done with that is basically move those winning teams up and the losing teams down, but we're mindful that all of the games were fairly close (winning margins of 11, 5, and 9). Towson and Salisbury move up four spots, whole the teams they beat move down nine. Chicago moves up seven spots while Marquette drops six.

The reason Virginia and Scranton move so far down is that many of the teams in the top 17 spots won. In fact, of those teams, one was idle, one won by forfeit, and 13 won ... the only teams to lose were UVA and Scranton. Should we tell Montana State or Mankato they need to drop down? Seems a bit harsh at this point in the season.

Another question we dealt with was RPI. They lost on a last-second penalty goal to #6 Marist. We used the closeness of this game to nudge Marist down to #8, which is where we think they really are. But should RPI move down also? In many such cases a team like that, ranked #19 and losing by 3 points to #6, would move up. But we don't think we can move RPI past those teams that won conference playoff games, or even Scranton and UVA (there's a limit to how far down we bump them). And with the Liberty semis and final coming up, RPI still has a chance to make some gains. So they end up dropping one spot because we moved Northwestern from #27 to #19. We're not thrilled about it, but there it is.

Rk. Prev. College Team Conference Notes
1 1 IUP (PA) Allegheny Beat Western Kentucky
2 2 Memphis (TN) SCRC Beat MTSU
3 3 Northern Iowa (IA) Great MW Beat Benedictine
4 5 Vermont (VT) NACR Beat Coast Guard (26)
5 4 UNC-Wilmington (NC) Southern Beat Coastal Carolina (29)
6 7 GVSU (MI) Great Lakes Beat Central Michigan (32)
7 12 Villanova (PA) MARC Beat Bucknell
8 6 Marist (NY) Liberty Beat RPI (19)
9 10 Norwich (VT) NACR Beat UMass-Lowell (22)
10 11 Georgetown (DC) MARC Forfeit win
11 13 MSU Mankato (MN) Northern Lights Beat UMD (35)
12 16 Salisbury (MD) MARC Beat Virginia (9)
13 17 Towson (MD) MARC Beat Scranton (17)
14 14 SLU (MO) Gateway  
15 15 Montana State (MT) High Peaks Beat Colorado Mesa (31)
16 21 Loyola (IL) Great MW Beat Illinois State (37)
17 8 Scranton (PA) MARC Cose loss to Towson (17)
18 9 Virginia (VA) Cardinals Close loss to Salisbury (16)
19 27 Northwestern (IL) Great MW Beat UW-Whitewater (24)
20 19 RPI (NY) Liberty Close loss to Marist (6)
21 28 Chicago (IL) Great MW Beat Marquette (18)
22 20 New Hampshire (NH) NACR  
23 23 Southern Illinois (IL) Gateway Beat Washington U.
24 18 Marquette (WI) Great MW Lost to Chicago (28)
25 22 UMass-Lowell NACR Lost to Norwich (10)
26 31 Colorado Mesa (CO) High Peaks Lost to Montana State (15)
27 24 UW-Whitewater (WI) Great MW Lost to Northwestern (27)
28 25 UMBC (MD) MARC  
29 26 Coast Guard (CT) NACR Lost to Vermont (5)
30 29 Coastal Carolina (SC) Southern Lost to UNC-W (4)
31 30 East Carolina Southern  
32 32 Central Michigan (MI) Great Lakes Lost to GVSU (7)
33 33 Maine (ME) NACR Beat Boston University
34 34 NDSU (SD) Northern Lights Beat SDSU
35 35 UM-Duluth (MN) Northern Lights Lost to Mankato (13)
36 37 Illinois State (IL) Great MW Lost to Loyola (21)
37 39 Albany (NY) Liberty Beat RIT
38 40 Ferris State (MI) Great Lakes Beat Calvin
39 36 Kent State (OH) Allegheny  
40 38 Miami (OH) Allegheny