After the national semifinals and final we spent some time looking at past results and crossover results and tried to go at our rankings with an eye to taking them apart.
It was difficult. The comparable results hold up after the final games—We don't have anyone closer to Principia than IUP, for example. So we make two changes. Obviously Principia goes to #1 and IUP drops to #2 ... but no further. We had NC State at #4 and Vermont at #3 because Vermont lost to IUP by only three points. We could well have left it at that, because NC State lost to IUP by seven. However, NC State won the #3 game well, and really that semifinal could have gone either way.
So we move NC State up to #3. And while we are impressed with Loyola's season this year, and realize their 3rd-4th game was played with some serious injury issues, in the end Vermont got so close to IUP that we have to leave them at #4. And Norwich, which lost to NC State by two points, remains at #5. It's never a fait accompli that the top four in the playoffs retain a top four ranking—the path to the semifinals winds too drastically for that.
The one team we're just not sure about it Northern Iowa. UNI played well this season but their two playoff games carried large-scale winning margins, one a victory for Northern Iowa and one a loss. We're kind of splitting the difference here, and it's possible, given how everyone lost big to Principia, that UNI should be as high as #8. We put them at #11.
The Goff Rugby Report Rankings are brought to you by Next Phase Rugby. This app, downloadable at NextPhaseRugby.Com, is useful even for small, D2, and club college teams. These teams can download the app and set up a team profile—you may not have money or admission tags, but you can talk about your school's academics, your team culture, and your coaching. those are all things high school rugby players want to know about.
Finally, we will revisit these rankings at the end of the spring. There are some D2 teams that play outside of NCR and in the spring. It will be very difficult to integrate those teams into these rankings, but we will make the attempt.
