Men DI College Rankings Rundown
Men DI College Rankings Rundown
It wasn't as exciting a weekend of DI Men's college rugby as we would have liked - there were far too many blowouts and very few games that were really compelling.
But still there are rankings to be made, and so the Goff Rugby Report Men's DI Fall Rankings continue. We remain with a Top 40, but the two teams tied at #40, Central Florida and South Florida, were dropped. South Florida lost fairly convincingly to a Florida International team that is slowly convincing us. UCF won, but barely, over Florida State, and that wasn't enough at the moment to keep them in.
That was, in part, because Arkansas State got on the field for the fall and did enough to warrant being ranked, as the Red Wolves beat #24 Middle Tennessee State. That was an interesting result, as was #25 Western Michigan beating #12 Bowling Green. As you can imagine, WMU benefited greatly from that result. Oklahoma also got a little bump, but for the most part, no one else did. This is because there were far too few ranked-v-ranked matchups, and way too many blowouts.
As far as the conferences look, in the Northeast AIC, UMass, and Boston College will be fighting it out amonst themselves soon for the top in the ECRC. New England College has already lost to AIC, but could, with a good result somewhere along the line, get into the rankings. In the Ivy League, most still think Dartmouth is the best team there, but the Big Green are not as strong as they have been, and aren't ranked. So, logically, no one in the Ivy League is ranked. Harvard thinks they've got the goods this year - we'll see.
Colgate leads the Empire and Stony Brook is 2-0. Those two play October 3 and so that's one of the game we have circled for this coming weekend.
In Rugby East, we've got another big game as Army (3-0) will play Penn State (3-0). It's all about this game, really. And while Kutztown has just started their season and could catch both of them. Wheeling Jesuit deserves to be in the conversation as being in the top half of the Rugby East, but Iona seems to be all along in the middle. West Virginia, St. Bonaventure, and Buffalo are not strong (0-7, average score 4-49). There's a huge gap between the best three or four, and the bottom three.
The ACRL has just started, and Maryland has aspirations to catch Clemson, but Clemson has been playing very well so far, especially on defense. They shut out Atlanta Old White men's club, and shutting out a men's club is difficult because they can bring more strength and experience to the party. Clemson's scrum was also a plus.
In the Keystone, Pittsburgh has started very well, and it looks, at the moment, like it'll be Pitt, St. Joe's and upstarts JMU fighting for the conference title. It's hard to imagine anyone else will push to be ranked. Maybe Temple.
It's early days in the SCRC but the perennial teams, Tennessee and South Carolina, have started well. With LSU having moved to the Red River, Alabama has started 2-0 and looks in very good shape.
It's early days also in the Heart of America - which was super-close last year and will be again this year - Big Ten, and West DIA. In the Big Ten there were two massive blowouts, a big win, and one close one. And that weekend pretty much split the conference. Now we know that Indiana, Wisconsin, and Ohio State are strong; Michigan and Michigan State are OK, and maybe better than OK. Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Purdue all have work to do.
And in the West DIA, we've seen almost nothing, but Utah at Wyoming could be interesting.
To see the full Goff Rugby Report Fall 2015 Men's DI Rankings for the Week of September 27-Oct 2, click here.