With Texas A&M winning the Red River 7s this past weekend, we are a little closer to figuring out who is in the 24-team Men’s DI College 7s Championships in Denver.

Of the 21 qualifier tournaments, one, the Southwest Conference 7s, remains. However, of the 20 qualifier winners so far, nine will instead attend the CRC invitational in Chester, Pa. 

So there seems to be plenty of room for at-large teams. Not only are there at-large teams, there may well be at-large tournaments. Namely, the Las Vegas Invitational, while not a qualifier for USA Rugby’s tournament, was an excellent meeting of top teams, and as such a good gauge as what teams that ended up playing a lot of 15s in the spring could compete on the 7s levee.

So … qualified and expected to attend:

AIC

Air Force

Arkansas

Bowling Green

Central Florida

CWU

Miami

Nevada

San Diego State

Texas A&M

West Virginia

SWC 7s Winner

Places taken: 13

Places open: 11

There are 21 qualifier tournaments, so we can’t just pick the second-place teams from those events. However, eight second-place teams can be eliminated because they either are repeat runners up (Arizona State, Sac State), already qualified (Bowling Green), or are going to the CRC (Cal, BC, Temple, Clemson, Texas).

So that leaves 13 available runners-up: 

Arizona State, Sacramento State, Western Washington, Yale, Georgia Tech, Kansas State, St. Bonaventure, Colorado State, Wisconsin, Stony Brook, Missouri, Mississippi State, and whichever team finished second in the SWC.

Of these, Arizona State, Sacramento State, St. Bonaventure (ACRC 7s Plate Winners), Colorado State, and Stony Brook probably have the strongest case. Western Washington certainly would be a strong candidate, and Mississippi State would be, as well, and they definitely want to go.

There are teams that didn’t come 2nd in a tournament that deserve a look, such as Utah, which did well in the PAC Conference 7s, and also in the LVI, and Lindenwood, which won the Plate in the LVI and was a shade unlucky not to be higher.

That still leaves two more spots. 

... Update. We're probably going to have to expand our definition of at-large tournaments. Namely, there are two teams that have played zero 7s this spring at all, but because they finished well in the last national championships. That would be Life University, which took the Plate in 2013, and St. Mary's, which finished 2nd to Arkansas State. Now, St. Mary's played 7s in the fall, but used a lot of younger players.

Is performance at the last nationals enough? Word from various sources is ... quite possibly.