A terrific result for Wheeling moves the Cardinals up and Marian putting a scare into Bonnies also gives the Knights a boost.
As we talked about, there is still a bit of wait-and-see for some teams, and this early in the season, if you're idle, it's tough to hold onto a place. For Kutztown, that was unfortunate, because it wasn't their fault that they didn't play. It is a serious issue for Thomas More and we need to see them suit up. Canceling this past weekend dropped them out of the Top 20.
Aquinas put in a nice win over Michigan, and Siena also won, defeating Syracuse, and that was enough to bring them in the Top 20. Is Notre Dame a house of cards? At the moment, maybe. We won't see them really challenged until September 26 against Dartmouth. Win, or come close, then, and that solidifies a higher ranking.
This coming weekend, some games that could really shake these rankings up:
Marian at Walsh
Kutztown at Queens—we do think Kutztown is improved at 15s, and this is a chance to show it.
Fairfield at Dartmouth
Fordham at Brown
Speaking of Brown. Be careful what's posted on social media when it comes to some games. When two teams play a scrimmage or an open subs game, we here at GRR work hard to find that out. Brown's supposed win vs Army on Sunday was a scrimmage with lots of subs. Brown's coaching staff said as much and was clear with GRR that this wasn't the two programs' top sides squaring off.
But you did see some online graphics saying "Brown beats Army." Yeah, no, didn't happen.
One of the things we need in rugby is for strong college teams to select based on their opposition or for them to play scrimmages and game where the result doesn't matter. But then you've got to give some context to the scoreline. When a team like Lindenwood plays St. Louis University, and SLU wins, that's because Lindenwood ran out a very young side against them (which is something Lindenwood would do to make it more useful for their opposition).
You don't then spike the football.
So, back to Brown. We don't criticize the Brown coaching staff because they were up front about this Army match. But Brown's Instagram post on this meeting is quite misleading. And for the purposes of ranking, it's not relevant.
