Over 40 Men's D1 College Games This Weekend

Despite some cancelations and postponements, we've got Men's D1 rugby going and this week we've got over 40 games in DIA, DIAA, and NCR DI.

DIA

Ohio State comes off a really tough-to-take loss to Indiana where they had control of most of the set piece, but couldn't quite hold off a dynamic IU squad. They get to take out their frustrations on Michigan Friday night.

Also on Friday, Utah Valley comes in riding high from a 50-5 defeat of Utah State that saw them move to 1-0 in the Rocky Mountain. The reward for that is the ten-minute drive to play BYU.

Much will be known about the Big Ten after this weekend. Can Purdue (0-1 in Big Ten) turn improved efforts into results? If they beat Michigan State (0-0) at East Lansing, then they will be a team to watch. If Michigan State wins, well it's MSU that could make a charge for the top two.

Illinois (2-0 in Big Ten) has the same aspirations, and gets to test them out at Indiana (2-0). An Illini win there will shake up the  conference for certain.

Elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain, Colorado State is at Air Force and Wyoming at Colorado. We don't really know where all these teams stand. CSU at Air Force is a game to watch.

In the Rugby East, Army is at a St. Bonaventure team that almost overhauled Navy last week (lost 21-17). Penn State is at Kutztown, and KU has shown well against a short slate of men's clubs. Penn State has a close win over Mary Washington and a big win over a rebuilding Delaware. So ... really ... this has told us nothing. 

NCR DI

Columbia already canceled against Brown, which is too bad because Brown wants to keep that momentum going. As we reported this past week, the Chesapeake, normally the tightest and most competitive of conference, is now split between the teams that bridged the COVID shutdown and the teams that didn't. We're interested to see how Southern Virginia looks after having to postpone their opener two weeks ago.

SVU travels to Mary Washington, who could be the conference favorite.

The MARC opens up and this conference could supplant the Chesapeake as the most competitive. These teams all have the same challenges and similar rosters and student bodies. So in the end it's about who could keep the enthusiasm going.

In Liberty, Boston College vs UConn is the game that has the most questions about it (OK, one question, who's better?). Northeastern and Fairfield are favored. Nazareth vs Binghamton is worth a look too.

DIAA

Clemson looked very impressive over Alabama last week and Georgia is an upstart team. Watch out for that in the SCRC. The MAC has three really nice games headlined by perennial rivals Western Michigan and Bowling Green meeting at BGSU. There is a history of one team winning the regular-season game only to lose the conference final. And in addition, in 2019 Bowling Green won the MAC final over WMU but it was Western Michigan that made the national DIAA final.

The Heart of America sees a big early game with Missouri at Kansas. 

We list Wheeling at NDC here as well as up top because it's two different things ... a DIA non-conference game for NDC and an independant DIAA game for Wheeling. 

Check back for scores.