West Point and Penn State have confirmed that their men's rugby team will join the Varsity Cup as the team's post-season in the spring of 2016.

With the addition of these two long-standing programs, the Varsity Cup has now expanded to 16 teams. The list is, for the most part, based on a combination of teams strong in rugby and with a recognizable name in college sports.

With Army's joining the Varsity Cup, all three military academies are in the competition. With 16 teams in the Varsity Cup, the competition now expanded to a potential four weeks for all teams - no one gets a bye. How this series of games will fit in to the spring remains to be seen. USA Rugby is reportedly looking into finding a way to have DIA playoff games on non-Varsity-Cup weekends, thus perhaps allowing Varsity Cup teams to play in the DIA playoffs if they want.

Last year, Utah and Air Force doubled up. It remains to be seen whether any teams will do so in 2016. 

The 16 Varsity Cup teams are: BYU, Cal, Clemson, CWU, Army, Navy, Air Force, UCLA, Utah, Arizona State, Arkansas State, Univ. Notre Dame, Dartmouth, Texas, and Penn State.

BYU has won all three Varsity Cup finals so far, each time against Cal. Navy and Central Washington are the only other teams to make the semifinals. The question for the Varsity Cup going forward will be whether the organization and the schools involved can leverage the competition to get fans to their games, and some online video coverage. Currently, since none of the teams involved have to win games or put in good perforances to get into the first round of the Varsity Cup. To get further on, they do indeed need to win.

So will Army and Penn State joining the Varsity Cup make the first round more compelling? We'll see.