Rugby East has announced its fall conference schedule for 2025.
The conference is currently seven teams: Army West Point, Navy, Mary Washington, Mount St. Mary's, Penn State, Life University, and Southern Virginia. This allows every team to play each other in what is the toughest collegiate conference, top-to-bottom, in the country.
Over the past four seasons, a Rugby East team has made four D1A finals, with Army in 2022 and Navy in 2023 winning it all. The teams that ended up runners-up were Navy (lost to Saint Mary's in 2024) and Life (lost to Cal in 2025).
Navy vs Mary Washington opens up the conference season on September 13, and Navy will wrap it up, too, with their annual rivalry clash against Army West Point on November 15.
Rugby East does not have a playoff, and the conference champion is decided by the regular-season record. The last couple of years the Rugby East has been larger, with five other teams involved who played into a NCR postseason. Those teams, Kutztown, Walsh, Belmont Abbey, Queens, and St. Bonaventure, left over the summer and were joined by Wheeling for create a new conference within NCR.
That split allows the new Atlantic Rugby Conference to play as stand-alone NCR teams if they wish. It also allows the Rugby East to not worry so much about the NCR playoff schedule. The last week of Rugby East's schedule is the first weekend of NCR's playoffs.
