We field the question about "what is going on which this NCR/CRAA/D1A/D1/D1AA thing?" a lot.
In one sense it's pretty simple. There are two levels of D1. Colleges that are generally D1 in most sports, but have club teams in rugby (even if they are well-supported) are D1AA. Look at the college football Top 25 and you'll find 11 of those schools are D1AA in rugby, seven are D2, and only three are NCR D1, while four are D1A. Of those NCR D1 and D1A teams, only one, BYU, has any sort of special status on-campus, and that's an Extramural Sport, which is a level between club and varsity.
Then with NCR D1, those are school-supported teams or club teams that just want to compete at that next level. CRAA D1A is the same. Although it's worth noting that many "school-supported" teams are actually supported by their own endowment. Of the D1A Top 25, nine are what you'd call Varsity or school-supported. Nine are club but elevated either in funding or some special on-campus status, and seven are club teams.
In GRR's NCR D1 Top 20, 13 are school-supported, and three are some sort of elevated club status (which sometimes just means the school isn't actively undercutting what they're trying to do.)
We had an interesting comparison between elevated club teams this past weekend with UCLA (CRAA D1A) edging Indiana (NCR D1) 28-27 in Los Angeles. That was fun to see and despite it being the first run-out for the Bruins, was a fairly reasonable measurement of where these two teams are.
This week UCLA is playing in the West Coast 7s, while Indiana opens their Big 10 Conference season with a clash against Wisconsin.
More About This Week
The Holiday weekend has quieted down some of the teams, but in D1A the games to watch in our opinion are Penn State at Mount St. Mary's—PSU is much improved and will be a handful for a good MSM side. And the other one is Arkansas State at St. Thomas. This is STU's first foray into D1A. ASU is making the trip to Miami (good for them), and this should be a barnburner.
In NCR D1, we have the Big Rivers season moving apace. (Please note in the standings below that we have Adrian at 0-3. These are phantom games as Adrian has forfeited their season. That's too bad as it reduces the Big Rivers West teams to two conference games each. The remaining teams have already augmented their seasons, but it's a shame when they have a vacant weekend that could have been filled.) Iowa Central vs Aquinas is now a Big Rivers West decider.
Brown plays AIC, which always pushes them. Fairfield is handing in there in the Liberty.
Fairfield's offense is pretty potent. Tommy Morales scored four tries for Fairfield last week against Fordham and was defensively impressive as well. Wings Louie Sdao and Aaron Traynor are dangerous on the edge, too, while Brendan McLane has been teally strong at scrumhalf and scored twice, which is just reward. This is a team you can't sleep on.
To help you figure out some stuff, here's a look at the standings in NCR D1 and D1A (Big 10 mixes them, by the way).
D1AA
We've got Sam Houston State's game listed vs Texas State, but there are off-field issues at SHSU so we're concerned about them. The big game may be Babson at Yale in the Liberty, or, more likely, Clemson hosting South Carolina for an SCRC East semifinal decider.
The teams in the Northwest get going. Washington is improving and would love to surprise Western Washington. The new-look Central Washington club opens their season against the Seattle Rugby Club.
