Why is St. Thomas Not Ranked by GRR?
Why is St. Thomas Not Ranked by GRR?
St. Thomas University out of Florida is not ranked in GRR's D1AA rankings ... for now.
The reason is because it is very difficult to rank teams that don't play. So GRR is ranking a fall group, and a winter/spring group. Some teams are in conferences that play either side of the winter break, conferences such as Lonestar, Heart of America, and NCRC, might see their teams ranked now and later because they play across both sides.
But what is "play"? We at GRR decided that a team playing a few games in the fall, if those games are against strong opposition and more than just a few games, then that counts.
St. Thomas has currently played just one game. It was a good game, and we'll discuss it in a bit, but it was just the one game. When they play more, expect them to rocket up the charts.
As for the game itself, STU beat the University of Utah in Salt Lake Cit 67-10. Now, Utah is in a rebuilding phase, but this was still a strong showing on the road from a St Thomas team that is half freshmen.
Utah went up early on an interception, but Welton Charumbira started to get them back with two penalty goals. After the midway point in the first half Nokutenda Mukumba's try and the conversion fom Charumbira put STU ahead to stay. Emiliano Fernandez's try a few minutes later, also converted, made it 20-7 for the Bobcats.
"Once we got over the altitude we found our rhythm," said Head Coach Gavin McLeavy.
And they did. Tries by Mukumba, Owen Phillips, Lei Schaaf, Fernandez, and Schaaf again made it 55-10 with 20 minutes to go. Mukumba and Schaaf capped off their hat-tricks to finish off the scoring. Charumbira logged 20 points from the boot. Mathias Adams added the final conversion.
Next up for St. Thomas is the Bahamas National Team on November 9 and then they face Ohio State in a CRAA Fall Classic Bowl Game on December 8. But the major part of their schedule is the Florida DIAA season next season. Expectations are that STU will move to D1A starting in the 2025-26 season.
