As always, so much has happened since the last Women’s DI College Top 20, but nothing that affected the top three teams.
Penn State finished its third double-header of the season, going undefeated in the Big Ten with a 60-12 victory over next-best Indiana (read more). The Nittany Lions will play Navy before heading to the conference championship, and then will reboot for the DI Elite competition in the spring.
Central Washington and Lindenwood went on east coast tours and racked up four wins between the two of them. The Wildcats pulled away in the second half against Norwich, winning 66-17 (read more), before heading south to Quinnipiac for a 33-12 win. The Lady Lions crossed the Mason-Dixon line for a 57-0 win over Virginia Women’s Rugby (UVA) and 61-5 win over North Carolina. It was UNC’s first game of the season, and UVA rebounded with a 107-14 win over East Carolina.
There was some reorganization between spots 4 and 8, mostly due to Life’s 63-7 win over Army (read more). We think the Running Eagles are better than the team that lost to Quinnipiac on the road, but the Bobcats did win that face-off, and it wasn’t that long ago. And the Connecticut team’s 54-17 win over AIC tonight warranted the rank above Life.
But what about listing Army immediately after Life? We're not willing to condemn the Black Knights on this one result - as vexing as it is - and they're still performing better than AIC, Norwich, and onward. Army plays Norwich and Quinnipiac before the end of the month, so we'll know whether to handle that big loss as an anomaly or something less optimistic.
Norwich and Notre Dame College might have slipped a spot if any other team was showing a notable uptick in play, but it hasn’t happened yet. We're certainly impressed with Dartmouth's undefeated record in the Ivies (read more), but we're relying on scores against Quinnipiac to sort out that trio. Remember, we won't have to make these assumptions after Nov. 22, when the first varsity championship concludes.
The only teams we were compelled to promote were Indiana, which put up a decent fight against Penn State and beat the rest of the Big Ten handily; UConn, which is undefeated in the Northeast; and Minnesota, which is taking the #1 seed to Midwest playoffs after a thrilling 26-19 win over Iowa State last weekend. New Mexico needed to plummet after its loss to BYU, which is why UNC settled in at #17.
| Women DI College Fall Top 20 - Oct. 22, 2015 | ||||
| Rank | Old | Team | Record | Notes |
| 1 | 1 | Penn State | 8-0 | Defeated DII club champion Pitt Angels 29-14, Indiana 60-12 |
| 2 | 2 | Central Wash. | 5-0 | Defeated Norwich 66-17 and Quinnipiac 33-12 |
| 3 | 3 | Lindenwood | 6-1 | Defeated UVA 57-0, UNC 61-5 |
| 4 | 5 | BYU | 3-0 | Defeated New Mexico 90-5 |
| 5 | 6 | Quinnipiac | 6-2 | Lost 33-12 to Central Washington, defeated AIC 54-21 |
| 6 | 8 | Life | 2-1 | Defeated Army 63-7 |
| 7 | 4 | Army | 4-3 | Defeated AIC 19-17, lost to Life 63-7 |
| 8 | 7 | AIC | 3-4 | Lost 19-17 to Army, 54-21 v Quinnipiac |
| 9 | 9 | Norwich | 2-4 | Lost 66-17 to Central Washington |
| 10 | 10 | Notre Dame Coll. | 3-2 | Lost to DII Davenport 26-12 |
| 11 | 11 | Dartmouth | 4-1 | Defeated Harvard 20-15 |
| 12 | 12 | Brown | 4-2 | Lost 53-7 to Quinnipiac |
| 13 | 15 | Indiana | 3-3 | Lost 60-12 to Penn State |
| 14 | 17 | UConn | 6-0 | Defeated URI 27-5 |
| 15 | 13 | UVA | 3-1 | Lost 57-0 to Lindenwood, defeated East Carolina 107-14 |
| 16 | 16 | Harvard | 3-2 | Lost 20-15 to Dartmouth |
| 17 | 19 | North Carolina | 0-1 | Lost 61-5 to Lindenwood |
| 18 | unr | Minnesota | 4-0 | Defeated Iowa State 26-19 |
| 19 | 14 | New Mexico | 1-1 | Lost 90-5 to BYU |
| 20 | 20 | Central Florida | 0-0 | Idle until Oct. 31 |
