The Liberty Conference’s flirtation with its own, standalone collegiate organization wasn’t for nothing, despite the fact that the idea has changed into the group joining NCR.

Because what the short-lived USCRO concept mapped out for Liberty was a consensus on how to move forward. The teams in the Liberty had come together on issues such as teams dues (they were fine with the old D1A fee of $2,000 per team and had added $500 per team for conference stuff), eligibility (specifics to be worked out, but generally students would have five years to play five years of rugby, no waivers), and some form of age cutoff.

Liberty Conference Joins NCR

This worked because the Liberty teams are quite similar in many ways. They are serious rugby teams that are, with a few exceptions, club teams on campus. Their players are students first and foremost, but students who want a challenging season. 

And they want to play 15s in the fall, with bowl games and playoffs at the end of it, and 7s in the winter and spring, with a major event, or two, at the end of it. They are willing to pay money to get games on ESPN+, and have carried the banner of the concept of bowl games for years.

National Collegiate Rugby (NCR, formerly NSCRO) allowed them to do all of that with a little organization heft behind it.

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“We contemplated striking out on our own,” said Andrew Gheraldi, who coaches Fordham and is the conference commissioner. “But at that time we didn’t expect NCR to get into the Division 1 game.”

Either way, the Liberty teams were going to separate from DIA and its parent organization, the CRAA.

“No hard feelings with the CRAA,” said Gheraldi. “We are just in a different place from a mission standpoint and a vision standpoint. At our AGM we adopted a mission of fall 15s and spring 7s. We embraced bowls and ran a really good event. It wasn’t really a decision to leave the CRAA, it was just us taking a stance on what we believe as an organization.”

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The Liberty Conference has already booked a date (November 14) and a venue (Union Point Sports Complex in Weymouth, Mass.) for their end-of-fall playoffs and bowls. They will do that regardless, and after that NCR will likely have a playoff for its D1A members. (Expect some more East Coast D1A teams to join NCR.) In following years, Gheraldi said there could be some flexibility in how they cap off the fall.

Same goes for the spring. The Liberty was all set to have an impressive ECAC 7s event this past spring, before the lockdown locked everything down. While NCR plans to have a major 7s event in May, the ECAC 7s still has a role to play.

The ECAC, the East Coast Athletic Conference, represents over 200 colleges in a variety of sports under the NCAA. Its association with men’s college 7s could have enormous potential.

“Linking with an NCAA entity such as the ECAC has value,” said Gheraldi.

In the end, it took a while to get all of this done, but Gheraldi’s fine with that. Had they moved quickly, they might have made a rash decision.

“It was a process and we took our time with it,” he said. “I am interested to see who else comes in.”