Two more weeks of practices, and the fall season will be underway. So here's a pre-season look at the Women's DI College Top 20, our first ranking of the year:

The last few years have seen Penn State put irrefutable distance between itself and the rest of the field, and one look at the 2014-15 roster suggests more of the same this year. Seniors Meya Bizer and Hope Rogers return for (likely) one more year with the Nittany Lions, and they’ll inject some Women’s Rugby World Cup experience into the team. Youngsters like Gabby Cantorna, Katie Mueller and Kyla Chipman are fresh off the Junior All American tour to Canada (the latter was captain), and junior Olympian Tess Feury is heading to State College, Pa.

But one very important person isn’t returning to Penn State: head coach Pete Steinberg. The Women’s Eagles head coach is, understandably, taking some personal time, and has turned to a worthy substitute in the interim: Kate Daley. The PSU and world cup alum has been the Notre Dame head coach the last few years.

In arguably the highest anticipated match of the fall season – and a friendly no less – reigning USA Rugby DI champion PSU will face ACRA DI champion Norwich University on Sept. 6. PSU might play in a class all its own, but if there had to be second inductee, it would be Norwich. The Vermont side gets better every year, but has lost All Americans Baylee Annis, Joya Clark and Rose Bernheim, Jackie Derocher and Meaghan Weppner – all very influential players. But there’s still plenty of talent in the ranks, including a fantastic 8-9-10 combination between co-captains Vanessa Champagne and Emily Oor, who are also both Canadian, and All American Hannah Bell, respectively. The Cadets tend to recruit well, and High School All American scrumhalf Julie Else (Catholic Memorial) is just one example of such.

The only team that came close to Norwich last year was American International College, but the young varsity program has lost head coach Mel Denham to Central Washington University, and that’s going to hurt. Eagle Jess Davis has also graduated, but well knowns like Cassidy Meyers*, Megan Pinson* and Haley Schafer are back for their sophomore years. Gio Cruz made a big impact during last week’s Can Am series, and distinguished herself as a hard-working Junior All American flanker. AIC has some good talent coming in, too, including Kent (Wash.) alum Ashley Rolsma, a WJAA and former teammate of Meyer. (*Update Aug. 26: New information about AIC's personnel will affect the team's new ranking.)

Quinnipiac is another team that has the potential to surprise. Head coach Becky Carlson does a superb job recruiting, drawing both rugby all-stars and other sports’ standouts into the Bobcat fold (read more about Quinnipiac’s incoming class). Behind stars like Natalie Kosko, we think the Connecticut side is going to inch up the rankings this year, and maybe even take down traditionally strong teams like Army and Navy.

We’re also hoping for big things from West Chester and Northern Iowa, both of which reached program highs in last year’s post-season. The Rams are returning the vast majority of their team (read more), but UNI has lost important players like center Meghan Flanigan, flanker Crystal Nye, No. 8 Becca Brown and wing Mariah Hinton, all of which were four-year starters. West Chester has decent competition, especially in James Madison, during league, but Northern Iowa won’t see strong competition until the ACRA playoffs.

Good competition isn’t a problem for the Ivies, and we suspect it’ll come down to the varsity sides – Harvard and Brown – this year. Head coaches Sue Parker and Kathy Flores, both former national team coaches, have a fall/spring season under their belts, and will hit the ground with a little more continuity this year. The Ivy League always produces some surprises, and Princeton and Dartmouth are more than capable of catching the competition off guard.

The Big 10, Pacific Mountain Coast and Mason-Dixon conferences are the most likely candidates for supplying a new team to the list, but we're also watching new varsity team Life University (read more). It’ll be difficult to add another squad from the PMC, save the East division, as those competitions flare up in the new year. Tournaments will lend some insight, and same goes for teams like North Carolina and Central Florida.

Women DI College Top 20 - August 25, 2014
1. Penn State - Reigning USA Rugby champion; lots of talent in all classes

2. Norwich - Reigning ACRA 15s/7s champion and USA Rugby 7s champion

3. Stanford - Lost to Penn State 38-0 in DI final; solid returners in WJAA Nikki Richardson and high scorers Sara Maurer, Australia's Maddie Wilson, and young scrumhalf Esther Melton; will miss Aly Gleason and Maxine Fonua

4. Brigham Young (BYU) - Lost to Stanford 26-17 in DI quarterfinals; Canada's Jordan Gray is a terror.

5. American International College (AIC) - Lost to Stanford 29-15 in DI semifinals; good young talent still coming in but curious how coaching change will affect success

6. Army - Lost 32-15 to Norwich in ACRA final; lost important players to graduation but still has Liz McCracken, Mel Thom and high scorer Kate Roose as a backbone

7. West Chester - Finished 4th in USA Rugby, losing 37-31 to AIC; returning majority of squad, including Nicole Benedetti, Ariel Gantt and WJAAs Lizzy Groff and Adriana Zeiders

8. Indiana - Early bow-out from USA Rugby nationals, losing 25-17 to AIC in Round of 16

9. Northern Iowa - Defeated Navy to finish third at ACRA championship

10. Navy - Finished 4th in ACRA; lost Erika Pedersen, Katie Smith, Karissa Kleinschmidt and Juliann Hitt - all tough to replace

11. Quinnipiac - Good, new players to complement the resident talent; a tough, packed schedule should help the team into that next league of competitiveness

12. New Mexico - The second-best team in Pacific Mountain Conference's East division rotates, and UNM produced a shock, early-season win over BYU that resonated throughout the season. After beating Central Florida by 21 points, UNM fell 48-14 to West Chester in the DI quarterfinals.

13. California - Lost 59-0 in the Round of 16 but have veterans like Lauren Butler, Genevieve Ireland and Stacy Wong, and WJAAs Abby Vogel and CJ Whiteside to build more success

14. Harvard - Peaked at the right time to win the Ivy League Championship but couldn't get past the first round of DI playoffs. WJAA and Junior Olympian Haley Langan will be an excellent addition.

15. North Carolina - The Tarheels did beat Harvard by 14 points last year, but UNC takes it easy through the fall before starting its matrix season in the new year. That's when UNC will make its gains up the rankings.

16. Central Florida - UCF has been the second-strongest team in the South (behind UNC) for a long time, and with a bunch of new talent coming in, it looks to the same this league season.

17. Brown - The varsity team actually finished third in the Ivy League last year but played Harvard than second place Dartmouth. 

18. James Madison - JMU is known better on the 7s circuit, having finished second to Norwich in last year's USA Rugby 7s championship, but the 15s program is getting better with every season.

19. Dartmouth - Finished 2nd to Harvard in last year's Ivy League

20. Washington State - Moved to DI last year and immediately became the strongest team in the PMC North; don't forget about Anne Peterson pulling the strings from flyhalf and Sam Pederson's speed on the outside.