(David Brinton photo)

TITLES, COMPETITIONS, AND CHAMPIONSHIPS
Fans of men's college rugby explaining the college rugby landscape can be rightly embarrassed at how convoluted it is. At the DI level, there's DIAA, DIA, ACRC, and the Varsity Cup. In 7s there's the CRC, which calls itself a championship but is actually an invitational, and USA Rugby's 7s Championship, which wasn't held in 2014.

Teams in the ACRC play for a series of bowl games at the end of fall, although not all embraced the bowl concept. USA Rugby offered a playoff pathway for those teams in the fall, but no one took them up on it. Teams in the Varsity Cup are in DIAA conferences, and DIA conferences. At least one team expects to play in both the Varsity Cup and DIA playoffs.

The PAC Rugby Conference has six teams in it, with four of them in the Varsity Cup. The conference itself is not in any specific division, and so Arizona has had to petition (successfully) to be a DIA at-large team.

It's weird, and made more confused by the Varsity Cup's (or NBC's) insistence on calling the Varsity Cup champions the National Champions, which is disingenuous at best. Of course the top two teams in the Varsity Cup are the programs that have dominated the national finals since 2006. But a national championship has to be an open competition, not an invitational. The Varsity Cup is an invitational ... a compelling one, but an invitational nonetheless.

So Men's DI college rugby has 81 teams that finish their league play in the fall, and about 60 who finish up in the spring, including some teams that don't even play in a onference anymore. You have a conglomeration of conferences, the ACRC, which hold bowl games but no playoff. You have a private competition, the Varsity Cup, which holds a playoff, but no season. And you have USA Rugby trying to hold a playoff that some want badly, and others seem so-so on.

There will be more confusion in the coming years. There will be a direct competition between USA Rugby's college 7s championships and the CRC. Ultimately, though, we have seen a shift to fall emphasis, and that won't change. We have seen a growth in the Varsity Cup partly driven by the potential of TV coverage. That could change, as well, depending on how TV covers all of the spring playoff options.

But the big shame is when great teams don't play each other. The old idea of the College Premier Division was centered around a group of the eight best teams playing each other. That never happened, which is a shame, because it would have been great if it had.

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