GRR: College Men
A hugely competitive D1A playoff culminates Saturday at Aveva Stadium in Houston with Navy and Cal facing off.
The 17-0 Navy Midshipmen come in after just barely escaping Lindenwood 12-10 in the semifinal. Cal (13-3) meanwhile exploded for 55 points to beat BYU in their semi. Such a close game and yet it was twi the winning margin of Cal (13-3), which held off Saint Mary's 29-28.
At the early part of the 2022-2023 season you kind of had a feeling Navy would be here in the D1A final.
Perhaps the least surprising win at the CRCs was IUP.
Bringing back several players that ran through to the D2 championship in 2022, the Hawks were nicely-poised to do it again in 2023.
Cal's journey to the D1A final has been an interesting one.
As coaches often say, you learn more from losses than you do from wins, but Cal's history has centered around not worrying about winning, or how much the Bears win by. Instead, it has been about achieving a rarely-reached standard.
University of San Diego will be playing Iowa State in the ACR D1AA final this coming weekend in Denver, but they already have a major championship trophy as they won the CRC D1 Club men's championship in the DC area last weekend.