GRR: College Men
We get some questions about merging our D1A and NCR D1 rankings, and we might be discussing that soon, but as we think about that it becomes clear to us that, at least right now, there are two teams significantly stronger than the rest.
And guess what? They're #1 and #2.
Well ... whaddayaknow ... our #2 lost; our #5 lost (to an unranked team, no less).
That's going to shake things up, no?
Louisville lost by a single point to a very good Bowling Green, and we'd be forgiven if we had just elevated BGSU to #2.
But we didn't.
Both the Falcons and the Cardinals are hovering in the Top 5, but now it's all up in the air.
University of Oregon pulled off a bit of a shocker this past weekend, beating #5-ranked Western Washington 17-15.
This was not expected, as WWU has been on top of the NCRC for quite a while and just beat a strong Boise State side 55-0.
Who is jumping from the 2nd tier into the top tier in Men's D2 college rugby?
As we've been saying for a while this fall, there's a fairly clear division between the stronger teams and the next tier. There's generally a series of tiers within D2 college rugby, but the gap isn't always especially large. It is this year.
We have a new #1.
In fact, we kind of have to have a new #1.
As anyone who reads these pages frequently will know, just because you beat the #1 team doesn't mean you automatically go to #1. It could be that the #2 team is better poised to move up, or some other reason (like the team that beat #1 already lost to someone else).