D1A Rankings: Army Losing the Battle... And the War

D1A Rugby Rankings: October 25th

What an exciting week and a half of college rugby! As you probably noticed, I made a lot of changes to my rankings. Navy keeps the #1 ranking, but I honestly debated moving them. Their win over Airforce Academy was not as convincing as I would expect from the #1 team in the nation. Airforce even led the Midshipmen at one point. From my point of view, elite college programs need to be capable of manufacturing tries and line breaks from ten-plus phases strung together. I honestly didn't see a lot of that from Navy, most of their offense was generated from Air Force's mistakes. Is capitalizing on mistakes a good thing? Of course! I just want to see more structure and frankly better ball skills. But, no other team has proved they are better than the reigning champs yet this season so they retain their ranking.

I dropped Cal and St. Mary's in the rankings. If you're not playing games, chances are I'm going to bump your squad down in the rankings. No hard feelings Jack Clark.

Mary Washington and Mount St. Mary's jump up to #14 and #15 in the rankings. Mount St. Mary's notches a surprising win over St. Bonaventure, and Mary Washington beat a struggling Penn State.

In the BIG 10, Illinois makes their way into the rankings after a win over Wisconsin. I'm excited to see the BIG 10 semifinals. Illinois will face off against Michigan State and Ohio will play Indiana. The conference has been pretty even from the looks of things and it's really anyone's year to win. I wouldn't be surprised to see Illinois and Indiana in the conference championship.

Of course, the biggest surprise is that Army cannot seem to turn their season around. The 2022 National Champions sit at a dismal 2-3-1. This season they've lost to St. Bonaventure, who just lost to Mount St. Mary's. They've tied Notre Dame College, and most recently lost to Kutztown. Kutztown is not a good team this season. They're 1-4 on the year and they handled Army by 20 points. In my opinion, that's not a great look for Army at all. So they drop all the way down to #22.

Some teams that I think will be dangerous this year are BYU, Lindenwood, Arizona, Cal, and St. Mary's. I wouldn't be surprised if the D1A Final Four this year are comprised mostly of those teams. I think Lindenwood has the potential to take down Navy in the East. Life could even possbily take down Navy if a second matchup were to happen.

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