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D1A Rankings: #1 Lindenwood Falls

Another exciting weekend in college rugby. A solid number of teams were in action this weekend. The St. Mary's Gaels, pummeled UCLA at home 58-5. Cal took a trip to Arizona and beat the University of Arizona and GCU by a combined score of 159-17! Obviously Coach Jack Clarke lit a fire under his squad because they took out all their frustration in Arizona. Arkansas State pulled off an gutsy win against the formerly #1 ranked Lindenwood Lions. In Ellensburg, WA, Central Washington pulled of a solid win against a threatening Cal Poly team. Down in Texas, Texas A&M beat the University of Texas 19-12. 

Now onto the rankings. Navy hasn't played a match yet this spring. But they're the defending champions, they went 11-0 in the fall, and really haven't done anything to blemish their resume. And so they slide back up to #1. BYU might have a compelling argument for #1 if it weren't for that close loss to Lindenwood in November. They're a team with a lot of momentum, but still have something to prove with three big matches approaching. For now they stay at #2.

The Gaels move up to #3. They've put in nothing but solid performances and convincing wins this spring. They look sharp as always and have multi-year starters returning in key decision making roles. This weekend against Central Washington is a chance for both teams to prove themselves. 

Cal moves back up in the rankings to #4. Not to diminish BYU's incredible performance, but Cal really did play their worst game of the year last weekend. This weekend they really fixed some of the issues and mishaps they had in their attack. They played a much cleaner game, twice! The scoreline reflected it. You can never really count Cal out. I expect them to roll through Utah and Army, but most likely a tight match against Navy coming up March 16th. 

Arkansas State moves up to #5! The Red Wolves grinded out a win against Lindenwood on Saturday. Check out my recap of that match. They have done nothing but impress me this season. I can't wait to watch them take on Life on March 2nd. There's no doubt in my mind, that will be a tightly contested matchup. To answer the question of why not higher for the Red Wolves ranking? The answer is that I think they still have something to prove. They've beat Davenport and Lindenwood, two very solid wins. But with how even the top 5 is currently, I just want to see how things shake out before moving them up any further. 


Lindenwood drops to #6... Yes this is a big jump from #1 to #6. As I mentioned the top of college rugby really looks very even this year. So any loss will have a real impact on your ranking, and their loss against Arkansas State was huge. It really was an incredibly dismal performance from the Lions. They did not look like the same team that downed BYU in November. It looks like they have some rust to shake off and some things to sort out if they want to be competitive this post season. 

Life moves down to #7. This is not because they did something wrong, but because Arkansas State went out and earned to jump them in the rankings. Of course, all questions about these squads will be answered on March 2nd. 

Other notable movements: Arizona drops to #14 and GCU drops to #15. Arizona is on the three game losing streak and got obliterated by Cal this last weekend. Their chances this spring don't look very good. They really had a shot to against Central but let it slip out of their fingers. GCU is in a similar boat, on a two game losing streak. They too got wiped by Cal. Neither team looks very dangerous, and would be lucky to make the playoffs. 

The next month or so of college rugby is going to be absolutely riveting. All questions about rankings will be answered with some huge regular season matchups in the month of March. Going into playoffs, fans should have a pretty clear picture of which teams are have a real shot at a national championship. 

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