Division 1-A Rugby (formerly known as the College Premier Division) is the highest level of

college rugby College rugby is played by men and women throughout colleges and universities in the United States of America. Seven-a-side and fifteen-a-side variants of rugby union are most commonly played. Most collegiate rugby programs do not fall under the ...

within the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and is administered by

USA Rugby USA Rugby (officially the United States of America Rugby Football Union, Ltd.) is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States. Its role is to achieve and maintain “high levels of quality in all aspects of ru ...

. Division 1-A rugby is modeled after NCAA athletic competitions, with the 67 D1-A rugby schools divided into eight conferences: East, Mid-South, Rocky Mountain, California, Big Ten, Liberty, Red River, and PAC. The regular season sees all teams in the conference play one another, with the two top seeds qualifying for the playoffs. Playoffs are a single-elimination format, occurring each year in April and May, with the winner of D1-A declared the National Champion. Regular seasons for most conferences are played in the spring, although some cold-weather conferences, such as the

Big Ten Universities Big Ten Universities is a Division 1-A college rugby conference founded in summer 2012 by ten of the twelve schools that then made up the Big Ten Conference (which has since expanded to 14 members). The Big Ten Universities was formed to improve ...

, play their regular season in the fall. The competition's first season was played during 2011 and consisted of teams from 31 schools from across the United States. The first ever match of the competition was played on Friday March 4, the

Arizona State Sun Devils The Arizona State Sun Devils are the athletic teams that represent Arizona State University. ASU has nine men's and eleven women's varsity teams competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member o ...

hosted the

Colorado Buffaloes The Colorado Buffaloes are the athletic teams that represent the University of Colorado. The university sponsors 17 varsity sports teams. Both the men's and women's teams are called the Buffaloes (Buffs for short) or, rarely, the Golden Buffaloe ...

at the Arizona State University Soccer Stadium in

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

. The 2011 final was played at

Rio Tinto Stadium America First Field (formerly Rio Tinto Stadium and referred to as The RioT) is an American soccer-specific stadium in Sandy, Utah, that serves as home stadium for Major League Soccer club Real Salt Lake. The stadium opened on October 9, 2008, ...

, in

Sandy, Utah Sandy is a city in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, located in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. The population of Sandy was 87,461 at the 2010 census, making it the sixth-largest city in Utah. The population is currently estimat ...

, on the 21 May 2011. D1-A Rugby secured sponsorships in 2012 with World Rugby Shop and Veloce. Several players who have excelled in the top level competitions in

have also represented their country as part of the

United States national under-20 rugby union team The United States national under-20 rugby union team, for sponsorship reasons known as the AIG Men's Junior All-Americans, is the United States' junior rugby team at the national level. The U-20 team has competed at the IRB Junior World Championsh ...

or the All Americans rugby union team.

Formation

History of college rugby in the U.S.

A group of British Army officers organized a game of rugby against the students of

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...

(

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

, Canada) in 1865; the Canadians were so enamored of the game that they decided to continue to play football by the Rugby code. In 1874 McGill organized two games of football against

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, one was played under Harvard's rules, the other being a game of rugby. After this game, the Harvard students also decided to adopt rugby, making them the first American institution to do so.

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...

and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

were persuaded by Harvard to play football according to the

Rugby School Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...

code in 1876, these four colleges thus formed the

Intercollegiate Football Association The Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA), also known as the American Intercollegiate Football Association, was one of the earliest college football rules-making and scheduling organizations in existence; it was active from the 1873 to 1893 ...

(IFA), an organization that eventually expanded to become the "

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

." In fact, the governing body of all American intercollegiate varsity sports, the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) traces its roots to the IFA and is thus a product of rugby rather than any of the sports it now governs. By 1886 the Yale coach Walter Camp had modified rugby's rules in order to solve the problem of tackled players lying on the ball by introducing a series of four downs to gain ten yards; ironically in the same year the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby (WR) in 1886. It pro ...

in England solved the same problem by requiring that tackled players release the ball. This is still one of the most fundamental differences between Rugby Union and American Football but one further modification, that of allowing one forward pass per down, was suggested by the Notre Dame coach

Knute Rockne Knut ( Norwegian and Swedish), Knud ( Danish), or Knútur (Icelandic) is a Scandinavian, German, and Dutch first name, of which the anglicised form is Canute. In Germany both "Knut" and "Knud" are used. In Spanish and Portuguese Canuto is used ...

which, when accepted in 1905, gave rise to that distinctly American form of football. USA 1924 rugby team

Around the turn of the century American football was being frowned upon for its violence. Publication of graphic photographs of a harsh game between

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...

and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

caused a stir; President

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

was forced to insist upon reform or abolition of the game. During this period of uncertainty, rugby made a brief but important reappearance in many colleges, most notably at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

and at

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

. It was Stanford that supplied most of the players to the two US Olympic rugby teams, along with Santa Clara University and the University of California. (

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hold ...

) who claimed fame by winning both gold medals (as 1924 was the last time the Olympic Games staged a rugby competition, this made the USA the defending Olympic champions when rugby was re-introduced after almost a century at the

2016 Summer Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

). In 1934, there was only one official rugby body in the United States, the Eastern Rugby Union, with a total of 9 member teams. By 1950, there were 30 clubs in the US, existing only in small pockets on the East and West Coasts. Duke rugby 1968 02

It was not until the mid-1960s that rugby began to re-appear with regular fixtures and competitions; the game suited the mildly anarchistic temperament of American College students of the period; it required minimal costs for the individual, the style of the game provided constant action, there was an emphasis on enjoyment rather than winning because rugby was not part of the now rigidly institutionalized athletic system that American Universities had developed. The formation of the United States of America Rugby Football Union (USARFU, now

) in 1976 was a major organizational milestone for the sport in the US, and by 1980 there were over 1,000 clubs nationwide. In 2011, there were 2,433 clubs in the United States with more than 88,000 registered players, approximately 40% of which are college players (about three-quarters being male and one quarter female).

Formation of Division 1-A

Prior to the formation of Division 1-A, there had been some difficulty in determining how many teams each territory would send to the ''Sweet 16'' tournament, as the relative strengths of the rugby teams in each territory fluctuated over time, and despite the disparity in the levels of rugby, it was politically difficult to deny a union any playoff bids, even though the team that came third or fourth in a more powerful territory might be a better side. Further problems occurred because of the different competitive seasons across the continent; in the East the league season is played in the fall while in the South and West spring is the primary season, so this structure was frequently open to criticism. Because of these issues, and to raise the level of rugby in the consciousness of the American public,

restructured Division 1 college rugby. In 2010, several of the top college teams agreed to form the College Premier League to begin play in spring 2011.The Roar, USA Rugby forms a College Premier League, March 17, 2010, http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/03/17/usa-rugby-college-premier-league-kick-off-in-2011/ USA Rugby and the top colleges believed that an elite level college rugby competition would make it easier to get college rugby onto TV and attract sponsors. USA Rugby also believed that a higher level college competition would develop players to potentially play for the U.S. national team. The governance of collegiate rugby was split and diverged in 2021.

National Collegiate Rugby National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) formerly the "National Small College Rugby Organization" is a rugby union governing body in the United States. Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, NCR was created in 2007 by Chip Auscavitch and Steve Cohen to supp ...

(NCR), formerly NSCRO, emerged as a rival by expanding beyond small colleges to include the higher divisions. The umbrella of the USA Rugby Collegiate Council includes College Rugby Association of America (CRAA), among several other organizations. In 2021, there were five men’s DIA conferences plus independents under USA Rugby/CRAA. Two men’s conferences that played DIA in 2019 joined NCR in 2021.

D1-A Championships

Collegiate Championships prior to D1-A Formation

The earliest claims to a national title go back to the mid-1960s when ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence tw ...

'' Magazine started demonstrating an interest in Collegiate rugby. During the 1965-1966 season, the

University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

of Notre Dame won several cups and tournaments and, in the absence of a bona fide national championship, ''Sports Illustrated'' named them unofficial Collegiate Rugby Champions. The next year, under the authority of USARFU, Notre Dame played a match on April 8, 1967 against

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

at Memorial Stadium for the unofficial national championship, again as a result of both teams being highly rated by ''Sports Illustrated''; Cal won 37-3. The first official National Collegiate Championship series began in 1980. Rugby in the United States is divided into territorial unions (the Mid-Atlantic,

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

Pacific Coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

, the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

and the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

), each of these unions organise collegiate rugby into "Division One" and "Division Two" league competitions, generally with promotion and relegation between the divisions. Between 1980 and 2010 each Territory qualified Division One and Two teams for the ''Sweet 16'' of a D1 and D2 National championship.

was dominant in Division One for the 31 years that the competition was run in this format, winning 28 titles, (26 in Division 1 & 2 in the

Varsity Cup Championship The Varsity Cup Championship was an American college rugby competition established in 2012 to serve as an invitational championship following the breakaway of several schools from Division 1-A Rugby. The Varsity Cup was organized by United Worl ...

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

has won three titles;

San Diego State San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

and

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-d ...

have each won one D1 national championship but two in the Varsity Cup with one having been stripped.

Participants

East

Liberty

Mid-South

California

Rocky Mountain

Big Ten

Red River Conference

PAC

Independent

Rankings

Notes: * Green shading indicates the highest-ranked team to debut in the rankings that year. Silver shading indicates the team that increased the largest number of places in the rankings that year. * 2012: Cal was not included in the D1A rankings because it withdrew from D1A mid-season. * 2013: Utah was not ranked because its rugby program was suspended by the school. Central Florida, and Bowling Green were new to the rankings; they had been ranked #17 and #19 respectively in D1-AA during the previous 2012 season. * 2014: Army was ranked low, due in large part to the team's suspension during the season.

2011 season

Notable events

* First Season of the College Premier Division * Funding for Cal Rugby, which previously was announced would be dropped, was restored after additional funding was raised by donors, alumni and fans. * Life University participated in its first playoff game in school history * BYU hosted its first rugby playoff game in club history. * BYU and California played for the national championship for the 6th consecutive year (2006-10 in USA Rugby Collegiate Tournament, 2011 USA Rugby College Premier Division)

Regular season

Records and final standings for 2011. x-Conference champion
y-Qualified for playoffs
Gold = national champion
Silver = national runner-up
Bronze = national semifinalists

Playoffs and final

After the season

* Tennessee and LSU moved from D1-A to join other SEC schools in the newly formed D1-AA

Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference The Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference (SCRC) is an annual college rugby competition played every spring among 10 universities from the Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference ...

. * Dartmouth moved from D1-A to join other Ivy League schools in the newly formed D1-AA Ivy Rugby Conference.

2012 season

Regular season

Records and final standings for 2012. x-Conference champion
y-Qualified for playoffs

Playoffs and final

After the season

* Nine schools from the Big-10 joined Ohio State in D1-A and formed the

conference. * Texas A&M and Oklahoma were joined by several other Texas schools to form the Allied Rugby Conference, composed mostly of Big-12 South schools. * The Pacific Coast Conference was renamed the California Conference, several former D1-AA California schools were promoted to this conference, and Central Washington became an independent D1-A school. * D1-AA champion Davenport was promoted to D1-A and joined the Mid-South Conference. * UCLA, Utah, Arizona and Arizona State moved from their respective past conferences to the newly formed D1-A

PAC Rugby Conference The PAC Rugby Conference is a college rugby conference composed of four schools from the Pac-12 Conference that compete against each other in Division 1-A Rugby. It was formed in 2012 with six teams, with conference play beginning in February 2013 ...

.
BYU moved from Division 1A
to the D1-AA Mountain States Conference

to the

Atlantic Coast Rugby League The Atlantic Coast Rugby League was an annual college rugby competition played every spring among eight universities—seven from the Atlantic Coast Conference, plus Navy (from the Patriot League). The league was disestablished in 2016. Member sc ...

; and Rutgers moved from D1-A to the Empire Rugby Conference.

2013 season

x = conference champion and automatic quarterfinal berth
y = conference runner-up and eligible for playoffs
z = conference champion and eligible for playoffs

Playoffs and final

After the season

* The following schools, either late during the spring 2013 season or after the season, left D1A and moved to the Varsity Cup:

Central Washington Central Washington is a region of the U.S. state of Washington between the western and eastern parts of the state extending from the border with the Canadian province of British Columbia in the north to the border with the U.S. state of Oregon i ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

. * The following schools joined D1A: Wheeling Jesuit, Lindenwood.

2014 season

Regular season

Playoffs and final

After the season

* The Allied Rugby Conference folded. Many of the schools went and formed the Red River Conference.

2015 season

For the 2014–2015 school year, a number of conferences — particularly those in the colder northeast and upper midwest — played their regular seasons in the fall.

Playoffs and final

2016 season

Playoffs

2017

Playoffs

After the season

The Varsity Cup folded in November 2017 when the organizer, broadcast partner and a major sponsor, Penn Mutual, withdrew their support.

2018

Standings

Playoffs

2019

Playoffs

2022

Standings

Playoffs

Notes

a. There are also four independent State Unions (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho and Montana).http://www.usarugby.org/#cc%3D pplication\Structure\\Content\\Brand%20Resource%20Center\\Content\\Home\\20907F3F-1296-66EA-DD8E-5E2AF35B49C0\\20907F3F-129C-3DB7-096D-04AA3AB59358\\21D941C5-129D-B97C-2CE7-C1EAFE1403EA

References

External links

* {{Rugby union in the United States College rugby union competitions in the United States Sports leagues established in 2011 2011 establishments in the United States

Formation

History of college rugby in the U.S.

Formation of Division 1-A

D1-A Championships

Collegiate Championships prior to D1-A Formation

Participants

East

Liberty

Mid-South

California

Rocky Mountain

Big Ten

Red River Conference

PAC

Independent

Rankings

2011 season

Notable events

Regular season

Playoffs and final

After the season

2012 season

Regular season

Playoffs and final

After the season

2013 season

Playoffs and final

After the season

2014 season

Regular season

Playoffs and final

After the season

2015 season

Playoffs and final

2016 season

Playoffs

2017

Playoffs

After the season

2018

Standings

Playoffs

2019

Playoffs

2022

Standings

Playoffs

See also

Notes

References

External links