As you almost certainly have not heard, our fair city hosts the 2022 national championships of men's college rugby football this weekend at AVEVA Stadium (after hosting the women's championships there last weekend). Games are Friday Dec 9 through Sunday Dec 11, with the marquee games on Saturday afternoon. Full schedule here: https://www.ncr.rugby/schedule/mens-nationals

In 2016 Houston hosted the national championship of men's college association football at BBVA Compass Stadium. In the final, after 110 scoreless minutes, Stanford defeated Wake Forest on extra penalty kicks (one round past the standard five-round shootout).

And of course, Houston will host the men's college American football championship at NRG Stadium in January 2024.

Some strange teams playing college Rugby.

Friday and Sunday are the Division II and Small College semifinals and finals. Saturday are the Division I (Brown v Queens) and I-AA (Virginia Tech v Louisville) finals (semis were completed earlier), along with a couple of exhibition games ("bowls") with Sam Houston versus Southern Nazarene at noon, and Notre Dame versus Boise State at 4 pm.

The problem with collegiate rugby in the USA is that USA Rugby has allowed the game to get fractured among several different organizations, each one of which conducts its own championship season, so there is no one definitive champion. This event is hosted by National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) and the National Small College Rugby Association (NSCRA). Then there is American Collegiate Rugby (ACR) where Rice competes in (and currently leads) the Lone Star Conference, Tier 2 South (whatever that means). Then there is the Collegiate Rugby Association of America (CRAA) where most of the very best teams play. Cal-Berkeley is the perennial best team in the country and historically wins every year. This year they are 20-1, the only loss coming in a split-squad match against Cal Poly-SLO (they won the other half convincingly). I think a lot of the proliferation is because teams got tired of losing to Cal, so they split off into other competitions.

The rugby should be good this weekend. The best quality play will clearly be Saturday.

(12-08-2022 09:14 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Friday and Sunday are the Division II and Small College semifinals and finals. Saturday are the Division I (Brown v Queens)

not sure that game is PC...