The Arkansas State Redwolves have released their men’s rugby schedule for the winter and spring season. It’s an ambitious one, but that’s true for most teams across the upper echelon of the college game.

"We have one of the toughest schedules in all of college rugby, and many in USA rugby consider the Mid-South Conference to be the rugby equivalent of SEC football," ASU first-year coach Blake White said. "This season will be all about perseverance and willingness to compete. We have to go into every match ready to compete and put our best effort on the field."

Is that true? Does ASU have one of the toughest schedules in college rugby?

Let’s look. At FloRugby we’ve been examining the schedules of the major college teams playing in the winter/spring time frame. We look at each game and assign a value based on the opponent. (The value is based either on the opponent’s ranking or how we think that opponent will rank once games start; with clubs or non-U.S. opponents, we have to make another value judgment.)

Eventually we come up with a number that measures the average strength of a team’s schedule. A score of 50 is a really strong college or club team (we gave a 50 to University of British Columbia). A score of 45 would be most top-ranked college teams. A score of 30 would be a team ranked in the top 25 or so.

Here’s what we came up with:

Central Washington: 15 games, average score 23.33

Cal: 18 games, average score 25.28

Lindenwood: 11 games, average score 27.27

Navy: 4 games, average score 27.50

Saint Mary’s: 12 games, average score 28.75

BYU: 10 games, average score 29.50

Life: 9 games, average score 30.00

Arkansa State: 9 games, average score 31.11

So White is correct. Based on average strength of opponent, Arkansas State has the toughest schedule of January through March. That’s in part because the Mid-South is full of strong teams, or at least full of teams we at FloRugby think are strong. That’s also why Life has the second-strongest schedule. But, as you can see, everyone is pretty strong.

Some Additional Notes

Central Washington gets dinged because some of the Wildcats’ additional games are against clubs or colleges whose strength is yet to be determined. Cal gets dinged because the Bears play a lot — much more than everyone else. Saint Mary’s goes on tour in March and we don’t know who the Gaels will play. We’ve made a guess of opposition value of 30 for two games, but that could change.

Cal certainly could be labeled as having one of the toughest schedules simply because the Bears play so much. And, in fact, if you take out the four weakest game days, Cal’s average goes up to 30.36, thanks to two games against UBC and one game against Saint Mary’s.

Do the same for CWU and the Wildcats move up to 29.09. 

So, yes, Arkansas State does have one of the toughest schedules in college rugby, but the good news is none of the top college programs is backing down.