Summer’s not even here yet and already college teams are moving around.

Mary Washington is moving up from D1AA to D1A, switching from the Chesapeake Conference to the Rugby East. UMW won the 2017 fall and 2017-18 overall D1AA title, and missed out on another fall championship by a single point.

The Mothers dominated the Chesapeake season last fall, going undefeated and averaging 58 points per game with less than seven points per game allowed.

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“We had a plan and a timeline for moving up through D1AA into D1A,” said UMW head coach Tyler Stephens. “We are two years ahead of that timeline.”

Stephens, who took over from Min She Chae after he stepped down, said the key is for UMW not to rely on current talent. 

“We will be losing seniors, but we have a strong junior class and we are bringing in a very good freshman class,” Stephens said. “We feel we are well positioned to compete in what will be a really tough conference.”

The Rugby East will ask for more travel, but Stephens said his players are already working on fundraising, and the program has a plan to handle the additional cost.

More Chesapeake Moves

Meanwhile, the Chesapeake Conference has also lost Towson, which announced a move to the Mid-Atlantic Conference. The Chesapeake, however, should be OK, as fall 2018 national D2 champion NC State is now moving up to D1AA and will join the conference.

NC State is playing some sevens with the Chesapeake teams, but remains D2 until August.

Overall, the Chesapeake has been one of the most competitive conferences in American college rugby, of not the most competitive. In the three years of its existence, the conference has played exactly 100 league games, and 26 of them were within a try. That 26% close-game measurement blows away all the other D1AA leagues. For this season, the rest of the D1AA leagues has 22 close losses or ties, a frequency of 13.5%.

Tigers Find A Home

There are more conference moves. Buffalo is reported to be dropping out of D1A after two straight winless conference seasons. And the University of Memphis, which had been in the old SIRC and played one year of independent rugby, is now in the SCRC.

Memphis Rugby officers met with SCRC Commissioner Marty Bradley over the weekend to finalize the move.

 “This is a big step for the Tigers,” stated Tiger head coach Steve Swatzyna.  We’ll get to play teams geographically closer to us, and we believe we can be competitive with the teams in the SCRC as we continue to grow and develop.”