College rugby in the United States

College rugby is played by men and women throughout colleges and universities in the United States. Seven-a-side and fifteen-a-side variants of rugby union are most commonly played. Most collegiate rugby programs do not fall under the auspices of the NCAA and are instead governed by National Collegiate Rugby and USA Rugby, two nationwide governing bodies. 27 women's programs participate in the NCAA.

College rugby is the fastest growing college sport in the US and one of the fastest growing sports in the nation as the number of athletes increased by roughly 350% from 18,500 in 2006 to 65,000 in 2010. Women's rugby is an NCAA Emerging Sport. Over 900 college teams—male and female—are registered with USA Rugby and hundreds more with National Collegiate Rugby. Over 32,000 college players are registered with USA Rugby, making college rugby the largest section of its membership.

The highest profile college rugby sevens competition is the Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC). College club rugby has included several championship competitions since 1980.

Rugby has been played in universities since as early as the 1800s, but in the 1960s rugby found a foothold in colleges, led by Catholic colleges such as Notre Dame and particularly Jesuit universities such as Boston College and St. Joseph's in Philadelphia. Several schools have upgraded their investments in rugby by creating programs with varsity or quasi-varsity status and funding for scholarships.

Alumni from collegiate programs make up much of the United States men's and women's national teams.

Major League Rugby implemented its first collegiate MLR Draft in 2020. Players are eligible for the draft after 3 years in college at 21 years old. Free agents can join teams at age 18.

Governance
The College Rugby Association of America (CRAA) oversees the top-level men's and women's divisions.

27 schools govern their women's teams under applicable NCAA bylaws for recruiting and eligibility, under the NCAA's Emerging Sports for Women program. The NCAA has no authority over men's college rugby.

College rugby is often called a club sport because teams are usually administered by a student club sports department rather than the intercollegiate athletics department. Some schools promoted rugby to varsity status, committing resources for scholarships and paid coaches, or given rugby an elevated status short of full varsity status.

History
In the United States, college rugby was traditionally governed by (in descending order of authority): USA Rugby, geographical unions (GUs) and local area unions (LAUs) (e.g., NERFU) and administered by a College Management Committee.

The Ivy Rugby Conference formed in 2009. This move signaled a shift away from the LAUs and GUs as the governing bodies for regional college rugby. By 2011 USA Rugby was urging college rugby programs to adopt new conference structures like the conferences used by their other athletic programs. In 2019, in the wake of USA Rugby's bankruptcy declaration, the College Rugby Association of America (CRAA) formed to oversee the top-level men's and women's divisions.

Play and participation
Winter and spring are the primary seasons for conferences in the Pacific, Northwest, and South regions (e.g., PAC, Southeastern); the fall is the primary season for conferences in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwest (e.g., Big Ten, Atlantic Coast). Conferences establish playing schedules in the primary season, while in the secondary season the teams often set up friendly matches or focus on playing rugby sevens.

USA Rugby maintains player eligibility guidelines, administered by the local area unions. College players generally have five years of rugby eligibility from the time they graduate high school. On-field disciplinary issues are generally handled by the local area unions, while off-field disciplinary issues are governed by the academic institution and the local area union. USA Rugby's CIPP insurance program provides liability insurance to players, teams, administrators, and pitch hosts in exchange for an annual dues payment. Roughly one quarter of college rugby programs offer financial aid to their players.

Outstanding college rugby players are recognized as All-Americans. Qualified All-Americans can represent the United States in international tournaments by playing on the United States national under-20 rugby union team or the All Americans rugby union team.

Divisions
College rugby competition in the USA is divided into several tiers:


 * The highest is Division I-A for men and Division I Elite for women
 * Division I-AA for men and Division I for women
 * Division II
 * Small College
 * The separate National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) consists of women's NCAA DI, II and III rugby programs that adhere to NCAA organizational rules under a sanctioning agreement with USA Rugby.

USA Rugby generally allows colleges to select the division in which the college thinks it would fit best. Most schools remain in the same division from year-to-year, but there are exceptions. Schools that have been successful in a particular division may move up but are not required to do so; likewise, poorly performing schools may move down a division, but are not required to. Successful schools may have varied reasons for declining promotion. For example, a school may prefer to remain in its current conference against traditional rivals, or a school with a small budget might resist the additional travel expense that might come from switching divisions and conferences.

Significant movement across men's divisions occurred in 2011 when USA Rugby separated Division I into Division I-A and I-AA. This new arrangement caused Division I schools to choose one or the other, with 31 schools joining Division I-A and the majority of Division I schools joining Division I-AA. Additionally, the creation of Division I-AA caused several successful Division II schools to move up to Division I-A. The evolving division structures caused significant shifts in schools between Divisions I-A and I-AA in the following years, with half of the original 31 D I-A members leaving by the end of 2013, and new schools from lower divisions taking their place.

The governance of collegiate rugby was split and diverged in 2021. The umbrella of the USA Rugby Collegiate Council includes College Rugby Association of America (CRAA), American Collegiate Rugby Association (ACRA), American College Rugby (ACR), and independent conferences. National Collegiate Rugby (NCR), formerly NSCRO, challenged the existing structure and expanded beyond small colleges to include the higher divisions. Men's and women's conferences each chose as individual conferences (in some cases, schools within conferences also chose ) to align with USA Rugby or NCR.

Women
Twelve women's conferences that played historically in DII left the oversight of USA Rugby to join NCR. Beginning in 2021, women's college rugby within NCR is split between Small College and an Open Division. The Open Division, which NCR now refers to as its DI, is made up of teams from these 12 conferences.

According to Goff Rugby Report, the DI Elite women's teams are part of College Rugby Association of America, and so are most women's DI conferences (eight conferences) and the independents. There are also a couple of DII or hybrid conferences within CRAA.

The American Collegiate Rugby Association is a group of four DII-level women's conferences remaining under the aegis of USA Rugby, which included 62 teams as of June 2020.

The collegiate women's programs in the NIRA operate their own regular season competition and championship.

Men
In 2021, most DII men's rugby conferences aligned with NCR.

In 2011 USA Rugby created a new Division 1-A with approximately 30 schools forming a new premier division.

Two men's conferences that played DIA in 2019 joined NCR in 2021, as have three DIAA conferences. Under NCR, they competed in fall 2021 as DI and DIAA, with separate postseasons.

Men's DIAA was dramatically split in 2021, with both NCR and CRAA-run postseasons in the fall. There was also a CRAA-run postseason in spring 2022. According to Goff Rugby Report, there was no way to have a sole men's DIAA national champion in 2021–2022.

In 2021, there are five men's DIA conferences plus independents under USA Rugby/CRAA.

Men's varsity
Majority of colleges classify their rugby programs as club sports rather than varsity sports. A small but growing number of universities, however, have begun labeling rugby as a varsity sport, realizing that rugby can be profitable, as a successful rugby program can result in national championships and increased marketability.

Women's Rugby: An NCAA Emerging Sport
The NCAA marked women's rugby as an NCAA Emerging Sports for Women in 2002. Thereafter schools began adding women's rugby as an NCAA sport. An "Emerging Sport" must gain championship status (minimum 40 varsity programs, except 28 for Division III) within 10 years, or show progress toward that goal to remain on the list. Until then, it is under the auspices of the NCAA and its respective institutions. Emerging Sport status allows competition to include club teams to satisfy the NCAA's minimum number of competitions rule.

Growth was initially slow, with only 5 of nearly 350 collegiate teams qualifying. The push for NCAA rugby status received a boost in 2009 when the International Olympic Committee announced that rugby would return to the Summer Olympics in 2016. Although NCAA Division I schools dropped 72 women's varsity sports teams during 2008–2012 due to the recession, women's rugby programs grew in number.

As of the fall of 2022, the NCAA had sanctioned rugby for 27 schools across 3 Divisions, adding Princeton University for the 2022–23 season. Current NCAA women's rugby programs include the following:

Men's National Championship
Sports Illustrated named Notre Dame national champion in 1966. In 1967, Sports Illustrated named California national champions after their 37–3 defeat of Notre Dame.

1980–2012
Except for interruption by the COVID-19 pandemic, USA Rugby has crowned an official national men's champion each year since 1980. After the 2010 season, USA Rugby split Division 1 into two, with the top flight called Division 1-A Rugby (formerly called the College Premier Division), and the second flight called Division 1-AA.

2013–2017
In 2013, eight of the top college rugby teams withdrew from the USA Rugby D1A competition and organized their own championship called the Varsity Cup. The media and other rugby commentators viewed the Varsity Cup as equivalent to the USA Rugby D1A championship, given the strength of the teams participating and the fact that the 2013 Varsity Cup finalists – BYU and Cal – finished the spring 2013 season as the consensus #1 and #2 ranked teams in all of college rugby. Four additional schools joined the Varsity Cup for 2014, bringing the number of teams in that tournament to twelve. The Varsity Cup was successful in gaining media exposure, with the 2014 Varsity Cup final televised live on NBCSN. USA Rugby responded to the successful promotion of its Varsity Cup rivals by signing a ten-year contract in October 2014 with IMG that would focus on the marketing and increase exposure of USA Rugby's Collegiate National Championship. The Varsity Cup folded in November 2017 when the organizer, broadcast partner and a major sponsor, Penn Mutual, withdrew their support.

The lists below show the champions for the Division 1-A Rugby and the Varsity Cup championships for each year, along with the teams' final regular season rankings, as ranked by RugbyMag/RugbyToday.com.

Women's National Championship
The following are the results from the Division 1 women's national championship, from 1991 to the present. USA Rugby established a new division called "Division 1 Elite" that began championship competition in 2016, following which the remainder of Division 1 was called "Division 1 Club".

College Rugby Sevens
Since the 2009 announcement that rugby sevens will be included in the 2016 Olympics, college rugby sevens has grown more popular. The addition of Rugby 7s to the 2016 Summer Olympics has led to increasing interest from TV and other media coverage, and an increased emphasis in the collegiate ranks on the 7s game. For example, the University of Texas founded its competitive rugby sevens program in 2010. Cal rugby announced in December 2011 that beginning in 2013 it would use the fall term for sevens.

Collegiate Rugby Championship
The Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC) is the highest profile college sevens rugby championship in the United States. The inaugural CRC, held in Columbus, Ohio in June 2010 was televised live by NBC and NBC Universal. The result was high ratings, with the CRC ratings beating the NCAA lacrosse championship.

The success of the inaugural 2010 tournament led to a second tournament in 2011 at PPL Park in Philadelphia, again televised live by NBC. NBC recognized that rugby is growing in popularity, participation, and interest. In 2014, the Penn Mutual Life Insurance company become the title sponsor of the championship. The tournament grew each year and was signed to a multi-year deal with several large sponsors and Talen Energy Stadium (Formerly PPL Park) for the tournament to be held in Philadelphia for several more years. The success of the tournament in 2016 showed how popular this collegiate level event had become.

The National Collegiate Rugby Organization obtained the rights to the CRC in 2020 and in 2021 and 2022 staged its championship 7s matches at the tournament in New Orleans. In 2023, it moved to the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC.

USA Rugby National Championship
USA Rugby announced in September 2011 the creation of a new sevens tournament, the USA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships. The tournament was held annually at the end of the fall season for its first three years and featured 24 teams. Qualification is based on performance at sevens tournaments during the fall, where tournament winners receive automatic bids, with the remaining places in the 24-team field filled by invitation. Some of the more high-profile qualifying tournaments include tournaments based on traditional conference rivalries, such as the Atlantic Coast 7s (composed mostly of ACC schools), the Southeastern 7s (composed mostly of SEC schools) and the Heart of America 7s (composed mostly of Big 12 schools).

The inaugural Championship tournament was held December 16–17, 2011 in College Station, Texas, and was contested by 24 teams that qualified based on performance in qualifying tournaments throughout the fall of 2011. The 2011 tournament was won by Life University, defeating Central Washington 22–17 in overtime. Tim Stanfill of Central Washington was the tournament MVP, Derek Patrick of Miami was the tournament's leading try scorer, and Colton Caraiga of Life University was the tournament's leading points scorer. In the first three years, strong teams that won bids have declined to participate.

Conference membership
Team rankings are in parentheses, based on Goff Rugby Report rankings, current as of January 2017.

Division I-A
The conference champion is invited to the D1A playoffs along with several at large bids for independents or other highly ranked teams.

Division I-AA
Italics indicate second teams of clubs competing in D I-A. These teams are ineligible for Division I-AA playoffs.

Former Conferences:


 * The Mid-Eastern conference disbanded in summer 2012, as most members went to the D1-A Big Ten Universities or to the D1-AA Mid-America conference.
 * The Midwest conference disbanded in summer 2012, as most members went to the D1-A Big Ten Universities or to Division 2.

Organization and conferences
American college rugby is governed by USA Rugby. In the past, college rugby competitions have been governed by local unions.

The structure of the college game has evolved significantly in recent years. To increase the marketability of the game, many traditional rivals have been consolidated into conferences resembling major NCAA conferences such as the Pac-12 and Big Ten.

Conferences and conference tournaments
Beginning around 2010, college rugby programs began realigning into conference structures that mirror the traditional NCAA conferences used by the member schools' other athletic programs. The first high-profile example was the formation of the Ivy League Rugby Conference in 2010. Following the organization of the Ivy League schools, the members of the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference followed suit in 2010.

Ivy Rugby Conference
The Ivy Rugby Conference was formed and had its first full season in 2009. The IRC was formed to foster better competition among rugby teams from the Ivy League schools and to raise the quality of play. The IRC has had consistent success in attracting commercial interests. The IRC formed committees to manage the league, independently of the LAUs and TUs. Prior to formation of the IRC, clubs from the eight Ivy League schools had competed in the Ivy Rugby Championship Tournament since 1969.

Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference
In December 2010, a core group of founding schools formed the Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference (SCRC). By April 2010, the SCRC had expanded to 11 schools, comprising the entire membership of the NCAA's Southeastern Conference (SEC) at that time except for Arkansas. Tennessee won the 2010 Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Sevens Championship beating LSU 19–17, and repeated in the 2011 SCRC Olympic Sevens Championship, beating Florida 26–14 in the final. Similar to other conferences, the SCRC has also enjoyed commercial success, announcing in fall 2010 that the SCRC had formed commercial partnership agreements with Adidas and the World Rugby Shop.

The Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference, formed by the aforementioned 11 SEC schools, was created in late 2010 and began play in the 2011–12 season. Florida won the conference title in the inaugural season, defeating Tennessee in the championship match. Although the SEC has since expanded to 14 schools, the SCRC membership remains at 11.

Pacific Athletic Conference
Several members of the Pac-12 conference agreed in spring 2012 to form a conference beginning play in the 2012–13 season.

Other conferences
Nine D1A rugby programs currently compete in the Big Ten Universities conference, which was founded in 2012. The Red River Conference, which replaced the Allied Rugby Conference in 2014–15, is composed mostly of teams from what had been the Big 12 South from 1996 to 2011. The Southwest Conference (SWC) was created in 2011 with charter members from seven Texas schools. University of Texas was immediately added, and Texas won the conference in the inaugural 2011–12 season.

Other competitions
College rugby includes rivalry trophies such as the World Cup between the University of California, Berkeley and the University of British Columbia (Canada), the Wasatch Cup between BYU and Utah, the University Cup between Texas and Texas A&M, the Koranda Cup between Yale and Princeton, and the Common Wealth Shield between Virginia and Virginia Tech.

The ACRC Bowl Series championship 15s tournament took place annually for three years from 2014 until 2016. College conference champions and select elite sides participated. The tournament provided an opportunity for teams to play outside of their conferences and was therefore relevant to establishing final fall 15s college rankings.

Division II XVs
Until 2021, Division II was solely governed by USA Rugby.

Small Colleges
Small College Rugby, formerly known as Division III, is governed by the National Collegiate Rugby Organization, formerly the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO). In 2020, NSCRO re-branded as National Collegiate Rugby. The National Small College Rugby Organization was created to give a competitive outlet to small colleges which would not otherwise have an opportunity to compete on a national stage. Each year, the NSCRO hosts rugby tournaments for Men's and Women's college teams, and during 2006–2011 it also conducted a Division IV Women's college tournament.

Division IV
The National Small College Rugby Organization conducted a Women's only Division IV championship from 2006 to 2011.

Injuries
In the US, college rugby has much higher injury rates than college football. Rugby union has similar injury types to American football but with more common injuries of arms.