The National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) created the National College Rugby Organization (NCRO) as a new potential home for teams and conferences left stranded by USA Rugby’s implosion. The Open Division has both men’s and women’s components, and while the former has been claiming several DII leagues, the latter has just started announcing alignments last week.
The Great Waters and Northern Lights conferences committed to NSCRO and NCRO, and account for 29 teams in Chicago, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Both leagues were already operating as hybrids, meaning NSCRO and DII teams had the opportunity to play across divisions during the regular season, and then separated for their respective post-seasons. USA Rugby operated the DII post-season, and NSCRO operated the small colleges’ pathway. Therefore, not much would change for these two leagues during future regular seasons, especially since their respective commissioners are already familiar with NSCRO.
There are many questions as to what the Open Division will actually look like, and that of course is impacted by the number of teams and conferences, their whereabouts and seasonality, the proactivity of league leadership, among other factors. Bryn Chivers is the NSCRO Women’s Commissioner and will retain that post going forward. He will not, however, oversee the NCRO Open Division.
“First and foremost, the Open Division is going to have a commissioner. That commissioner will have a committee that works with them in developing that division,” Chivers prefaced his forthcoming comments. “A lot of what the Open Division may or may not be is speculative until such time when that person comes on board. That person has to come from a team that would be competing in that division, because those are the people who are currently committed to the development of those DII and potentially DI teams. They have the greatest understanding of what that specific set of teams needs.”
Chivers reiterated that his thoughts on the Open Division are not binding, and that he’ll work with the future commissioner and committee for coordinating things like joint playoff logistics. [On that note: NSCRO will hold its 15s regional championships (Round 16/8) on Nov. 14-15, and the national semifinals and championship on Dec. 4-5.] He also noted that he’s not actively recruiting conferences to NCRO or reaching out to candidates for commissioner, but answering questions as interested parties contact him.
“I had a couple of DI schools reach out to me, ‘We’d like to be in Open Division,’” Chivers said. “They weren’t speaking for their conferences but as individual teams. One said, ‘We play in a DI division and constantly get our butt handed to us against these teams, and we’re looking to move somewhere that would allow us to compete in a hybrid and go to their divisions. Does the Open Division include DI and DII teams?’ That’s a good question [for the new commissioner and committee].
“Northern Lights committed DII teams to NCRO, including Winona State, who are probably, if not the best, one of the best DII teams in the country. That sets the bar for the quality of that Open Division pretty high,” Chivers said of the Black Katts, which played in the DI Midwest during the regular season before rerouting to the DII post-season. “Is the Open Division a place where maybe some DI teams that are not the elite DI teams [could play], because it could be that it doesn’t matter that you’re DI if you get better competition in a hybrid conference. When you come into the Round of 16, closer to the top, then you’ll run into very good DII teams.”
Upstate New York is a solid example of teams grouped by competition level and not division. During the regular season, DII and NSCRO teams are grouped together in a more competitive bracket, and then a separate NSCRO division allows small schools to play a strictly NSCRO-only season. Again, the teams separate out for the conference playoffs and onward. Allegheny also runs a hybrid that involves DI and DII teams (there are also NSCRO 7s and 15s competitions), and Rugby Northeast puts its better NSCRO teams in Tier 1 with the DII teams in regular season.
“The one thing key thing is the addition of the Open Division will have the least amount of impact on the existing organization of teams that are currently served by NSCRO,” Chivers said. “They’re going to get all the same services they always got. It might feel different at the local level where hybrids might change. If a conference was functioning on a system where they needed X amount of teams to be classified as DII, and therefore teams that were potentially small-college-eligible were playing as a DII team, [with NSCRO / NCRO] they could now be small-school and the hybrid league could be based on quality of play. Here is a higher-level group of hybrid Open Division and NSCRO teams, and a lower grouping.”
There are many possibilities in terms of uniting teams of similar competition levels. For example, there are two separate Ohio Valley conferences – one is DII, the other NSCRO. Cincinnati has dominated the DII Ohio Valley conference, which is riddled with forfeits, but a hybrid league with the NSCRO Ohio Valley conference could give teams like Cedarville or Ohio University a chance to play meaningful games.
“When you’re making something new, it lets you get into this small stuff and ask: Is this best for our college teams,” Chivers said. “Right now, for example, we’re looking at dues, which is a challenging topic. We’re working on this dues structure that offers multiple options for teams to work out what would best suit their team.
“Similarly, as we go through membership having Lucy [Zugschwert] on board, we’re able to look at things differently,” Chivers continued. “She presents us with questions we haven’t necessarily thought about before. It means we have the opportunity to go, ‘Yes! Why is it that way? Is it that way for a general population of rugby and does it still apply if it’s just collegiate rugby?’ We can get into things like: When does the season end and star? When does insurance end and start? Interesting questions like: How many members does a team need to be in compliance and why?”
Typically during this time of year, Chivers would be verifying rosters for this weekend’s NSCRO National 7s Championship, but he isn’t wanting for activity in the absence of the tournament. There is more impetus for fall-based competitions to sort their futures, as spring-based competitions obviously have more time to see how USA Rugby emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy – status that still needs approval from the courts. With that said, rugby might not be back in its entirety come fall 2020, as universities keep a steady watch on Covid-19.
The next big step is finding a commissioner and building a committee so the Open Division can take shape. And when the time comes, Chivers will be able to share resources with NCRO, which could one day replicate NSCRO’s all-star systems and select side programs, and promote transparent, clearly communicated regional and national championships with free live-streaming, among other benefits.