There will be no 15s season for Florida women’s colleges in spring 2021, as confirmed by Florida GU Collegiate Director Jessie Premet. Senior club competition, however, is moving forward and has published matrix schedules that begin in February.
“Every university in the state of Florida is not allowing sport clubs to participate in matches this spring,” Premet explained in an e-mail.
The cancelation impacts up to nine teams, some of which were not contesting matrix games in the 2019-20 season but have recently fielded teams:
DIVISION I
Univ Central Florida
Univ Florida
Florida State Univ
DIVISION II
Eckerd College
Florida Atlantic Univ
Florida Gulf Coast Univ
Florida International Univ
Univ Miami
Univ South Florida
Last year, the Florida conferences completed the majority of their regular seasons, which begin in January, before Covid-19 halted play in March 2020. These teams will not be missing out on two consecutive seasons of rugby – a consolation that means little in the present.
Florida has created a U23 competition for the men, and there are currently six teams readying for games on Jan. 30. A similar effort was in the works for the women but did not find traction. On Dec. 28, 2020, Premet wrote:
This is still in the very early stages for the college women so we don’t have many details to share as of yet. The college men are set with the U23/senior men’s B-side format. However, the college women seem to not be too interested in this as a club as a whole, but rather ‘can’t stop’ their individual players wanting to play rugby in 2021 to play with the local senior women’s clubs.
By Jan. 13, however, the effort ended. Per Premet:
There will not be a U23/B-side official schedule for the women’s college teams in Florida. If any women’s college players want to play, they will just join the local senior women’s clubs.
The Florida DI and DII conferences joined the College Rugby Association of America (CRAA), a partner of USA Rugby, for the 2020-21 season onward. The alignment was necessitated by the reorganization of USA Rugby in 2020. CRAA has not released any information about the impending spring season, as many collegiate conferences are still in a holding pattern.
Follow the playing statuses of competitions across the country via #Covid2021.