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Written by Alex Goff
Thursday, 29 September 2011 19:04 |
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Player Waiver Request Highlights Gray Area |
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Off The Field -
USA Rugby News
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St. John’s University senior Anthony Jacoby has been denied a request for an extension of his college eligibility and is appealing the finding with USA Rugby.
Jacoby is asking for an extra semester of competition because he missed the fall term of 2007 due to military training, which ran from May through October of that year.
According to appeal documents provided to RUGBYMag.com, USA Rugby’s Collegiate Eligibility Committee’s reasoning was two-fold: training is not active duty, and waivers are given for one full year, not partial years.
Jacoby’s release papers are titled “Release or Discharge from Active Duty” and the field titled “Type of Separation” says he received his release from “active duty training.”
That term, “active duty training,” may be at the heart of the discussion, as it seems to fall inside something of a gray area.
During his training, Jacoby was stationed at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and received training in ammunition. He received a National Defense Service Medal and his Army Service Ribbon. He did not play any rugby.
As for the time constraint, sources at USA Rugby indicated the decision might be related to the CIPP cycle. Jacoby was CIPP’d for a year, but is asking only for an extra half year.
The USA Rugby Eligibility Regulations for Colleges says nothing about a minimum waiver time. There’s a maximum – two years – but nothing that says an extension of less than a year is forbidden.
Players have five years from the time they enroll in college to play college rugby. Military service, church service or mission, and pregnancy are the main stated reasons for extensions to the five years. Players can get extensions for injury or illness, or hardship, but have to show that such an issue prevented them from attending college.
Jacoby has already missed two of his team’s five league games while this remains under appeal.
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Written by Alex Goff
Thursday, 29 September 2011 17:36 |
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Rebuilding No Problem for Dartmouth |
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Colleges -
Men's DI College
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Dartmouth leads the Ivy League with a 2-0 record after sweeping their games this past weekend.
Sure the Big Green is tied with Princeton (also 2-0), but points difference skews heavily to the team from New Hampshire, and looks to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
This all despite some rebuilding the team has had to do after winning the Ivy League last year, and also winning the USA 7s Collegiate Rugby Championships.
“We graduated a big class, which was not only a lot of starters but the guys who took the majority of reps in practice,” said No. 8 and captain Paul Jarvis. “But a lot of the young guys have stepped up.”
Scrumhalf Quinn Connell has stepped in impressively for Derek Fish, while newcomer and High School All American Madison Hughes, who learned his rugby while attending school in the UK, has been “electric” at fullback.
“Madison is fitting in really well,” said Jarvis. “He has a really good work ethic and with his athleticism and sense of the game, it’s really helped fill the hole left by the Downer brothers.”
That would be Chris and Nick Downer, who were RUGBYMag.com’s co-MVPs of the CRC.
“If anything he has more of a sense of the game than the Downers, who picked the game up in college,” said Jarvis. “When the chips were down the Downers would back themselves with their raw athleticism, but Madison has a great understanding of the game and kicks really well and that’s been a benefit.”
With those additions and a front row by committee that’s competing well and replacing the outstanding Charlie Grant, Dartmouth may be rebuilding, but they can also still play.
It doesn’t hurt, of course, to have Jarvis back, and All American Nate Brakeley.
Now back fully in DI (or should we say, DI-AA, as the College Premier Division is expected to be renamed DI-A), Dartmouth is looking to win the Ivy League and move on to Spring’s playoffs.
“As an Ivy League team, when we get into DI play we won’t be the biggest or the strongest team,” said Jarvis. “But we work on the things Coach [Alex] Magleby preaches - repositioning and the speed of the attack and the speed of the recycle. We returned a lot of guys who were on the CRC-winning team and we came back better ball carriers, better open-field runners, and better one-on-one tacklers.”
And they came back understanding what fitness standards they need. Sevens requires a high standard of fitness and the players now know the level of work they have to put in. It doesn’t hurt that they have the assistance of one of Dartmouth’s varsity strength and conditioning coaches.
“We have unbelievable intensity in our team workouts,” said Jarvis. “We know there is always room for improvement. As a team we’ve built a strong culture where we avoid setting arbitrary goals like winning the Ivy League. We know it’s a process where we want to be the best team we possibly can be. That way you’re never content to win some trophy, because you’re measuring yourself a different way.”
That doesn’t stop Dartmouth from circling a few dates on the calendar. One is this weekend against Yale.
“Last year we scored two tries early and it was a dogfight the rest of the game, and we don’t want to get dragged into that,” said Jarvis. “And we know Princeton is having a great season.”
But Dartmouth is reloading and looking strong. It hasn’t hurt that they won a 7s championships on national TV.
“The tangible effect from the sevens is that we have a much bigger freshman class than before,” said Jarvis. “And we expect to see more football guys come over in the spring.”
And what with they find?
“Dartmouth rugby has a culture that’s unrivaled on campus,” enthused the captain. “It brings together guys from all different backgrounds for a common purpose. The more you pay in the more you get out and really it’s the most rewarding thing I do on campus.”
Ivy League matches this weekend:
Cornell (0-2) @ Princeton (2-0)
Yale (0-2) @ Dartmouth (2-0)
Brown (1-1) @ Harvard (1-1)
Penn (1-1) @ Columbia (1-1)
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Written by Pat Clifton
Thursday, 29 September 2011 18:05 |
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Column: Thoughts on the DII College Restructure |
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Columns -
Op-Eds
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The DII college playoff structure was recently unveiled, and it’s inclusion of the GU is interesting enough to rouse up a few opinions.
With DI, the territorial unions were cut out of the picture a little more drastically and immediately than in DII, as no TU, save arguably the Midwest, managed a pathway to nationals last year. (The Midwest and Mideast conferences are commissioned by one man, Tom Rooney, who ran the leagues for the Midwest TU prior to the conference restructure.)
USA Rugby’s restructuring plan doesn’t call for DII to fully commit to the conference system until next season, so the fact that TUs are still in the fold doesn’t in any way mean the plan’s not moving forward as drawn up. However, I believe the emergence of the geographical union could eventually change that.
When the original restructuring plan was announced, many (including me) were skeptical about whether college programs, especially DII, would have the administrative wherewithal to align themselves into new leagues, let alone administer them.
Seeing as how only three conferences have formed, that concern is still very real. What happens if only three or four more leagues crystallize by the 2012/2013 season? Do we have a national championship with representatives from just seven leagues? No.
Maybe the restructure is amended to allow teams to advance to nationals via a conference or a geographical union.
What’s good about this? The TU is rendered useless in the largest sectors of college rugby. This is good if it means movement toward the conference structure, like a conference with training wheels, the wheels being GU administrators and time get used to the conference idea.
If a GU administers a league or two out of, say, a dozen or two teams, maybe the teams realize they can run a conference on their own and the inevitable geographical distances that once seemed unsavory prove to be doable?
For instance, if the Great Plains, Heart of America and Missouri unions combined to form a GU, and teams like Creighton (Nebraska), Central Missouri (eastern Missouri) and Benedictine (eastern Kansas) play in a league with the likes of Saint Louis University (eastern Missouri) and Principia (western Illinois), then why couldn’t they do the same as a conference?
Plus, it’d allow some teams that may be more skeptical about the conference model to observe how other conferences work out things that are the root of their skepticism, like the referee situation.
The problem with training wheels? They’re comfortable, and it could take some nudging and prodding to get teams to take the leap and join a conference.
A large part of the philosophy of the restructure was getting the college game in the hands of its stakeholders -- don’t have a DIII club person trying to decide what’s best for a DI college team. If teams or USA Rugby get too comfortable with the GU-as-a-substitute-for-a-conference scenario, then perhaps the end goal won’t be accomplished.
USA Rugby and its collegiate legislators, committee members and decision makers shoved DI head-first into the deep end in regards to the restructure. Should it allow DII programs to dip their toes?
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Written by Pat Clifton
Thursday, 29 September 2011 16:34 |
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The Week Ahead: DI Men's College |
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Colleges -
Men's DI College
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Each week for the forseeable future, we'll give you a rundown of what games are coming up in DI, paying special attention to the Top 25. Here's the first rendition. Disclaimer: some games may be missing. If you know of a DI league game not liste below, email it to
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Top 25
Top ranked Davenport finally gets its Mideast season underway on the road in West Lafayette, Ind. against Purdue. The Boilermakers scored a big win against CPD Ohio State a couple of weeks back, but they’re coming off a big loss to Bowling Green. Expect the Panthers to begin the quest for their first conference championship undefeated.
No. 2 Dartmouth (2-0) plays host to 0-2 Yale Saturday in the second weekend of Ivy play. Forget the upset of the century, a Bulldog win would be the biggest upset in the history of the game.
Ninth-ranked Bowling Green versus 12th ranked Indiana is the big game this week. Click here to find out why.
No. 15 Wisconsin is fresh off of a 47-0 win over Creighton, a typically-solid DII team out of Omaha. Iowa, which has started the season 2-0, has a couple of close conference wins under its belt.
It’s hard to judge the Hawkeyes off their wins over Iowa State and UW-Stout, but a win or close game against the Badgers would speak volumes. Given Iowa’s lack of depth, the Hawkeyes are probably fortunate they’re catching Wisconsin early in the season.
“We know they’ve got some athletes. I think they’re loaded right now, to tell you the truth,” said Iowa coach Jim Lloyd. “We’ve only got 26 guys, and Madison’s coming in with 62, so that will matter down the road.”
No. 17 Minnesota has little bit of an easier assignment in UW-Stout, but a win is far from guaranteed.
“I can expect them to be well disciplined,” said Minnesota coach Loren Lemke of UW-Stout. “I can expect them to be hard runners. They’ll be fit. They always are. They’re strong.”
Playing his second game at flyhalf for the Gophers will be Nate Augspurger. He’s been a big-time playmaker for Minnesota for years now, but usually at scrumhalf.
“It’s his first time playing flyhalf. Some of the things he wants to do, especially coming off 7s season, he can’t do playing 15s,” said Augspurger. “But it comes together pretty fast for him. He’s a smart kid. He knows how to play ball, so things are going pretty good.”
19th ranked St. Bonaventure looks to improve to 3-0 Sunday against Buffalo. The Bonnies could be running into a buzzsaw, as Buffalo has had two weeks to stew over a 30-5 loss to Syracuse. If St. Bonaventure wins, the Bonnies will have beaten the last two New York State champs.
What can be made of Northeastern? Their league-opening 50-0 defeat of Southern Connecticut looked really good at first. But then So. Conn was smashed by Middlebury, signaling So. Conn. isn’t in the same form that won them the MetNY conference last season.
The Huskies' Saturday fracas with Middlebury will tell a lot about the future of the East Coast Conference. If Northeastern wins big, or perhaps at all, is there anyone who can catch them?
Midwest/Mideast
Indiana @ Bowling Green
Wisconsin @ Iowa
UNI @ Nebraska
Michigan State @ Ohio State
Davenport @ Purdue
Minnesota @ Stout
Heart of America
Truman State vs. Oklahoma State
East Coast
Boston College vs. Albany
So. Conn. Vs. UMass
Northeastern vs. Middlebury
EPRU
St. Joe’s @ West Chester
Ivy League
Cornell @ Princeton
Yale @ Dartmouth
Brown @ Harvard
Penn @ Columbia
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