Friday Night Rugby — D3 Men’s clash
📍 Holy Cross vs Providence
📅 Friday, October 24, 7PM ET
📺 Watch it here

West Coast Sevens — Round 3
📍 San Diego, CA
📅 Saturday-Sunday, October 25-26 (TOMORROW)
Saturday: 📺 Field 1 📺 Field 2
Sunday: 📺 Field 1 📺 Field 2

High School 15s countdown
SoCal — December
North Carolina — December

We’re getting closer to 15s season, and coaches are surely starting to look ahead. In the meantime, sevens is still cooking — here are a few standouts:

St. Ignatius is cruising through the Ohio sevens scene. Sitting at 13-0 with a 558–67 (“six-seven!”) point differential, there’s not much else to say except this: St. Ignatius is on another level right now.

In Pennsylvania, La Salle is rolling with a 20-2 record after round five of the PA sevens format.

In New Jersey, Christian Brothers Academy owns a perfect 16-0 record heading into the state sevens championship this weekend, where they’ll look to put the final feather in their cap.

West Coast Sevens concludes this weekend in San Diego.

In the high school division, there are more teams (eight) this weekend than in both previous rounds. Here’s the scoop:

Cathedral Catholic won the first round in LA.
Carmichael took round two up in Stanford.
Now, Carmichael travels south to San Diego to test their skills against a loaded group of SoCal teams.

Cathedral Catholic should be at full strength again — look out.

Torrey Pines is back in the mix after skipping the NorCal stop.

OMBAC impressed in LA and could be a dark horse candidate to win this thing.

Belmont Shore joins the fray. Their 15s team is imposing — let’s see who turns up for sevens.

J Serra, Oceanside, and Inferno Rugby round out the high school division.

The College Men’s division features:
Cal • UCLA • San Diego State • Grand Canyon University • Long Beach U • Claremont • University of San Diego • Mira Costa

🏉 Riot Take: In the college division, the big question is clear: who can challenge Cal? Simple as that.
In the high school division, there’s less certainty. Carmichael surprised in Stanford, but Cathedral Catholic was missing several key guys that weekend. And OMBAC, Torrey Pines, and Belmont Shore weren’t even there. This division feels wide open.

🇺🇸U.S. player Fun Fact:

Jack Iscaro, a Gonzaga HS alum and Old Glory star, was signed by Stade Français (Top 14 league powerhouse) to play as a medical joker (short-term injury replacement).
In his debut this past week vs Castres Olympique, Jack scored a try — you can watch the replay here.

Well done, Jack! Rep the 🇺🇸

In the NCR, many divisions are wrapping up regular season games soon and turning their eyes toward the playoff picture.
Here’s a snapshot of how the Coaches Poll views the top teams:

Brown spanked Fordham 79–5 but still got leapfrogged by St. Bonaventure in the Coaches Poll after the Bonnies beat St. Thomas 20–11. It’s a fickle thing, this Coaches Poll.

Next up: The Bonnies face a colossal match with Wheeling this weekend. Brown gets the weekend off to rest up.

Kentucky met a spunky LSU side and ended up with a 31–31 draw. That — combined with a few other results across the country — was enough to drop them to #6 in the Coaches Poll. A bit harsh? Kinda feels like it, considering their body of work this season.

In any case, Louisville ascended to #1 on the back of a dominant 77–3 win over Pitt.
Tennessee sits at #2 this week after beating Alabama 33–10, followed by Virginia Tech at #3.

Fun Fact: Vince Keller started at flyhalf for Tennessee this past week. Keller is a college freshman coming off a fantastic senior year with Charlotte Catholic and the Charlotte Cardinals. Atta boy, Vince!

For the first time this season, there’s a new #1 in the Coaches Poll. Until now, IUP had held firm at the top, but this week they were supplanted by UNC Wilmington.

UNC clobbered Coastal Rugby 76–5, so the move seems justified. But IUP also whooped up on WVU 65–5. Safe to say these two are neck-and-neck — maybe the Coaches just wanted to shake things up a bit this week?

Duke did nothing to cast doubt on their #1 status in D3. In this week’s version of Video Game Scores, they dropped 122 flippin’ points on Wake Forest. To be fair, that score doesn’t tell us much about Duke — but it does tell a dubious tale about Wake Forest’s defense.

Rounding out the top three are Cal Poly-Humboldt (#2) and Franciscan (#3). Cal Poly has been consistently in the top three for several weeks, while Franciscan sniffs the top three for the first time this season — no doubt due to their 101–15 smackdown of Kent State last weekend.

Put this on your calendar 👊

Last winter, we ran a “Fan Rankings” poll during December — and it was a blast. We had thousands of responses and tons of feedback.

We also learned a couple of things:

First, we only included Single School teams — and we heard about it haha. So this year, we’re including Club squads too.

Second, December is such a busy month that many people tried to vote after the poll had already closed. So we’re extending the window to give everyone more time to weigh in.

Here’s the plan:

Here’s what last year’s preseason Single School poll looked like 👇

🗓️November 15th we’ll open the preseason Fan Rankings poll for Single School teams.
We’ll post a link here and on our Instagram.

Show up and support your team!

A gravitas bomb from a tech tycoon? Hell yeah.

Jensen was talking about building company culture and the importance of enduring suffering in the pursuit of excellence.

Rugby demands perseverance — it tests every athletic fiber of your body and every ounce of your mental and emotional grit. It’s a sport that requires a bit of suffering. That’s where character is built, where teams find grit, and where greatness is cultivated.

Oddball musings, induced by borderline hypothermia.

🏉 Someone should really run a poll to see how many players first discovered rugby through sevens — and then fell in love with 15s. It’d tell us a lot about our rugby ecosystem.

🏉 Conspiracy theory: this whole “6 7” craze was cooked up by a secret society of egomaniac flankers.

🏉 I’m flying to San Diego today. I’m going to document every rugby-shorts-wearing person I see in the airport and report back next week.