New DI Rugby conferences

[Siborg]

Rugbymag.com
Written by Pat Clifton Sunday, 19 June 2011 23:04

DI Conferences Identified
As the July 1 deadline for College Premier Division teams to decide whether they're going to stay in the CPD or reenter DI approaches, RUGBYMag.com has learned what we believe will be the result of DI conference realignment for the the 2011/2012 competitive cycles. 14 conferences and one independent team have been identified.

For the 2011/2012 season, conferences will be allowed to count a CPD team toward their minimum number of seven participants, per competitions committee chair Kevin Battle. Southern California, where Battle's UC Santa Barbara competes, is the only conference with less than seven teams. Battle said Southern Caliifornia is still in the process of finding its seventh team.

The chair said the competitions committee is also working on a way to give independent teams (so far the only one is New Mexico) a pathway to the playoffs, but one has not yet been determined.

With 14 conferences, there would likely be two at-large bids into the DI playoffs. Battle said the competitions committee does not want to determine which conference or team would receive those bids before the season starts, as they want to give teams something to play for. He indicated the competitions committee would likely take non-conference and inter-conference games into consideration when awarding the at-large bids.

So far, only LSU and Tennessee have confirmed their exit of the CPD. Others, like Dartmouth, UC Davis, Claremont Colleges, Army and Cal Poly have either hinted they may follow suit or are rumored to be doing so. For now, those teams and other participants in the initial CPD season are marked with an asterisk.

DI teams moving up from DII or lower: 14
New Conferences: 4
Total teams eligible for postseason: 98

Italics indicates Canadian teams


Northwest
Central Washington*
Eastern Washington
Idaho
Oregon
Oregon State
Simon Fraser
UBC
Washington
Washington State
Western Washington

Mideast
Bowling Green
Davenport
Indiana
Miami (OH)
Michigan State
Ohio State*
Purdue


Atlantic Coast
Clemson
Georgia Tech
Maryland
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest

Ivy League
Brown
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth*
Harvard
Penn
Princeton
Yale

Northern California
Cal*
Chico State
Sacramento State
St. Mary's*
San Jose State
Santa Clara
Stanford
UC Davis*

Midwest
Iowa
Iowa State
Minnesota
Nebraska
UNI
UW-Stout
Wisconsin

Southeastern
Alabama
Auburn
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
LSU
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

East Coast
Albany
Boston College
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Middlebury
Northeastern
Southern Conn.

New York State
East
Fordham
Iona
Merchant Marine
Stony Brook

West
Binghamton
Brockport
Buffalo
St. Bonaventure
Syracuse

Eastern Pa.
Delaware*
Kutztown*
Millersville
Shippensburg
St. Joseph's
Temple
West Chester

South Independent
North
Georgia Southern
Kennessaw State
Life*
Middle Tenn. State

South
FIU
Florida State
UCF
USF

Heart of America
Arkansas
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Oklahoma*
Oklahoma State
Truman State

Southern California
Claremont*
Loyola Marymount
San Diego
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
USC

Southwest
Baylor
Houston
North Texas
Rice
Sam Houston
TCU
Texas
Texas State

Independent
New Mexico

[VDub26Falcon]

What's NM's problem? Join a conference ya pansies!