Two teams will punch their ticket to Houston for the Division I-AA national championship game Saturday, as MAC rivals Louisville (9-0) and Bowling Green (9-3) face off in one semifinal, and Texas A&M (8-1) and Tennessee (10-0) contest the other.
The Cardinals and Falcons are intimately familiar with one another, having played twice already this season. Both games were 32-22 victories for Louisville. The Aggies and Volunteers don’t meet often, but their most recent match was last September in Knoxville, with Tennessee racing out to a 33-0 halftime lead to win 46-17.
Louisville and Bowling Green’s first meeting this season, in September, was closer than the final score line suggests, with five lead changes in total. Tied 22-22 late, Louisville pumped in two scores in the final three minutes to win, delivering Bowling Green its first regular-season MAC loss in three years.
In the MAC final, the Falcons scored first, but the Cardinals ripped off 19-straight points to establish the lead. Bowling Green rallied back-to-back tries to draw within a score at 26-20, but Louisville nailed two penalties in the game’s final quarter to seal the win.
Since the last trip to Knoxville, Texas A&M has brought on a new coach, Tui Osborne, and the Aggies look like a different team. Should they win two more games this fall, Osborne will become the first coach to win a national title with three different programs, having won a USA Rugby 7s championship with Life in 2011 and the DI XVs title with St. Bonaventure in 2021.
12 players from Tennessee’s quarterfinal win over Sam Houston State were on the side that beat the Aggies 15 months ago, including No. 8 Roman Funkhouser, scrumhalf Zach O’Reilly and flyhalf Brendan O’Neill, who personally accounted for 21 of the Vols’ 46 points. Gone, however, is Matthew Beacom, who scored three tries for Tennessee in that game.
The 20 points (two converted tries, two penalty kicks) Tennessee scored against Sam Houston in the quarterfinal was its lowest offensive output of the season by double digits, while A&M put 34 and 45 on the Bearkats in their two meetings this fall.
Tennessee and A&M share one other common opponent, back-to-back national champion Kentucky. The Vols beat the Wildcats, 39-22, to claim the Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference title. Two weeks later, the Aggies defeated Kentucky with a penalty at the death, 38-36, to end the Wildcats’ bid for a three-peat.
Louisville and Bowling Green kickoff at 11 a.m. ET in Butler, PA followed by Tennessee and Texas A&M at 1 p.m. in Knoxville. Both matches will be streamed live on tv.ncr.rugby.
