Despite the fact that three of the final four teams from last year’s National Championship semifinal round are back to compete for the top spot, the Men’s Division II playoffs are as wide open as they have been in some time heading into Regionals weekend. With some perennial powerhouse programs reloading, and new contenders emerging during the regular season, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will emerge victorious when all is said and done.
The betting favorite still has to be #3 IUP, who are seeking their third XVs national title in as many years after they successfully defended their title against UNI 38-29 in Houston last Fall. Despite losing superstars like Cam Taylor – and superheroes like Dom Holmes – to graduation, and losing All-American Santino Fischio to injury, the Crimson Hawks were as dominant as ever during the regular season and cruised to their fifth consecutive Allegheny Rugby Union Conference title. Players like Malcolm Johnson, Dylan Deasy, Declan Cringle, and Ethan Miller have stepped up this year and have made IUP once again an incredibly difficult challenge for any team in DII to overcome.
The first to get a shot at the defending champs will be #7 Cornell, who dominated the Liberty Conference this season. The team scored 50+ points in every contest except for the conference championship – a game they won 33-8 over RPI to cap off their undefeated season. The Big Red have certainly lived up to that moniker this season with their physically imposing forward pack. Tatenda Gonese and Matthew Lane set the tone for Cornell from the front row along with players like loose forward Noah Parlee and lock Liam Gillespie. Wingers Collin Feeney and Zachary Gould are also adept finishers on the outside.
Should IUP outlast Cornell in round one in Fairfield, CT, they are most likely headed for an epic clash against the University of Vermont in the East Regional Final. The Catamounts ended the year as the #1 ranked DII team in the country after outscoring their opponents 475-27 in the regular season. Vermont beat their in-state rivals – and last year’s third-place finishers – Norwich twice this season, once under the lights on Friday Night Rugby, 40-12, and again in the NEWCRC conference final a week later, 43-10.
Vermont has been led by Senior, and MLR draftee, Jack Worobel. He, along with the rest of the forwards, have been the driving force behind the Catamount’s dominant 2025 Fall, with Roman Legere and Quinn Gallant also making key contributions throughout the season. Matt Tevnan at flyhalf has also been key to keeping Vermont’s well-tuned offense humming along. They’ll have to be in sync in their first round match on Saturday as they face off against a strong #12 Villanova side that went 6-1 and finished second in the MARC. The Wildcats, led by Jason Lambert, lost to #5 Scranton 35-12 in the conference playoffs. But they were close at halftime (7-8) with a team that would go on to upset Salisbury in the conference Finals, and the team would rebound to beat Towson, a team that finished in the Final Four last season, 39-31.
On the other side of that bracket sits perhaps the least talked about contender in all of Division II. UNC-Wilmington is coming off of a CRC 7s National Championship last Spring and they have not lost that momentum at all throughout the Fall season. The Seahawks crushed their competition in the SoCon, outscoring teams 560-71 on their way to a second consecutive unbeaten season and a conference championship. Head coach Jim Wiseman has his entire team firing on all cylinders, including his two sons, Marshall and Mason Wiseman, who form a dynamic duo at the 9 and 10 spots respectively. Center Danny Marsh has also been a force this season, scoring 100 points in five games for UNCW who look absolutely unstoppable and finished the year ranked #2 in the coaches poll.
The Seahawks’ staying power will be tested immediately, however, as they will take on a strong Salisbury team in round one that has delivered their fair share of upsets so far this season. The Sharks were riding high after two huge wins over their rivals, the Towson Tigers, including a 34-27 semifinal win in the MARC playoffs. Salisbury was humbled the following week, however, by a finals loss to the aforementioned Scranton Norsemen, knocking them down the national rankings to #8 and rerouting them into this more difficult first-round matchup. The Sharks may have been bloodied by the loss but they remain unbroken, and are always ready to deploy their incredibly physical brand of rugby, embodied by players like Kevin Monroe Jr. and Lars Nilsen, making them a tough out for any team.
Two more ranked teams round out this half of the bracket as #11 Memphis will look to remain unbeaten on the year as they take on #20 Coastal Carolina. The Memphis Tigers swept through the Southeastern Conference this Fall without really breaking a sweat. Scrumhalf Caleb Schmidt led the team’s potent offense to wins over teams like Ole Miss (68-19), and Mississippi State (65-3), before capping off the season with a 57-3 win over Tennessee Tech in the SCRC Championship.
Coastal Carolina, on the other hand, has had to really battle their way through the SoCon this season, with strong wins over VCU (46-5), ECU (41-16), and Virginia (43-25) interspersed with losses to South Carolina (12-28), Wingate (20-17), and UNC-W (5-76). If the Chanticleers put their best foot forward on Saturday it could make for an incredibly exciting match against the Tigers. Viewers should definitely keep their eye on the scrumhalves in this one as both Coastal’s Patrick Mauro and Memphis’ Schmidt are leaders for their respective clubs.
Seeing as Scranton has already been mentioned twice in this preview for beating other contenders, it seems only fair to lead off the second half of the bracket with their opening round matchup in the Midwest. As noted, the Norsemen surprised a lot of people by unseating Salisbury in the MARC Final, 23-20. But the men in purple have done nothing but win this season thanks to efforts from players like Sean Comiskey, Mike Chino, and Pat George, and it doesn’t seem like anybody knows when the winning will stop.
If this was 2024, it might have been easy to predict that Scranton’s streak would end this weekend against Norwich, who pushed IUP to the brink in a double-overtime National semifinal loss before beating Towson 72-17 in the third place match last December. But the Cadets have lost some of their shine this season after their back-to-back losses to Vermont to end the year and have slipped all the way to #18 in the national rankings. They have no other blemishes on their record this season, however, and head Coach Bob Weggler always has his team fit and playing hard, which officially puts Scranton on upset alert in Obetz.
The winner of that match will face off against either last year’s runners up in #9 Northern Iowa, or another ranked team in #15 Grand Valley State. GVSU had a strong season in the Great Lakes Conference once again this year, punctuated by an epic 36-35 come-from-behind win over Miami Ohio and a resounding 106-15 win over Ferris State to secure their fourth conference championship in a row. Kai Norman scored six tries in the win over FSU, but Reinhardt Stipp and Tyler Costellow have done the most damage for the Lakers this season.
Despite losing All-Americans Elliott Sinnwell, Jentry Staack, and David Randall, UNI still looked like a formidable side during the regular season, going undefeated in conference play. But the Panthers were stunned by an upstart University of Chicago side in the Great Midwest Conference Finals, 38-15, putting their contention to return to the National Championship game in doubt. The team hopes that players like Jake Staack and and Trace Lindemann can help keep the train on the tracks after hitting this late-season speed bump.
Luckily for UNI, the aforementioned UChicago are playing in a different regional bracket, meaning there won’t be a chance for the two teams to meet again until the semifinals in Houston. The Maroons have seemingly improved with every game this season, steadily rising up the national rankings as they continually knocked off higher-seeded competitors on their way to the playoffs. They owned the city of Chicago this year, beating both Northwestern and Loyola-Chicago before their ultimate victory over UNI bumped them up to #6 in the coaches poll. Joe Baldwin has had an outstanding season at scrumhalf for the Maroons but they have dangerous players up and down the lineup capable of blitzing opponents at a moment’s notice. In their first round matchup, UChicago will take on an inspiring story in Benedictine, a former DII powerhouse that had dropped down to DIII for a time but has now qualified for the National playoffs in their first year back.
And in the final matchup in the DII bracket, #4 Colorado Mesa will take on #10 Loyola Chicago. In the High Peaks conference, both Montana State and Boise State were picked to finish ahead of CMU in preseason polls. But the Mavericks made us pundits look silly, beating MSU 34-10 and then beating Boise State 61-14 to secure a conference championship. And Loyola-Chicago has looked strong outside of their matchups against the Maroons, a fact that will perhaps motivate the Ramblers to get past CMU in round one and set up a third shot at taking down their inter-city rivals in the Regional Final.
