BYU Rugby officially announced its much-anticipated 2013 Spring 15′s schedule today.
“This year’s schedule really breaks new ground for us in terms of difficulty,” said Head Rugby Coach David Smyth. “I can’t remember a season that even approaches this one for the number of challenging fixtures it offers.”
The reigning Collegiate National Champions will play four matches with former “Super League” or Division 1 men’s teams, one of those being the Champions’ Challenge between the previous year’s Super League Champion, New York Athletic Club, and the nation’s top college team, BYU.
The Cougars will also play its traditional Wasatch Cup rivalry contests in a new, home-and-home format with the University of Utah, a perennial top-5 college team.
The regular-season schedule will feature a selection of quality teams from Utah, California and Colorado. Continuing the highly regarded broadcast schedule begun last season, all home games will be produced by BYU Rugby and webcast to the team’s fans around the world.
As previously announced, BYU will finish its season by participating in the Varsity Cup, competing with such storied rugby clubs as Utah, Air Force, Navy, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, California and UCLA for collegiate rugby supremacy.
Of the prior 33 collegiate national championships 31 have been won by Varsity Cup teams making it the premier post-season invitational collegiate rugby championship.
Having graduated 15 players from last year’s roster the Cougars will marshal themselves behind the leadership of Senior All Americans No. 8 Ryan Roundy and Prop Ray Forrester.
Having graduated the halfback pairing that led the Cougars to the 2009 and 2012 National Championships in Dylan Lubbe and Shaun Davies, youngsters Luke Mocke, John Linnehan and the seasoned Inoke Funaki will hope to operate the high-octane BYU scoring machine.
Other returners of note are All American Center Seki Kofe, Wing Will Taylor, All American Lock/Flanker TJ Allred and Fullback Ryan Blaser who recently returned from an LDS mission.
The BYU Reserve Grade squad will be competing in the newly-formed Utah Collegiate Rugby Conference (UCRC) against top teams from colleges and universities in Utah and Idaho including Utah Valley University, Snow College, Dixie State Univ., Idaho State Univ., Weber State College, Utah State Univ., Southern Utah Univ., Salt Lake Community College and the University of Utah Reserve Grade teams.
The Cougars report this weekend for a team mini-camp and then start their 2013 campaign the weekend of Jan 11th and 12th in Mesquite, NV with the UCRC Red Rock Tournament where BYU will play Idaho State and the Utah 2nd XV.
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BYU Rugby Spring 15s Season Schedule: All home games played at South Field. All times are local. DATE OPPONENT TIME TV/WEB RESULT
*Men's Super League Team
**Men's Division 1 Team
***Varsity Cup Team
JAN 11 @ Utah 2nd XV (Red Rock Tournament--Mesquite, NV) TBD
JAN 12 @ Idaho State (Red Rock Tournament--Mesquite, NV) TBD - -
JAN 19 BYE - - -
JAN 24 @ SDSU TBD - -
JAN 26 @ UCLA*** TBD - -
FEB 2 @ Snow College TBD - -
FEB 9 @ Texas A&M (Las Vegas Invitational) TBD - -
FEB 16 @ Old Puget Sound (Dixie Invitational, St. George, UT)* TBD - -
FEB 23 @ Denver Barbarians (Grand Junction, CO)* TBD - -
MAR 2 Utah State University TBD WEB -
MAR 9 New York Athletic Club (Champions Challenge)* TBD WEB -
MAR 16 @ University of Utah (Murray Park, UT--Wasatch Cup)*** TBD - -
MAR 23 Air Force Academy*** TBD WEB -
MAR 30 Las Vegas Blackjacks** TBD WEB -
APR 5 University of Utah (Wasatch Cup)*** TBD WEB -
APR 13 BYE - - -
APR 20 Varsity Cup Quarterfinal (TBD) TBD - -
APR 27 Varsity Cup Semifinal (TBD) TBD - -
MAY 4 Varsity Cup Championship (TBD) @ Rio Tinto Stadium (Sandy, UT) TBD - -
Source : http://www.rugbyrugby.com/news/by_country/u_s/7008025/byu_releases_2013_schedule