After a 34-month hiatus away from its home field, the Cal rugby team welcomed its fans back to Strawberry Canyon on Saturday with a 174-0 thrashing of Stanford, the largest victory in program history. After the match, head coach Jack Clark summarized his team’s performance with the understatement of the year: “I thought we did OK.”
The bar is set so high for these Bears — winners of 19 of the last 22 national championships — that even a three-digit margin of victory is no longer an effective barometer of the team’s success. Though the state of the sport remains in flux, the Bears (6-0) will be afforded ample opportunities this spring to show they are undoubtedly the best team in the country.
“When this is all over, we want to be at the top of the medal stand,” Clark said. “And we want to be the best team in the country.”
This season will be marked by two key milestones that have the potential to fundamentally alter college rugby and Cal’s place in it.
One is the inaugural Varsity Cup, a season-ending tournament that will serve as Cal’s de facto national championship in lieu of a traditional championship. The Bears withdrew from the USA Rugby Premier Division last year after winning 26 titles in the span of just over three decades. The Varsity Cup, which will also feature perennial juggernaut BYU, will be Cal’s final opportunity to show it is the nation’s top team before moving into the 7s season.
Second is the creation of the Pac Rugby Conference, a new league that consists of Pac-12 schools Cal, Arizona, Arizona State, Oregon State, UCLA and Utah. Though Cal’s varsity is far and away the strongest of the bunch, don’t expect any blowouts as large as the one Cal put up against Stanford on Saturday.
“I think it has the potential to be the best and most competitive conference in the country,” Clark said. “I wouldn’t be surprised in a time if we (could) build something that has some commercial merit as well.”
But while the governing bodies that hold college rugby together remain in flux, one constant remains: the Cal style of rugby.
Even in blowout wins (Cal has taken out its opponents thus far by a combined margin of 420-7), Clark separates the game itself from the final score. With such a large gap between teams of Cal’s caliber and everyone else, it’s important that the team stick to the fundamentals needed against top-tier opponents, even in its most yawning victories.
Every game is critical to Cal’s development, even those against opponents who are little more than glorified practice squads. Over the next two months, there will be a lot of games like that.
“The main point we focus on during the week with the coaches is that we’re playing to improve as a squad to improve for our future games,” said junior Jake Anderson. “And it’s important that we stick to our systems and play how we want to play, including our bench, and just focus on how we need to improve to progress through the season.”
Before the season-ending Varsity Cup, Cal will have a few prime opportunities to show they are the nation’s top team. Two are matchups against longtime rival British Columbia, the first of which will take place at Witter Rugby Field on Feb. 16. Last year, the Bears won 13-12 in a come-from-behind victory on Treasure Island.
“Come February, the Thunderbirds are gonna be here,” Clark said. “And we’re gonna win that game by a point or lose it by a point. And they know that and we know that.”
Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at [email protected].