As teams around D1A Rugby prepare for their usual realignment, we thought it would be fun to look at which conferences are the most competitive.

BYU's anticipated move to join the West D1A will certainly bolster that conference. Meanwhile, the PAC Rugby Conference might be in a little bit of flux, especially with Arizona State expected to be working its way back from a suspension of some sort.

In breaking down the toughest D1A conferences, we looked at three factors: 1) overall impression of the quality of the teams from first to last; 2) a numerical representation of where the teams in each conference rank nationally (averaged out); and 3) a fairly basic formula that numerically represents the difference between the strongest and the least strong teams in the conference.

Lower Tier

Big Ten, West D1A, Red River
These conferences all have tough teams at the top but struggled to have the average ranking all the way through. The Big Ten basically has a strong top half, but it has work to do with its bottom half. Red River has a good top two, a solid middle two or three, and then, unfortunately, falls off. And West D1A isn't super strong at the top, and while the competition is pretty consistent, it needs to pick it up at the tail end.

If we look ahead to 2017-18, we could see these conferences get better numbers. West D1A will likely add BYU, and that changes the league's numbers significantly. If Texas and TCU continue to improve, the Red River's numbers will look better. Houston needs to pick it up.

Middle Tier

California, PAC Conference, Rugby East
All of these conferences have highly ranked teams at the top, with additional top 20 teams further down the line. California doesn't have the best numbers because the teams at the lower end of the conference weren't ranked in the FloRugby/GRR top 50. While that may have been a function of Saint Mary's dominant, California still got credit for something.

Going forward, we'll see some changes. Arizona State is working through its on-campus issues and could well be back and stronger in due time. And we'd also expect UCLA to be back nearer to the top 10.

Rugby East is going to undergo massive changes, with Iona and Delaware moving to a new conference and Wheeling Jesuit running into issues with the loss of its coach and the university introducing football in 2017. At the same time, Notre Dame College will join the Rugby East, and you wonder if American International and/or NEC will too. 

If that all happens (AIC and NEC appear not to be official members yet), then Rugby East and PAC will have basically the same numbers, and Rugby East might get the nod between the two simple because it has more teams in the conference.

Top Of The Competitiveness Heap

Mid-South
There is one conference that blows everyone away on the numbers, and that's the Mid-South. While other conferences are averaging a ranking per team of about No. 55 to 40 (PAC is No. 34), the average ranking among the Mid-South's five teams is 11th. While the difference between the top team and the bottom team in other conferences is 60 to 80 rankings places, in the Mid-South it is 21. The lowest-ranked team in the Mid-South is Clemson, and the Tigers finished the 2016-17 season ranked No. 23.

The big doubts about the Mid-South were that its teams don't play a lot outside of their conference. Life University certainly didn't, and so there was an ongoing concern that the Running Eagles would not perform at the national level. Well, they almost won it all, losing a close final to Saint Mary's. That proved that the Mid-South is strong, and all five teams showed positive performances in the postseason.