This week's FloRugby college rankings involve a change, and there's a reason for that.

For a while now at FloRugby and at Goff Rugby Report, this writer has ranked all D1 teams — D1A, Independent, and D1AA — together in one list. Previously, it made sense to put combine them into a single ranking, since the Varsity Cup included teams that played in no D1A conference and several D1AA teams looked like they could compete in D1A.

But then the Varsity Cup went away, and teams that had only targeted the VC officially joined D1A. Meanwhile, most of the strongest D1AA teams move up into D1A. (Of the eight teams that have been in the D1AA final since its inception in 2011, seven are now in D1A, with only Central Florida remaining.)

And all of that translates into the rankings. The all-D1 rankings are decidedly top-heavy with D1A teams, and so we've decided to shift to a D1A-only ranking. 

There will also be a D1AA-only ranking (which we ran through the fall anyway), but it will have an added wrinkle, as we will also indicate which of those teams we think might be good enough to be ranked among the top 40 D1A teams. It's an exclusive list.

So the D1A rankings you see here are what this writer votes, each week. In fact, we're asked to rank every team, from Nos. 1 through 70. It's a job we take seriously, and it's important to try one's best to put every program in the right spot.

D1A officially ranks the top 20. We rank the top 40. This gives you a chance to see who has a shot at moving into playoff contention. 

See our new D1A Top 40 rankings here