The first round of the D1A playoffs is in the books, and though it yielded some answers about this year's title race, it may have produced just as many new questions.

Here are six issues concerning the D1A postseason we've been thinking about following this past weekend's results.

Did We Dispel The Myth That Northeast Teams Are At A Disadvantage?

Kind of. Of the final eight teams D1A, three are from the Northeast (kind of) and two are from the Rugby East. In addition, it's worth pointing out that cold-weather Dartmouth is in the D1AA spring final against Nevada, having dispatched Missouri and Central Florida.

But if you look more closely, the whole assertion that Northeast teams are fine comes down to one game. Army, you see, beat Colorado State, a team that also played its entire league season in the fall. That's a wash—fall team beats fall team. 

Navy beat Indiana, which also was a fall team beating a fall team (and we say the Midshipmen are a fall team loosely because Navy actually plays a hybrid season).

So the real measurement is Penn State beating Arizona. Is that enough to say "quit yer b*tchin'" to fall-centric teams? Probably. This spring has been brutal, weather-wise, to anyone in flyover country and anyone in the northeast quadrant of the country. Yet Penn State managed, working in the gym, finding games, and preparing. You can do it—it's not easy but you can do it.

Why Bother Ranking If The Seeds Ignore The Rankings?

The D1A leadership and committees have been over and over this, but we haven't. The D1A rankings supposedly create the seeds, but then conference champions are awarded a home game. To make that happen, those conference champions have to get a top eight seed, which bumps everyone down and results in a team like Lindenwood going on the road.

Now we at FloRugby World Headquarters aren't getting too bent out of shape that the Lions had to ride the bus to Texas... but messing with the seedings has the potential to skew the bracket.

Look at the bracket right now:

Top-seeded Saint Mary's plays No. 9 seed Lindenwood in the quarterfinals, and No. 4 seed BYU plays fifth-seeded Penn State. On the other half of the bracket, No. 3 seed Cal hosts No. 11 seed Navy and second-seeded Life hosts No. 10 seed Army. It's not a huge difference, but it's a difference. The left side of the bracket is just a little bit more difficult.

Watch Lindenwood at Saint Mary's LIVE on FloRugby

When: Saturday, April 21 | Kickoff: 1 PM PDT

But... is there a solution? It's right and fair to recognize conference winners. And while we might turn our nose up at the Rocky Mountain or Red River because the victors aren't that strong, things can change in a heartbeat.

Having Said That, Should More Weight Go Toward The Rankings?

Yes, this isn't about which team is at home and which is on the road. It's about where the teams should fall in the bracket. Essentially, we're trying to avoid having what should be a semifinal in the quarterfinals. 

That hasn't happened because Lindenwood is good enough to be a semifinalist and probably should be playing the other team on the semifinal bubble, BYU. 

So, you might say, "Boo hoo, Saint Mary's has to play Lindenwood instead of Penn State or Army or Navy, what's the difference?" Probably not much.

Did The Rankings Get It Right?

It's been well documented that we here at FloRugby would not have ranked Central Washington high enough to make the playoffs. We also think that had Notre Dame College been able to compete, the dropping of Cal Poly would have been something of a travesty.

As it is, Cal Poly scored 22 points in a losing effort to Saint Mary's, better than five other losing teams. So the Mustangs proved something. In addition, one might argue that San Diego State did enough to make the playoffs over CWU. That is very arguable. Other than that? No complaints.

What About Notre Dame College?

The hope at FloRugby is that Notre Dame College doesn't have the book thrown at it for withdrawing from the tournament. It's likely the Falcons will be banned from playoff consideration next season and that seems a bit harsh. NDC just couldn't make it work, financially, and that sometimes happens. D1A Rugby has money set aside to help with travel, but maybe it wasn't enough.

What Notre Dame College wanted was to bus to Marietta, GA, and play at Life, rather than fly to Berkeley, CA. And while D1A seeding rules allow a team to be moved up or down one spot to make for a better matchup (avoid repeat opponents or make travel easier), to play Life, NDC would have had to be moved down two spots.

D1A couldn't do it, and NDC is out. Well, don't you think there's an argument to be made that the one-spot hard-and-fast rule is too hard and fast? What would it have mattered if NDC had been allowed the more difficult game?

The move would have put Arkansas State at BYU and GCU at Cal (which is what happened anyway), and Central Washington would have played Saint Mary's. We'd have seen nothing weird there. Now, this writer loves the idea of sticking to the rules as written (otherwise we have anarchy, anarchy I tell you!), but maybe the rules need a little more flexibility in them.

Is There Still A Gap?

The gap remains, but it's not as bad as in past years. Of the eight D1A Round of 16 games played, three were what you'd call blowouts—wins of 75 or more. Three more were wins of 35-75 points. The other two winning margins were by 17 and 11 points.

So, for the most part, the winner was a clear winner, and the rankings picked the correct victor in just about every case.  But don't expect it to be the same this coming weekend. BYU and Penn State could be evenly matched. Lindenwood is not going to allow Saint Mary's to roll over it. Cal and Life should win over the service academies, but it will be difficult going for a while.

What you saw play out this past weekend was a group of six high-caliber teams, then a bit of a gap to three or four more, and then a large-ish gap to the remaining field. It wasn't that long ago that we had three or four teams and then a massive chasm. The college game is getting more crowded at the top, and it will get even more crowded in the future.