After swimming against the current in a very tough D1A conference, Oregon State moved to D1AA and may well be on the way to building something stronger.

The Beavers, who dropped out of the PAC Rugby Conference after a 2016-17 season that saw them beaten handily by the rest of the league, opted to take a step back and reevaluate. It didn’t take long for some things to fall into place.

New head coach Troy Hall, who played for the USA and has also been the Rugby Oregon all-star coach, got the Beavers started with a solid sevens performance—finishing second to Central Washington in the Northwest Collegiate Rugby Conference (NCRC) championships.

“We worked hard on our culture,” Hall said. “We wanted to see which players responded and bought in.”

Some did, some didn’t. The result was a very, very young team. A group of new freshmen ended up starting as they embraced the new approach. With Kieran McCullough taking the reins as captain and leading well, and Juwan Johnson having a strong season, Oregon State challenged for a playoff spot in the D1AA NCRC, lack of depth hit them hard late in the season.

But that’s just the beginning. The broader story about Oregon State is twofold. 

First, club teams can sometimes struggle against elevated club and varsity teams. That’s what happened as Oregon State tried to compete in the PAC Conference despite having some key players graduate. Cal, Arizona, Utah, and UCLA all possess backing that OSU doesn’t quite meet.

For now, D1AA is the place for the Beavers to building something.

Second, school funding doesn’t affect team culture, and if the players aren’t playing to be better rugby players and playing to win, no amount of money or school facilities will change that. In fact, it goes the other way around. A better, more serious culture within a team will usually garner positive attention from a university.

That appears to be happening at Oregon State. 

What is definitely happening is that freshmen coming in from successful high school programs expect to pursue their rugby in a serious way. Hall is accommodating those players, and the result could be very positive.

This fall, competing well in the NCRC and national sevens competitions will be a major goal for the Beavers. After that? It’s not unreasonable to discuss a conference title, even as Western Washington continues to be strong. 

OSU’s pool of talent is only going to grow.