On Sept. 30, the Boise State men’s rugby club will be back on the pitch to kick off their regular season campaign.
The men’s team is coming off a strong showing last season, finishing 6-0 in the regular season and the outscoring opponents 339-63.
The team also made an appearance in the 2023 Rhino Bowl, where they came up short in a 31-0 loss to the University of Notre Dame.
Starting fresh this year, the club’s focus is on a national title despite the team being as young as ever.
Senior marketing major, Brandon Besler, said that they’re only returning about five to six players and have upwards of 20 newcomers.
“I’d say our biggest challenge right now is getting that team chemistry up with all the new people,” Besler said. “I think it’s going good so far. Last weekend after our game we stayed in Utah and went to a professional rugby game … It’s going good.”
Senior construction management major, Brody Cast, is one of the few returning veterans and finds himself in a new role as club president.
Though keeping rugby in focus during the offseason can be difficult, Cast believes the team puts tons of effort into improving and staying in shape.
“The biggest challenge is that everyone’s in California, we lose so many people over the summer,” Cast said. “Our biggest benefit this offseason was that we had a lot of guys working together even in California … We did a good job sticking with it this year.”
Maintaining that chemistry and working together to be elite athletes is tough for the rugby team, as it is for many club sports.
“It’s definitely harder to be a club sport. We have to pay our own way, we have to find time to practice through the school, whereas football, if they want to add a practice, it happens,” Cast said. “For us it’s something where we only get the field on campus for two days a week so we have to outsource another practice, and then we have to lift outside of that because we don’t really have any good lifting times available for us.”
The team commits hours every week training, lifting and practicing just to earn an invitation to a national tournament.
For years now, the team has consistently forged a path to appear in a national championship, but last year, the team had to decline their invitation.
There’s no greater challenge the club faces than that of finances. In 2022, the team had to decline their invitation to the tournament simply because they ran out of funds to travel.
This year, however, looks very promising for Bronco rugby. The 2024 tournament is in Boulder, Colorado so making an appearance just comes down to the will and the performance of the team on the field.
With a championship tournament appearance in mind, the team is doubling down on their preparation.
Last year they held practice twice a week, whereas this year they’ve bumped it up to four times a week, plus game days on Saturdays.
“It’s a five day a week commitment,” Besler said. “A lot of us have school and then jobs as well … it’s just more opportunity to get better and improve.”
The team is coming off of a preseason scrimmage where they faced the University of Utah and lost 22-52.
Cast said that the match was meant to be a warm up game, however. They played a lot of freshmen who’ve never seen college minutes, and he said that it went well.
Looking forward into the season, Boise State men’s rugby was scheduled to face the College of Idaho, however due to personnel issues/shortages, the match was forfeited.
This gives the team a 1-0 start by default, but their real first match will be at home vs. Western Oregon University.
“We just have to be prepared and be ready. We don’t think that they’ll be up to the level of the Utah’s and stuff we just played,” Besler said. “We just take what we learn from those games and apply it and hopefully go out there and get a win.”
Two games from then, the Broncos face off again at home vs. the University of Oregon in what’s become a rivalry match.
Last year the matchup was the team’s lowest scoring game and resulted in an 14-10 victory for Boise State.
“Last year we won on a last second defensive stand,” Besler said. “It was a really close game and things got heated between our teams so that’s definitely the game we got circled on our schedule.”
Just as in any other Bronco sport, Boise State has no love for the Ducks.
This year’s season is much longer, extending out to March 2024, meaning there will be plenty of games for the young team to get in stride and make a run for the national title.
To see the men’s rugby schedule, click here.
