No.1 Cal Rugby hosts BYU in postseason 2nd round this Saturday
14-0 Golden Bears are seeking a repeat national title in the D1A National Collegiate Championships
Last Saturday, Cal Rugby opened its 2026 postseason with the expected 88-5 win over San Diego. Head coach Jack Clark opted to hold out most of his starters for this contest, and it made little difference.
Of course, Cal earned this easy first-round match by going undefeated during the regular season to get the West top seed in the 2026 D1A National Collegiate Championships. California Golden Bears are also the defending national champions. Bears won the programโs 29th rugby 15s national title in 2025, which also ended the uncharacteristic long championship drought dating back to 2017.
Cal (14-0) will host their entire postseason journey up until the National Championship final on May 2nd, 2026, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Bears will host BYU (33-19 winner over Cal Poly last Saturday) in the second round this Saturday at noon PT. Cal Bears defeated the BYU Cougars 64-21 in Berkeley back on February 24th. BYU (9-4) then lost to the other West Coast teams that are alive in the playoffs: Arizona and SMC as well as Navy.
Should the Golden Bears triumph, they will then host the winner between Saint Maryโs College (60-10 winner over Colorado State) and Arizona (41-35 winner over Grand Canyon) on April 25th.
Cal graduated last yearโs captain Charlie Walsh as well as Tom Dixon, Dom Paga, Ieremia Ieremia, and Joe Kirsten from the starting 15s in the 2025 championship final win over Life. Bears also lost another starter in Bryan Bogne to a season-ending injury before the 15s season this spring.
Plenty of young talent and a couple of transfers were more than ready to meet the challenge to help Cal Rugby to an undefeated regular season despite a very challenging schedule. Cal was also initially counting on senior Miles Malone to fill a forward position after Malone missed all of 2025 to injury; unfortunately, the injury bug struck Malone again just a few matches into the season.
Going forward for the rest of the playoffs, the Cal lineup should resemble the one that won the regular season finale at St. Maryโs.
Cal fans who have watched some of Cal Rugby over the last couple of years will recognize the creative brilliance of the two half-backs: Solomon Williams and Rand Santos. These two get the offense started in the middle of the field. Both Williams and Santos are on the nominees list for the 2026 Rudy Scholz Award to the nationโs top collegiate rugby player.
Experienced newcomers Brice Muller and Ryan Wenstrom (grad transfer from Cal Poly) are the impact transfers who became lineup fixtures. There is a ton of speed in the Cal back row from both the experienced (Max Threlkeld, Masi Koi, Oliver Newall) and the less-experienced (Michal De Beer, who came on as a sub in the championship final last year, and Nate Comiskey).
This yearโs Cal side is particularly creative in its offense. Watching the SMC and Navy matches, I saw more surprise short kicks that turned into tries than any other season that I can recall off the top of my head.
Conversely, Cal is also more prone to give up a quick try to its opponents. Surprisingly, Cal gave up 51 points to host Arizona in its closest win this year - a 57-51 win on Valentineโs Day in Tucson. Bears won a close 52-45 win over the eventual East top seed Navy, where there were moments when the Midshipmen were scoring a bit too easily. The win at SMC was close until a second-half that was dominated by the Bears.
There is enough parity in collegiate rugby now that even though No.1 Cal is the clear favorite to win the title, it is far from a guarantee, unlike the 1990โs and early 2000โs when Cal won 19 titles in 21 years.
It is obviously much easier to call those teams dominant with the hindsight of their success. Cal rugby, one of the 5 fully-endowed programs in Cal Athletics, may go on another impressive national title run. But first, they need to get through the 2026 postseason.
The Cal-hosted matches will be live-streamed on ESPN+. The D1A National Championship final will likely be streamed on the online platform, The Rugby Network, again (but I have not yet seen the official announcement).
ROLL ON YOU BEARS!
Anyone know what's going on with tickets for Saturday's match? The normal Cal Athletics site doesn't list any events for rugby, but not sure if they just haven't put them up for sale yet or if they're selling them somewhere else.