I see your point. As I understand it, club teams are not allowed to participate in the national championship because otherwise there would be no reason for University ADs not to change varsity crews into club crews in times of financial stress. Since varsity teams seem to run the show they are trying to protect themselves through the exclusion of others.
If that's the reason it doesn't seem to make much sense. Typically, funded men's programs are going to perform better than club programs, but ignoring the fact that there are fast programs that happen to also be clubs makes no sense. Ignorance isn't bliss, it's just ignorance.
I do see your point about UD not being able to hang around with Princeton or Harvard (honestly who is these days on the lightweight side) and obviously probably not having a legitimate shot to win if they were to race. The point I'm trying to make is at least the Columbia's and Penn's do get that shot to qualify. And while it's probably not the best source to look at if you look at the polls they have UD at 7th which if the IRA lightweight final were today and was a 7 boat race as it was last year puts them in. As far as I'm concerned if UD beats any of those crews ranked above them such as Navy Cornell or Yale in the coming weeks then it would be an absolute joke if those crews show up for the IRA final. I just feel it's unfortunate that there are club teams out there (Michigan, UVA, UD) that can hang around with and beat varsity level programs and they don't at least get the shot to show what they can do on the biggest stage, especially when there are Varsity teams that show up to IRA's with no right being there at all.
well the two teams that this crew beat will likely also be omitted from the race. UDEl lost by a lifetime against Harvard and edged Columbia who lost by a lifetime against Princeton and Georgetown. I do not think that indicates they would be competitive at the national championship.
UD is still quite a young squad, however. If not now, it is likely they could be competitive at the IRA championships in the near future. They also scrimmage against Navy and Georgetown this weekend, so we'll see how that turns out.
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