Cal Pursues History in Rugby National Title Game Saturday

A place in Cal rugby history awaits the Bears if they can win a second straight D1A national championship in Indianapolis on Saturday, but standing in Cal's way is the team that has been their nemesis the past four years -- Navy.

It's No. 1-ranked Cal, which is hoping to complete an undefeated national championship season in rugby 15s for the first time since 2011, against No. 2-ranked Navy, which has more than held its own against Cal in recent years and suffered its only loss of this season in Berkeley in a game that could have gone either way.

The last piece of intrigue in this national championship game, which will begin at 4 p.m. Pacific time on ESPN+, is the contrast in styles, pitting the physical power of Navy against the skill and speed of the Golden Bears.

Cal has an 18-3 record against Navy alltime, but the Midshipmen have won three of the past five encounters against the Golden Bears. Navy beat Cal twice in 2023, including a 33-28 Navy victory in the national championship game that year. Cal handled Navy 47-24 in 2024, but Navy handed Cal its only defeat last season, holding Cal without a try in a 27-3 victory for the Midshipmen before the Bears regrouped to win the national title.

"That was our only loss of the season, and we really just struggled to get our attack going," said Cal senior scrumhalf Solomon Williams, one of four finalists for the Rudy Scholz Award, which annually goes to the nation's top collegiate rugby player. "Credit to Navy, they’re a tough side, and every time we play them it’s always a fight, and we know we’re going to get that Saturday. In regards to that game, they outplayed us."

On March 7 this season in Berkeley, Navy held a 10-point lead at halftime and was still ahead 45-38 with 15 minutes left before Cal rallied for a thrilling 45-38 victory.

“This year’s game was a lot different, in the sense that we were able to get our attack going," Williams said. "They had some things that were hard to stop, specifically their mauls and scrums in this year’s game, gave us problems, and that’s something we’ll have to deal with this weekend are their scrums."

Cal's ability to tackle consistently will be key, according to Williams, because facing a military school means facing power all along the lineup.

“With the military academies, as you can imagine, they’re very physical," Williams said. "So Army and Navy similarly, they bring a lot of physicality, but Navy specifically, they do a pretty good job of finding a balance of bringing it physically but also having the ability to move it out wide.

“For us we’re at our best when we’re bringing our physical game as well as our speed of play. We pride ourselves on our speed of play and our physicality, so if we can bring both of those on Saturday, that’ll help us."

Williams believes this is the best Cal team in his four years on the Golden Bears rugby squad, but he is not given any thought to the possibility that a victory on Saturday would begin debate about the 2026 Cal team's place in Golden Bear history.

Cal has not won consecutive national titles since 2016 and 2017 when it won the Varsity Cup version of the national championship, but neither of those teams went undefeated in all rugby 15s competition. Cal lost to the University of British Columbia twice in 2016, and the Bears defeated British Columbia 38-7 on UBC's home field this year.

Williams has not contemplated the place of Cal's 2026 team in history. He is focusing only on one game, knowing that if the Bears lose Saturday any historical references would be silenced.

There was a time when Cal completely dominated college rugby, when the Bears won 26 national titles between 1980 and 2011. But that was before the rise of several rugby programs -- such as Saint Mary's, Life University and Lindenwood -- to the elite level, and the continued improvement of the Army and Navy rugby programs to the highest level.

This will be Navy's third appearance in the national title game in four years, and that includes the victory over Cal in the 2023 championship matchup.

So the Midshipmen have experience in this type of game, but Williams figures Cal's experience in its 55-38 victory over No. 1-ranked Life in last year's title game should benefit the Bears too.

"To be able to play not only under that pressure but just the brute force and physicality and what you go through in a game, everyone’s putting it all on the line," Williams said. "So for the leaders of the team to have that experience, I think, is important because we’ll face some things that maybe we faced last year and hopefully know how to deal with that.”

The final component is the momentum each team has coming into the title game. Cal defeated its three playoff opponents by a combined margin of 243-36, dominating each postseason game, including its 59-19 semifinal win over Saint Mary's. Navy has not been quite as dominant, but it demonstrated its ability to wear down top-flight opposition when it rallied from a 21-0 halftime deficit to defeat a strong Life squad 35-21 in its semifinal game last week.

A win Saturday would be another major accomplishment in a career of accomplishments for Cal head coach Jack Clark, who is seeking his 26th national rugby 15s championship in his 43rd year as the Golden Bears' head coach.

This will be the final college game for Williams, who graduates in two weeks with a degree in Data Science, and winning Saturday would be a fitting conclusion.

"It would be unreal," he said of a win. "It’s not only what this group has done, the journey we’ve been on, the work we’ve put in. It’s for all the people who are rooting for us, just throughout the season, we’ve played in some special games, and to see how much we put in, and to see the support that we’ve had, and to see all come together on Saturday, we’re looking forward to that, so it would mean everything."

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