Following the tournament for the first time? Here's a starter course to get you up to speed on all the basics.
May 13, 2025 by Edward Stephens in News
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2024 club ultimate season is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
Are you new to following ultimate frisbee? Perhaps you’re a friend or parent of a player, or you’re just getting into the sport yourself. Suddenly you find yourself at sea as words like “Nationals,” “bids,” “seeding,” “bracket,” and “Callahan” fly above your head like so many uncatchable birds?
Never fear, we’ve put together the Beginner’s Guide to College Nationals with you in mind. Read on for all the how’s, why’s, and what’s of one of the most exciting times of the ultimate frisbee calendar.
What is College Nationals?
The annual USA Ultimate College Championships, commonly called College Nationals, is the ultimate frisbee equivalent of March Madness. The combination of pure passion, unpredictability, school rivalry, and heroic individual performances make for an unmatched level of excitement every spring that culminates on Memorial Day with the crowning of the D-I men’s and women’s champions. If you’re new to watching the sport, it’s the perfect time to jump in.
Underdogs prove their mettle. Dynasties are forged and, eventually, razed. Heartbreak and utter joy are right around every corner. A few players or teams each year manage to catch lightning in a bottle and captivate the entire ultimate frisbee world, creating a surge of attention and conversation that turns greats into legends. John Stubbs, Jack Verzuh, Jack Williams, Dena Elimelech, Jolie Krebs, Dawn Culton, and Jacques Nissen (to name a few) have turned in performances that will never be forgotten.
And, unlike with a March Madness tournament, it’s all packed into a single long weekend and confined to one field complex. The buzz of a close game or a brewing upset triggers a flood of fans and players to pack the sidelines, creating a surge of energy that makes for an atmosphere unlike any other spectacle in sports.
The D-I College Championships, a combined event featuring both D-I Men’s and D-I Women’s tournaments, takes place over the course of four days every year on Memorial Day Weekend and is the highest profile event of the college season. The D-III College Championships is held earlier in May. It is often as exciting as (and sometimes more exciting than) its D-I counterpart, although the quality of play is not as high and it holds slightly less prestige.
Who Competes at Nationals?
The Teams
72 college teams compete across four divisions: 16 in D-III Men’s, 16 in D-III women’s, 20 in D-I Men’s, and 20 in D-I women’s. D-III is the more limited division, since only colleges or universities with an enrollment of fewer than 7,500 students are eligible. D-I participation is open to any college or university in the US or Canada, including D-III-eligible schools who declare themselves as D-I. (At least one school has a longstanding tradition of competing in both D-I and D-III: Carleton College, with an enrollment of just over 2,000 students, typically sends four distinct teams to College Nationals, one in each division.)
The best teams from each of the 10 geographic regions, decided by playing a regional tournament, qualify for Nationals. The rest of the tournament field is determined by awarding slots to the highest-finishing teams from regions deemed to be the strongest in their respective divisions by an algorithmic formula. The sixth-best team in the D-I Southwest Women’s (UC Davis) earned an invitation to Nationals this year, for example, but New England in the same division was limited to the second-place team (Vermont). You can view the complete list of this year’s qualifiers here. Nearly all of the qualifying teams are considered by our panel of experts to be among the best in their respective divisions — which we keep track of with a Power Rankings list, updated weekly throughout the season — although there are a handful of Cinderella teams who played better than expected at their regional tournaments to ‘steal’ the bids of higher-ranked teams, as well as the top finishers from weaker regions.
This means that each year, with virtually no exceptions, the Nationals field represents the very best competitive landscape college ultimate has to offer. Lower-seeded teams are often good enough to upset the top seeds in pool play, which creates an atmosphere of unpredictability unlike any other major tournament in the sport. And when the top seeds advance to elimination play, it creates the opportunity for multiple titanic clashes each round as evenly matched sides struggle both to fend off elimination and continue the march toward a potential championship.
The Players
Most of the best young players in North America play college ultimate, and most of those will take the field at Nationals. 57 of the 72 under-24 US National Team players will be competing at College Nationals, and 47 of the top-50 ranked players by our panel of experts as part of our annual Top 25 Players in College Ultimate exercise (one list for men’s division players and one list for women’s division players).
How good are the best college players within the larger context of the sport? In a word: spectacular. Current UNC star Ben Dameron (the top ranked men’s player in our top-25 exercise) was in serious consideration for one of fourteen spots on ultimate frisbee’s most competitive roster, the US National Team for the World Games competition later this year. Two of the players who made the list, Dawn Culton and Henry Ing, played at College Nationals last year.1 UBC stars Mika Kurahashi (top top ranked women’s player in our top-25) and Justin Podnar, as well as Victoria player Ricky McLeod, are among the 22 athletes on the short list for the similarly exclusive Canadian World Games roster.
Many of the top players in USAU club play (the most competitive scene in ultimate frisbee) come from the ranks of college players. In 2024, Rachel Chang (UC Santa Cruz) and Esther Filipek (Stanford) won a club championship with San Francisco Fury; Michigan standouts, Kat McGuire, Calliope Cutchins, and Aaron Bartlett, took home the title as key members of Ann Arbor Hybrid; and to players of both Oregon (Mica Glass, Chander Boyd-Fliegel, and Aaron Kaplan) and Oregon State (Felix Moren and Ben Thoennes) were on the championship Portland Rhino Slam! team. It goes far beyond the club champions, though. Collegiate athletes are a vital part of the club scene, both at the national and regional level of club ultimate frisbee.
As accomplished as they are, however, by and large they provide their own support. Except for a couple of pioneering D-III scholarship programs, the student-athletes who play college ultimate are entirely responsible for their own training and development. They recruit coaches, plan practices, establish workout routines, raise money, and organize their own logistics. Even the names and logos of most teams were created by the student-athletes rather than the university. The result is that the camaraderie among teammates and passion for competition in collegiate ultimate frisbee is palpable often even more so than in the notably fiery and heartfelt NCAA-level play in other sports. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the emotions on display at College Nationals. Many of the players have invested more time, energy, and heart into the project of their ultimate frisbee teams than into any other area of their lives.
How the Tournament Works
Both the D-I and D-III events, despite featuring a different number of teams, follow similar formats: round robin-style pool play in groups of four teams, and an elimination bracket with seeding determined by the results of pool play. The top three teams in each pool qualify for the bracket, with the pool winners earning a bye to quarters.
D-III is a three-day affair. Saturday consists entirely of pool play, with each team playing a full three-game slate. The second- and third-place finishers in each pool are matched up against each other for a prequarterfinal round first thing Sunday morning. Winners of those games move immediately to quarters to face one of the pool winners later in the morning, with two semifinal rounds to close out the day, which means that the field in each division is reduced from 16 to just two finalists by Sunday evening. The championship games take place on Monday.
The D-I divisions have more time (four days) and more teams (20) than their D-III, but the principles are the same. Pool play will span across both Friday and Saturday, with the second- and third-place pool finishers meeting late Saturday afternoon for a prequarters round. The pool winners don’t have to play again until quarters on Sunday morning, when they take on the winners of the Saturday’s prequarterfinal round. The D-I semifinals each get their own feature time slots later in the day on Sunday. The championship games will take place on the afternoon of Memorial Day.
History of College Nationals
The Tournament
College Nationals dates back to 1984, when Stanford won a men’s division tournament. A few years later in 1987, USA Ultimate added a women’s division. Kansas won the inaugural women’s division tournament. The College Championships have taken place every spring since then, with the exception of 2020 (cancelled during the Covid-19 pandemic) and 2021 (delayed until the end of the year due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
The D-III College Championships first took place in 2006 (Men’s) and 2009 (Women’s) and were won by Las Positas and Whitman, respectively. Before the establishment of those D-III-specific tournaments, all colleges played in the same competitive landscape, up to and including Nationals.
The Most Successful Teams
The most successful programs in history come from the West Coast: UC Santa Barbara Black Tide in the men’s division and Stanford Superfly in the women’s division. Both programs put together streaks of three consecutive championships on two separate occasions. Superfly remain one of the pre-eminent teams in the women’s division year after year, including last season when they reached the final. Black Tide have seen much less success in recent years, last reaching Nationals in 2015.
In recent history, the programs to beat have both come from UNC. UNC Pleiades are sitting on a four-year title streak dating back to 2021, a period that included an undefeated streak that lasted almost four years and ranks among the greatest achievements in the sport’s history. Their men’s division counterparts, UNC Darkside “only” put together three straight championships from 2021-23 before losing in a rain-soaked semifinal classic last season. They are making their own argument for ultimate frisbee’s greatest team achievement, however, having reached semifinals or better in 10 consecutive seasons. The Pleiades title streak and Darkside semis streak, both already the best in ultimate history, could be extended this season to (respectively) five and eleven consecutive years.
Here, briefly are the schools with the most championships (min.: three) in the history of college ultimate frisbee:
D-I Men’s
| UC Santa Barbara | 6 |
| North Carolina | 5 |
| Carleton CUT | 4 |
| Brown | 4 |
| Wisconsin | 3 |
D-I Women’s
| Stanford | 8 |
| UC Santa Barbara | 5 |
| North Carolina | 4 |
| Oregon | 3 |
D-III Men’s2
| Oklahoma Christian | 2 |
| Middlebury | 2 |
| Carleton CHOP | 2 |
D-III Women’s
| Carleton Eclipse | 3 |
| Middlebury | 3 |
The Callahan and Donovan Awards
Finally, College Nationals provides the occasion for one of the most well-known honors in the sport: The Callahan and Donovan awards. The criteria for the awards fall somewhere between an MVP and a Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year. The Callahan is “awarded annually to the most valuable players in college ultimate… In addition to their on-field success, winners of the Callahan Award also demonstrate outstanding sportsmanship, leadership and dedication to ultimate.” The standards for the Donovan award, presented annually to a D-III player in each of the men’s and women’s divisions, are similar.
Each team is allowed to nominate a player, and all the players in that division may vote on the award. Five Callahan finalists in each division are invited to Nationals for a presentation during halftime of the semifinals. Last year, SUNY-Binghamton’s Jolie Krebs and Georgia’s Aidan Downey took home the honor. The Donovan Awards went to Middlebury’s Keziah Wilde and St. Olaf’s Will Brandt.
Additionally, there is an unofficial (and extremely fun) tradition of teammates and friends producing highlight reels to help “campaign” for their nominees. The highlight reels range from crude edits full of grainy footage to high-definition, fx-laden masterpieces, and they are almost always scored to music. A great Callahan video sometimes helps elevate a candidate to a finalist, or even pushes them over the top to win the award. There have been dozens of excellent videos over the years, but many agree that the videos of Nick Lance (Georgia Tech Tribe 2012) and Jesse Shofner (Oregon Fugue 2016) ushered in the era of Callahan video production.
Finalists for the two awards will be announced soon. You can view the list of 2025 nominees for the Callahan and Donovan on their respective pages.
2025 Storylines
It’s a Completely New Championship Landscape
Ultiworld’s record in the predictions business is spotty at best, but we can make an ironclad guarantee that there will be brand-new champions in at least three of the four divisions. Our reasoning is foolproof: the reigning champions of three of the divisions — D-I Men’s, D-III Men’s, and D-III Women’s — did not even qualify for the tournament. It’s an unprecedented event in the D-III era, and you have to go all the way back to 2011 for the last time champions of even two of the divisions (D-III Men’s, D-III Women’s) failed to mount a title defense.3
To say that 2025 marks a turning point, then, is a gross understatement. We’ve lit out for new territory. “But what about UNC Pleiades, winners of the last four titles in D-I Women’s?” I’m glad you asked…
Women’s Teams-in-Waiting Get Their Chance
The Pleia-Dynasty has been one of the most captivating stories in ultimate since the sport came back from the pandemic. UNC have now become the measuring stick for all future greatness. But as inspiring as their journey this last half-decade has been, the chokehold they’ve had on the division has bulldozed a vast wasteland of frustration for everybody else. Their grip, though, appears to be loosening.
Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: Pleiades are very much still in the hunt and have the pieces — and, of course, the experience — to put together a run at a historic fifth straight title. That said, for the first time since their march of dominance began, they come into the tournament as consensus underdogs rather than outright favorites. Instead, several other programs who have been waiting for their turn now appear to have their chance. The formerly frustrated group of contenders — UBC Thunderbirds, Colorado Quandary, Tufts EWO, Carleton Syzygy, Vermont Ruckus, Oregon Fugue, and possibly a few others — see their clearest path in years to the trophy.
Redemption Songs
Despite the absence of defending champions Brown, the case for the major change in D-I Men’s is a little sketchier than in D-I Women’s. That’s because the rest of the division’s recent titans are still fixtures at the top of the division. UNC Darkside, Colorado Mamabird, and Cal Poly SLO SLOCORE combined with Brown to hoard 75% of the slots in semifinals at Nationals from 2019 – 2024. That’s remarkable consistency considering the year-to-year roster turnover in college ultimate. What’s more, all three of them are poised to reach that level again in 2025. They have depth, experience, great coaching, and Player of the Year-level talent: any of Kyle Lew, Anton Orme, Ben Dameron, Josh Singleton, or Tobias Brooks could win top honors with a great performance in Burlington.
The inertia of their success, though, will come under fire from a handful of contenders looking to make up for recent disappointments: UMass Zoodisc, Oregon Ego, and Carleton CUT. All of them have shown championship potential in 2025. In 2024, UMass stumbled in the bracket when they should have soared, Oregon fell to UNC on a controversial call in quarters after thinking they had eliminated the champs, and Carleton added another chapter to their perplexing recent string of misfires at Nationals. They’re coming into this year’s Nationals with renewed fire.
A Field Grown Wild
After years of predictable clashes between one or two favorites, this year’s D-III Women’s field is as wide open as it has ever been. No single team has made a convincing case as the favorites. Carleton Eclipse, Middlebury Pranksters, and St. Olaf Vortex all made semis a year ago and return to the tournament but have been much more pedestrian so far this spring. Top seeds Wesleyan Vicious Circles and Haverford/Bryn Mawr Sneetches have played very well this season but lack big game experience in recent years. Whitman Sweets, Mt. Holyoke Daisy Chain and a handful of others have played like championship-caliber sides for portions of the season. The betting experts say: don’t place any bets! The potential for chaos is too strong.
The Power of the Scholarship
Ever since Oklahoma Christian introduced a scholarship program — and especially since they quickly won two championships — there has been a debate raging in D-III, particularly in the Men’s Division, about the fairness of letting scholarship programs, with the team travel funding and full training regimens that come with them, compete in a division carved out specifically because of the difficulty of finding high-level talent compared to much larger schools.
That debate could reach a fever pitch if what most experts believe is the likeliest scenario in 2025 comes to pass. If the Davenport Panthers competed in D-I, they would be ranked 15th in the country by USAU’s algorithm and could conceivably make the bracket at Nationals. Instead, they are still registered as D-III this year. They enter Nationals as perhaps the most prohibitive favorites in the history of college ultimate frisbee. Should they mow down the field in Burlington the way their record — 25-1, with their only loss coming by a single point to D-I’s Michigan State — suggests that they will, and if the Oklahoma Christian Eagles also perform well, it will surely increase the resentment of the many teams like Elon Big Fat Bomb or Middlebury Pranksters who could feel as if they could have contended for a championship if the scholarship hack did not exist.
Player of the Year Races
One of the most exciting side stories at Nationals every year is the race for Player of the Year. Last season’s monumental Nationals performances from Jacques Nissen, Dawn Culton, JJ Galian, and Will Brandt earned them the highest individual honors in college ultimate frisbee.
Here are a handful of the players (far from a complete list of candidates) to keep an eye on in Burlington:
D-I Men’s
D-I Women’s
D-III Men’s
- Louis Deauville Boudoin (Middlebury)
- Jacob Felton (Davenport)
- Reed Burkert (Elon)
D-III Women’s
- Zoe Costanza (Haverford/Bryn Mawr)
- Leina Goto (St. Olaf)
- Frankie Saraniti (Carleton)
How to Follow College Nationals
Now that you’re all prepped, what’s the best way to follow along? The absolute best way to enjoy College Nationals is to travel to the tournament in person and see it for yourself. There is no substitute for the excitement and energy that fills the complex each year. USA Ultimate sells four-day spectator passes on its ticketing website, and they are more than worth the $45 price tag.
Assuming that you can’t make the trip to Burlington, WA, the good news is that there are plenty of ways to engage with the most exciting tournament of the year.
Ultiworld Subscription
If you are reading this and you are not an Ultiworld Subscriber, stop what you are doing and go subscribe today. There are multiple subscriber levels.
Mini
- Access to in-depth subscriber-only articles throughout Nationals
- Access podcast bonus segments, as well as daily field reporter round table podcasts during D-I Nationals
- Access to the Ultiworld Discord for live game updates from our reporting staff and the best conversation the entire ultimate frisbee cyberscape. It is a key social hub for players, coaches, and fans to connect and discuss all things ultimate-related.
Full
- Everything included in the mini subscription
- Live video streaming access to all of our showcase games at both D-III and D-I Nationals
- Access to our full video archives, where you can study up on all the best games of the regular season, as well as hundreds of other games across all levels of play
All-Access
- Everything included in full & mini subscriptions
- Access to all streamed games
Want the video access for Nationals but don’t need the monthly subscription? You have the option to purchase an Event Pack for either D-I or D-III Nationals. An event pack gives you access to every streamed game as they are happening, as well as access to those games in perpetuity. (It only offers access to the games specific to the event your purchase, however, and it does not include any of the other subscriber benefits.)
Ultiworld Live Blog, Social Media, Deep Look, and… Contests!
In case a subscription or event pack isn’t in your plans, Ultiworld also offers coverage of Nationals for the general public.
- Our on-site reporters will be updating a live blog between every round with game notes and observations.
- Our social media team will be posting clips and information throughout both events, so make sure you follow us on Youtube, Instagram, and X.
- Charlie and Keith lead the discussion each week on the Deep Look, live Tuesdays at 12 pm on Youtube or available to listen to after the fact via any podcast app.
- Fans of all stripes can enjoy our D-III Picks, Beat Charlie Challenge, and #TheGame contests.
USAU Score Reporter
Schedules, bracket structures, and statistics for Nationals are frequently updated on the following Score Reporter sites:
USAU also maintains an app version. It is available for both iOS and Android devices.
Team Social Media Accounts
Have a favorite team? One of the best ways to feel like you are getting insider updates — and lots of personality — is to find their accounts on Instagram, Tiktok, or X. Will it always be informative? Eh, your mileage may vary. But it’s always a ton of fun.
