On the fifth day of Christmas Ultiworld gave to me...five regions that are guaranteed to bring the heat this season!
December 16, 2025 by Edward Stephens in Preview
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2026 college 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.
It’s time to unwrap some presents as we introduce the 12 Days of College Ultimate. For the next 12 days, we will be releasing one gift per day, though don’t count on getting any holiday fowl: it’s all college ultimate. From highlight videos to player chatter to a season predictions, we’ve got a little something for everyone.
There are fans, and then there are fans. For the Nationals-only spectator of college ultimate, the allure of the bracket (sprinkled with a hint of bid earning or qualification drama) sustains a bright but brief excitement that subsides a few days after the champions are crowned on Memorial Day. Others prefer a more lasting savor from the fan experience, one that builds upon itself for months (or even years) at a time. Like foodies they seek out what is local and often find a delicacy… in the form of a rivalry. Events like Intracity Derbies in Europe, annual college basketball games at the Palestra or along Tobacco Road, and bicoastal Giants-Dodgers pennant races ignite passions and seed grudges that last whole lifetimes. College ultimate’s version of this familiarity-breeds-contempt formula is the annual clash for regional supremacy.
For those looking to get more from their 2026 fandom, on this 5th day of College Ultimate we offer a guide to five of the hottest, bitterest, most tightly contested regions.
5. Ohio Valley Men’s D-I – Penn State Spank / Pittsburgh En Sabah Nur
This would never have made the list three years ago. I mean, it was Pittsburgh’s show outside of a couple of fluke years: they had won the region 11 of 13 times and, as one of the premier programs in the country, enjoyed one of the strongest, most consistent pipelines of talent in the country. But in recent years their recruiting and development have been matched by Penn State, leading not only to Pitt’s regional loss and the end of their long Nationals streak, but also the prospect of a multi-year Ohio Valley drought. Penn State are good enough to keep hold of the region for another few years… but if Micah Davis is healthy and Pitt’s 2026 recruiting is as good as the rumors would have us believe, they’ll be right back in the hunt for the title in the spring. That makes it the only two-team rivalry worthy of including on the list.
4. North Central Men’s D-III – Carleton CHOP / St. Olaf Berserkers / Macalester Flat Earth
With apologies to New England women’s, the most electric D-III region in 2026 has to be North Central men’s. For starters, you’ve got CHOP, the D-III mainstays who made every single expert’s list of national semifinalists. Just across the Cannon River you’ll find Northfield, Minnesota’s other D-III juggernaut St. Olaf, who are down from the heights of their Will Brandt-Gordon Larson run but figure to be plenty competitive. And then there is the curious case of Macalester, less than an hour’s drive north in St. Paul. Flat Earth likely have the two best players in the region in twins Owen and Kyle Suelflow. The team underperformed expectations in 2025, but don’t count on a repeat. Between the tiny area separating these teams, the shared championship ambitions, and the talent, it should boil into a scrum of epic proportions.
3. New England Men’s D-I – UMass Zoodisc / Vermont Chill / Brown Brownian Motion / Northeastern Huskies / Tufts E-Men
New England is one of the timeless hotbeds of intense college play, so it should come as no surprise to see them end up on this list. Cumulatively the region has provided seven national semifinalists in the past six seasons. The fever pitch of the regional excitement was 2023, when Brown won the region, but Vermont and UMass made it farther at Nationals. (UNC Darkside knocked them off in that order in the quarters, semis, and championship.) 2026 won’t quite hit that level of intensity, but it may be as close as we’ll ever get. The same three teams are probably the headliners, with Zoodisc holding steady as the favorites. But both Brown’s and Vermont’s recruiting the past two years, thanks to a tremendous New England youth scene across Boston, Western Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont, has been nearly as strong. Meanwhile, 2025 Nationals-attendees Northeastern could still be strong even in their post-Boerth era. Tufts have also been building a deep core the past couple of seasons and are absolutely in the mix, too.
2. Southwest Women’s D-I – Stanford Superfly / Cal Poly SLO SLOMotion / UC San Diego Dragon Coalition / UC Santa Cruz Sol / UC Santa Barbara Burning Skirts / UC Davis Rogue
You don’t know which of the six main contenders will win the Southwest, and neither do I. And that’s not even all of the spice! There’s the historical clout, for starters: the region’s current teams have claimed 20 of the 37 championships (!) in women’s division history. There is the unique nickname culture. (It’s not at every Southwest school, but the few that institute them enrich the sport with some of its finest sobriquets.) And then there is the talent: Lucy Mertz, Harper Baer, Sabrina Belkin, Nora Snyder, Rachel Chang, Sanam Rozycki-Shah, and Grace Craig are only a few of the A+ level recruits who have elected to pursue higher ed and higher ultimate in the region in recent years. Now add Seattle star Zsa Zsa Gelfand (Cal Poly) to the rookie list for 2026. The part of the country that forced USAU to limit Nationals bids to five per region starting this season (seriously) has too many great teams to even know what to make of them at this point.
1. Northwest Women’s D-I – UBC Thunderbirds / Washington Element / Oregon Fugue
What could possibly top the tumult that is the Southwest’s Evil Empire? The foremother of all of college ultimate’s evil empires: Northwest women’s. While fewer teams have a legit shot at the regional crown – three compared with six – there is still plenty of depth in the region with Victoria, Utah, and (perhaps) BYU in fine form. But that’s just window dressing. The real meat of the region comes from the fact that three of the consensus top-4 teams in the country call the Northwest home. Take a look at yesterday’s semis predictions: every single pundit had Washington and Oregon as semifinalists, and, save one blithering idiot1, they all included defending champs UBC in the foursome, as well. Player of the Year candidates? Mika Kurahashi, Trout Weybright, Lauren Goddu. A direct pipeline to the strongest youth girls’ ultimate scenes on the continent? Portland, Seattle, Vancouver. Two championship-caliber teams with axes to grind and one championship team bent on burnishing their legacy with a repeat performance? Absolutely. It is without a shred of a doubt the most compelling region in the country.
Yours truly ↩
