We finally got some competition last week and it was everything we thought it would be. The team discusses the biggest results and what they are looking forward to in week 2.

 

On Friday night #15 Stanford will travel to #7 Iowa State in the first half of a two-day stretch that sees the Cardinal challenge themselves against a pair of college wrestling powers - they’ll also face #2 Iowa on Saturday. Not only is the Iowa State/Stanford dual a clash between a pair of top-15 teams, but it will also pit two of the best program-builders against each other as you look at the team’s respective leaders. 
Kevin Dresser leads the Iowa State Cyclones while Chris Ayres starts his second season as Stanford’s head coach. 
You might not initially expect it, but the two have had some similarities during their long coaching careers. 
Both were hired for their first collegiate head coaching positions during the amazing offseason of 2006. InterMat has covered this topic in-depth as 15 head coaching jobs were open that year and it changed the landscape for college wrestling coaching forward. Iowa brought back Tom Brands, Ohio State hired Tom Ryan, and Iowa State elevated Cael Sanderson. 
In the midst of all of these high-profile hirings, there was considerably less fanfare surrounding Virginia Tech hiring Kevin Dresser and Princeton tabbing Chris Ayres as their next head coach. Both walked into extremely difficult situations. Neither was at a program that was known for prolonged success; however, both took their respective schools to heights that seemed unattainable in 2006. 
Dresser was the head coach at Christiansburg High School, the next town over from Virginia Tech’s home in Blacksburg. At the high school level, Dresser already had achieved notoriety for his success at Virginia’s Grundy High School and then took over a Christiansburg team that couldn’t fill out a full lineup and was an afterthought in Virginia. When he left for Tech, Dresser had made Christiansburg into a program that was ranked in the top five nationally, churning out DI recruits, and dominating the Virginia AA State Tournament. 
Dresser walked into a Virginia Tech program that was in shambles after Brands left for Iowa. Brands spent only two years in Blacksburg, but injected the school with newfound energy towards its wrestling program and inked the #2 overall recruit class of 2005. When Brands left for Iowa - the key components of that recruiting class followed - including two-time NCAA champion Brent Metcalf, 2010 NCAA champion Jay Borschel, NCAA finalist Joey Slaton, and more. Transfer rules at the time stated that wrestlers needed a signed release to compete the following year after a transfer. To this day, there are arguments about the release being guaranteed during the recruiting process; however, one was not granted and the transfers had to sit out and lose a year of eligibility at Iowa. 
Dresser served as a de facto consultant to help hire Brands’ successor and even had to help convince Virginia Tech not to drop the program as the athletic department felt jilted for the new investment into wrestling. Eventually, Dresser was coaxed into taking the job himself and quickly built Virginia Tech into a respectable, consistent program. 
The 2009 Virginia Tech team had eight national qualifiers after producing 21 in the eight years leading up to 2009. I happened to be at the Hokie NCAA social that year and there was a very festive atmosphere surrounding the team’s performance. Dresser stunned the room by pushing the kibosh on these sentiments, saying he “wasn’t looking for a bunch of NCAA qualifiers, he’s looking to have wrestlers on that stage on Saturday night.” 
That mentality saw the Hokies continue to grow year-by-year and eventually they did put a wrestler in the NCAA finals (Devin Carter - 2014). Two years later, Virginia Tech took home an NCAA team trophy (fourth place) in New York City, finishing a spot ahead of Iowa - there were lingering bad feelings on both sides after the Brands departure. 
Less than a year after the 2016 NCAA Tournament, Iowa State’s Kevin Jackson was relieved of his head coaching duties midseason. That led to Dresser being named the Cyclones head coach before the end of the 2016-17 season. 
Coming full circle to 2006, Dresser shocked the wrestling world by hiring Metcalf as one of his assistant coaches at Iowa State. 
At Iowa State, Dresser needed a few years to get his own recruits in place, but he recruited and oversaw the career of 2x NCAA champion David Carr and has led a team that finished 11th at the NCAA Tournament in 2023 and fourth in 2024. Though Iowa State is still looking for their first win over Iowa under Dresser, they did finish a spot ahead of the Hawkeyes in March. 
Dresser’s 2024-25 team could be his best yet, though there are plenty of questions surrounding the lineup at multiple weights. What we do know is that the Cyclones will field a lineup that includes four returning All-Americans .

While Dresser only needed a few years to bring Virginia Tech to respectability, Ayres faced a much steeper climb at Princeton. 
Ayres was serving as an assistant on staff at his alma mater, Lehigh, when he got the opportunity to take his first head coaching position - at Princeton. He had also applied to Hofstra and was in the mix for the Virginia job. 
To say Ayres’ early years at Princeton were rough would be putting it lightly. The Tigers lost their first 35 duals under Ayres and their first national qualifier didn’t come until 2010. 
Initially, Ayres assumed he could bring in some recent Lehigh grads who were part of an NCAA trophy-winning team in 2004 (Derek Zinck/Troy Letters) and they’d “teach the kids some moves” and they’d be good. Once he saw it was more difficult than that, Ayres focused on building a strong foundation for his program. 
Princeton’s big win on the recruiting trail came in 2008 as Ayres’ staff inked Daniel Kolodizk. Kolodzik would go on to make the NCAA Round of 12. Three years after Daniel finished his career, Ayres’ crew was able to lock down the younger Kolodzik brother, Matt, a top-ten recruit in the Class of 2015. In 2016, Princeton had its big breakthrough and Brett Harner made the NCAA podium - taking eighth in the 197 lb weight class. He was the school’s first AA in 13 years and the first for Ayres. A year later, Matt Kolodzik became the first freshman to get on the podium for Princeton. 
That momentum was all Princeton needed and they continued to improve. Highlights of Ayres’ tenure at the Ivy League school include knocking off Cornell in 2020 - ending the Big Red’s 18-year stranglehold on the Ivy League title. It was Princeton’s first Ivy title since 1986. 
In 2023, Pat Glory became only the second Princeton wrestler to win a national title and the first since 1951. He along with Quincy Monday helped lead the Tigers to a 13th place finish at nationals. 
From 0-35 to 13th in the nation. In an in-depth feature on Ayres’ hiring by Princeton, he called those early years the “best time I never want to go through again. I never want to go through that again, but the lessons learned were so impactful.” 
Ayres didn’t have to go through that again with his next job. Late in the summer of 2023 a game of head coaching musical chairs broke out leaving the Stanford program without a head coach. Ayres threw his hat into the ring and was ultimately chosen to lead the Cardinal. 
Ayres took over a team that had recruited extremely well under Rob Koll and finished the 2024 season with a pair of All-Americans - both from the Class of 2022. That strong recruiting has carried on under Ayres and Stanford looks like a very imposing team as they kick off their first campaign in the ACC. 
Friday’s dual will mark only the second time that Ayres and Dresser have coached against each other in dual competition. They met when their previous schools dualed each other in January of 2017, just a month before Dresser accepted the Iowa State position. In that meeting, Virginia Tech prevailed 28-11. 
The Princeton/Virginia Tech series likely had something to do with Ayres’ assistant coach Sean Gray - a Virginia Tech alum. Before Dresser’s arrival, Gray was the only multiple-time All-American in Hokie wrestling history. Gray has since joined Ayres at Stanford. 
As these two coaches are looking to take their current programs to new heights, remember that they are led by two of the best program-builders in our sport. They each took over programs with the promise of trophies and national accolades; however, both were near the bottom of the DI ranks 18 years ago and have carved out incredible coaching careers along the way. 

The top prospect in the high school Class of 2026, Bo Bassett, has vowed to keep fans abreast of his recruiting with daily Wednesday updates. 
After a brief hiatus Bassett is back and has posted an updated graphic which has eliminated one more school from consideration. 
Earlier this year, Bassett posted a graphic that contained the logos of approximately 80 schools, most of the DI variety, but some DII’s as well, to signify that he’s totally open in the recruiting process. After more than three months of removing schools from the list, he’s down to 14. 
One school was removed from this week's graphic: Princeton
The following schools remain on Bassett’s graphic and therefore in contention for his services:
Arizona State, Cornell, Iowa, Iowa State, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Northern Iowa, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Pitt-Johnstown, Rutgers, Virginia Tech.
One school was removed from the 10/9 graphic: Air Force
One school was removed from the 10/2 graphic: Lehigh
One school was removed from the 9/25 graphic: Pittsburgh
One school was removed from the 9/18 graphic: Stanford
One school was removed from the 9/11 graphic: NC State
These three schools were removed from the 9/4 graphic: American, North Carolina, Wisconsin
These three schools were removed from the 8/28 graphic: Clarion, Little Rock, Minnesota
The following schools were removed from the 8/21 graphic: Penn, Oklahoma, Oregon State
The following schools were removed from the 8/14 graphic: Bucknell, Virginia, Wyoming
The following schools were removed from the 8/7 graphic: Brown, Northern Colorado, Purdue
The following schools were removed from the 7/31 graphic: California Baptist, Michigan State, Navy
The following schools were removed from the 7/24 graphic: Army West Point, Campbell, Edinboro, Harvard, Illinois, North Dakota State, South Dakota State
The following schools were removed from the 7/17 graphic: Cal Poly, Columbia, Indiana, Maryland, Millersville, The Citadel, and West Virginia
The following schools were removed from the 7/10 graphic: CSU Bakersfield, George Mason, Hofstra, Northwestern, Rider, UW Parkside, West Liberty
The following schools were removed from the 7/3 graphic: Appalachian State, Central Michigan, Cleveland State, Drexel, Kent State, Ohio, and St. Cloud State
The following schools were removed from the 6/26 graphic: Binghamton, Bloomsburg, Duke, Gardner-Webb, Northern Illinois, Sacred Heart, SIU Edwardsville
 
Bassett has already taken on-campus visits to Iowa, Michigan, and Penn State.  
In Bassett's weekly recruiting update, he noted dates for upcoming official campus visits:

Nov 8-10 - Ohio State 
Nov 15-17 - Virginia Tech
Nov 22-24 - Oklahoma State
Jan 24-26 - Rutgers