Which State is the Best?

[cowcards]

Ever wonder what place a team of the best finishers from each state at each weight would finish at the national tournament?

Clink the link and have some fun. 

I'll have the 2026 results in their later tonight after the finals.

Edited March 21 by cowcards

[flyingcement]

This is incredible stuff!   Where did you get the source data for the homestates?

[cowcards]

21 minutes ago, flyingcement said:

This is incredible stuff!   Where did you get the source data for the homestates?

A few years of research. Newer guys are from college rosters. Older guys are from yearbooks, newpapers, school papers, etc. 

[Nak21]

That’s fantastic!! Thank you for doing this!!

I checked thru the last 10yrs and it was PA #1 for like 7 of the years and top 2-3 the other 3 years, not surprising.

Any chance you could make it so we can sort by state? Overall? Over periods of time? Would be cool to see how the top states have done over the entire time period of your data set.  

[Pinnacle]

Gonna be PA most years? When all points are counted they almost always win.

[pistol.petes.mustache]

134.5 highest 2nd place team score of all time. (Ohio State 2018)

Oklahoma State is at 127 with 2 finalists to go including Jax. Will they break it?

[pistol.petes.mustache]

What is the most freshman champs of all time?

[pistol.petes.mustache]

Mesenbrink just won the Hodge.

[cowcards]

1 hour ago, pistol.petes.mustache said:

134.5 highest 2nd place team score of all time. (Ohio State 2018)

Oklahoma State is at 127 with 2 finalists to go including Jax. Will they break it?

 

1 hour ago, pistol.petes.mustache said:

What is the most freshman champs of all time?

 

1 hour ago, pistol.petes.mustache said:

Mesenbrink just won the Hodge.

I think you’re in the wrong place! 

[flyingcement]

1 hour ago, cowcards said:

A few years of research. Newer guys are from college rosters. Older guys are from yearbooks, newpapers, school papers, etc. 

If you ever need help on this project give me a shout.  I have occasional availability and a great passion for this stuff. 

[Rassling]

point and shoot, and quick too. good job!

[red viking]

Best state per capita is the true measure. I think IA and OK are near the top. Im not too impressed when a,state has a lot of great wrestlers, if it's only because they have a bigger population. 

[cowcards]

57 minutes ago, red viking said:

Best state per capita is the true measure. I think IA and OK are near the top. Im not too impressed when a,state has a lot of great wrestlers, if it's only because they have a bigger population. 

If you want to go and grab the population for each state since 1928, I'll happily add it in for you. 

 

1 hour ago, flyingcement said:

If you ever need help on this project give me a shout.  I have occasional availability and a great passion for this stuff. 

I'll always accept any help.

Email me at [email protected]
 

3 hours ago, Nak21 said:

That’s fantastic!! Thank you for doing this!!

I checked thru the last 10yrs and it was PA #1 for like 7 of the years and top 2-3 the other 3 years, not surprising.

Any chance you could make it so we can sort by state? Overall? Over periods of time? Would be cool to see how the top states have done over the entire time period of your data set.  

I can try. 

[cowcards]

5 hours ago, Nak21 said:

That’s fantastic!! Thank you for doing this!!

I checked thru the last 10yrs and it was PA #1 for like 7 of the years and top 2-3 the other 3 years, not surprising.

Any chance you could make it so we can sort by state? Overall? Over periods of time? Would be cool to see how the top states have done over the entire time period of your data set.  

I took it one step further, just for you. You can now look up a specific state over all years of the tournament. You can also generate a chart to choose specific years and states you want to compare. 

[Nak21]

Just now, cowcards said:

I took it one step further, just for you. You can now look up a specific state over all years of the tournament. You can also generate a chart to choose specific years and states you want to compare. 

You’re the best!! Thank you!! And wow that was fast too!! Much appreciated!

[WildTurk]

Iowa of course! 

[Southend]

2 hours ago, Nak21 said:

You’re the best!! Thank you!! And wow that was fast too!! Much appreciated!

I’m agree. Cool 

[cowcards]

6 hours ago, WildTurk said:

Iowa of course! 

I think the numbers disagree with you. In the last 25 years, they've finished as high as 3rd, 3x. They weren't even top-10 (11th) this year. 

[lu_alum]

Best state per capita is the true measure. I think IA and OK are near the top. Im not too impressed when a,state has a lot of great wrestlers, if it's only because they have a bigger population. 

Per capital includes old ladies and babies. The best normalizing factor is NFHS participation rates. Here’s data going back to the early 1970s.
https://nfhs.org/resources/sports/high-school-participation-survey-archive

This analysis would allow you to determine the likelihood of a particular state’s HS wrestler becoming an NQ, AA, or national champ.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[red viking]

51 minutes ago, lu_alum said:

Per capital includes old ladies and babies. The best normalizing factor is NFHS participation rates. Here’s data going back to the early 1970s.
https://nfhs.org/resources/sports/high-school-participation-survey-archive

This analysis would allow you to determine the likelihood of a particular state’s HS wrestler becoming an NQ, AA, or national champ.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Wrong. There are ladies and babies in every state,  generally proportional to # of HS males. 

Using participation rate is bad too. A state shouldn't take a hit in this evaluation  for having more kids participating. 

Just use population. I'd like to see that. An evaluation I saw a few years ago had OK and IA at the top. 

[GrandOlm]

6 minutes ago, red viking said:

Wrong. There are ladies and babies in every state,  generally proportional to # of HS males. 

Using participation rate is bad too. A state shouldn't take a hit in this evaluation  for having more kids participating. 

Just use population. I'd like to see that. An evaluation I saw a few years ago had OK and IA at the top. 

A large state could have regions where wrestling is not popular. Having big cities is also not helpful in these types of comparisons, since wrestling is still a niche sport that does best in small towns or rural areas where it can engrain itself (would be my guess). 

[lu_alum]

3 hours ago, red viking said:

Wrong. There are ladies and babies in every state,  generally proportional to # of HS males. 

Using participation rate is bad too. A state shouldn't take a hit in this evaluation  for having more kids participating. 

Just use population. I'd like to see that. An evaluation I saw a few years ago had OK and IA at the top. 

Using per capita helps small states like Iowa feel better about their success rate.

3 hours ago, GrandOlm said:

A large state could have regions where wrestling is not popular. Having big cities is also not helpful in these types of comparisons, since wrestling is still a niche sport that does best in small towns or rural areas where it can engrain itself (would be my guess). 

The is exactly why NFHS data is the best normalizing factor to be used for success rate analyses. Anything else is comparing apples and oranges.

Edited March 22 by lu_alum

[lu_alum]

Looks like Jason Bryant agrees with my approach. 

 

 

Edited March 24 by lu_alum

[Psalm 1 guy]

On 3/22/2026 at 8:11 AM, GrandOlm said:

A large state could have regions where wrestling is not popular. Having big cities is also not helpful in these types of comparisons, since wrestling is still a niche sport that does best in small towns or rural areas where it can engrain itself (would be my guess). 

For example, the Lost Angeles region normally has very minimal representation at the California state tournament. The smaller populated areas like Clovis and the surrounding area dominate. The exception to that is Poway High, which is down in the San Diego region.

[BAC]

On 3/22/2026 at 2:48 PM, lu_alum said:

Using per capita helps small states like Iowa feel better about their success rate.

The is exactly why NFHS data is the best normalizing factor to be used for success rate analyses. Anything else is comparing apples and oranges.

Just chiming in to say you are exactly right.

The OK/IA crowd, mindful that their states don’t have any actual cities, seems always happy to jump up and down to try to penalize PA for having downtown Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, NY for having NYC, Illinois for having Chicago, and so on. 
 

if you’re going to do per capita, do it based on actual wrestlers, not by how many urban areas they happen to have.