Doing It Old School (The Freshman Don't Matter Scoring Champs Edition)

[Wrestleknownothing]

If we harken back to days of yore when freshman were not eligible to wrestle there were a number of dominant wrestlers who left us with a bunch of what ifs.

Among the three timers in the three time era (100%ers) who would have won as a freshman? Maybe that Sanderson guy wasn't so special. Maybe Pat Smith shouldn't have been the first. After all, there were 15 of these guys and 6 of them were undefeated. Surely one of them would have won as a freshman and done it in style. Like the answer to the question "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?", the world will never know.

But we can know what the intersection of their careers and modern careers looks like. Instead of adding fictional titles and points to past champions, lets do the more recent guys dirty and subtract titles and points. 

If we subtract the first year of competition and just focus on years they all have in common, years two through four (sorry Myles and Jaydin), who scored the most NCAA points? 

Without further ado, I present your new king of the hill: Zain Retherford. 

A few other observations:

• In the spirit of subtraction, I decided to also subtract the 5 points Dan Gable earned in his two pigtail matches from when brackets could be just about any size.
• If we look at it on a per match basis Dan Hodge would take his rightful seat on the throne as he scored his 80 points in just 13 matches, while the others at or near the top did it in 15 matches.
• Bonus points are huge (too huge? let the debate begin). The third and fourth positions are occupied by guys who only went 2 for 3 in their last three years. But, boy did they do it in style, with Dan Gable putting up a perfect 30 points in 1969 and David Taylor scoring 29.5 in 2012.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Wrestleknownothing

[Tigerfan]

Kinda surprised Askren didn’t make the list. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, Tigerfan said:

Kinda surprised Askren didn’t make the list. 

Tied for 31st at 71 points with Eddie Eichelberger, Lee Kemp, T.J. Jaworksy, Jordan Oliver, and Kyle Snyder.

Behind Bill Koll, Gene Mills, Ross Flood,Mark Lieberman, Kenny Monday, Carlton Haselrig, Jason Nolf, Larry Owings, John Smith, and Terry Brands

[MPhillips]

1 hour ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

Tied for 31st at 71 points with Eddie Eichelberger, Lee Kemp, T.J. Jaworksy, Jordan Oliver, and Kyle Snyder.

Behind Bill Koll, Gene Mills, Ross Flood,Mark Lieberman, Kenny Monday, Carlton Haselrig, Jason Nolf, Larry Owings, John Smith, and Terry Brands

Boom!

[Lipdrag]

Superlative breakdown.  Thank you.

[ionel]

7 hours ago, MPhillips said:

Boom!

Is that you Vak?

[Idaho]

Cool 

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, Idaho said:

Cool 

thx