Northwestern

[Southend]

The once storied program. The poster child for under funded programs. 7.5 scholarships. Has hit the skids. Transfer portal ain’t helping..Very concerning for wrestling . Seems nobody ,in administration ,cases what happens. Could be Dl next casualty? I have no insight but just casual observation over last 5 years. 

[Idaho]

2 hours ago, Southend said:

The once storied program. The poster child for under funded programs. 7.5 scholarships. Has hit the skids. Transfer portal ain’t helping..Very concerning for wrestling . Seems nobody ,in administration ,cases what happens. Could be Dl next casualty? I have no insight but just casual observation over last 5 years. 

Yeah... it's been a tough go there. They have an Idaho kid on the roster I am really rooting for. I am hoping it works out there. He seems to love the school and the team so far. I am not sure what the answer is, but I echo. your observations. 

[MNRodent]

They were 10th at NCAA as recently as 2021.  This year is a result of NIL plus the transfer portal.  I know Northwestern has rigid grad program standards, but don't tell me they couldn't have kept the guys around this year if there wasn't NIL offers.

 

[Dogbone]

I imagine the extra covid year played a large part along with NIL.  I don't think all of their AAs establish Northwestern North if they didn't have a degree in their pocket.  

NW won't be able to get as many transfers in due to academics so they have to build from within. 

[bnwtwg]

People are forgetting a few things, Micic aside.

You enroll at Northwestern for the NW degree and you get to wrestle, not the other way around.

At T1 schools, you rarely get your grad degree from your undergrad. Maybe boomerang for a Ph.D. but even that is not commonplace. And referring to point #1, if you get a degree from NW then you are extremely likely to either go directly to the workforce highly regarded or are a highly regarded prospective grad school student. Sports are second priority.

[Major Kong]

4 hours ago, MNRodent said:

They were 10th at NCAA as recently as 2021.  This year is a result of NIL plus the transfer portal.  I know Northwestern has rigid grad program standards, but don't tell me they couldn't have kept the guys around this year if there wasn't NIL offers.

 

6th in 2022, thank you! NU faces some big challenges in the NIL/transfer portal era. Right now we do not have a B10 lineup. Chumbley, Mayfield (who is injured), Fisher and Bates are the only starters who are competitive. So far, only one of the freshman appears to definitely have a potentially bright future - and he's redshirting. I don't have the answers but Storny has his work cut out.

Edited February 5 by Major Kong
spelling

[Major Kong]

12 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

People are forgetting a few things, Micic aside.

You enroll at Northwestern for the NW degree and you get to wrestle, not the other way around.

At T1 schools, you rarely get your grad degree from your undergrad. Maybe boomerang for a Ph.D. but even that is not commonplace. And referring to point #1, if you get a degree from NW then you are extremely likely to either go directly to the workforce highly regarded or are a highly regarded prospective grad school student. Sports are second priority.

Agree, unless it's Law or Med school, and those are rarities for D1 athletes. Stanford seems to be overcoming the obstacles NU faces quite well. Not sure if it's the campus/weather/location or NIL money. NU will be hard pressed to compete in either area.

Edited February 5 by Major Kong
spelling

[JuanMogen]

The Ferraris would be a good fit there. 

[Major Kong]

Just now, JuanMogen said:

The Ferraris would be a good fit there. 

 Several of my classmates have them!

[Southend]

6 hours ago, Idaho said:

Yeah... it's been a tough go there. They have an Idaho kid on the roster I am really rooting for. I am hoping it works out there. He seems to love the school and the team so far. I am not sure what the answer is, but I echo. your observations. 

I mean, how do you recover from this gradual erosion? Hope they do. But from knowing other nonrevenue coach at Northwestern. President on down could car eless about the athletic department, let alone non rev. Sports.  

[Major Kong]

1 minute ago, Southend said:

I mean, how do you recover from this gradual erosion? Hope they do. But from knowing other nonrevenue coach at Northwestern. President on down could car eless about the athletic department, let alone non rev. Sports.  

I don't think that's quite fair. They somewhat care about the high profile sports, and they care about the others the way Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Duke etc. do. Not the way OSt, Penn St, Mich. etc. do.

Quote

 

 

[Southend]

Well fair or not fair. My response was from a coach at the  school, from his observation. , He had won a national championship as a coach and player at another school. He deals with administration every day.  

[Major Kong]

17 minutes ago, Southend said:

Well fair or not fair. My response was from a coach at the  school, from his observation. , He had won a national championship as a coach and player at another school. He deals with administration every day.  

Fair. They would likely have the same take at the schools I mentioned. But NU is definitely not looking to have a University "the football team can be proud of".  And the vast majority of alums and students are proud of that.

Edited February 5 by Major Kong
grammar

[bnwtwg]

1 hour ago, Major Kong said:

Agree, unless it's Law or Med school, and those are rarities for D1 athletes. Stanford seems to be overcoming the obstacles NU faces quite well. Not sure if it's the campus/weather/location or NIL money. NU will be hard pressed to compete in either area.

That's why I was so confused when people were salty about DeAug and Davison. They graduated from a top school and moved on to a grad program at a... top school...

Anyone care to guess how many college wrestlers make a lifelong career out of wrestling? Even national champs like Megaludis and world champs like Retherford move on. Sometimes people just want a bigger house and nice things for their kids and no sport, not even MBB or FB, allows for that except for an extremely small fraction of a percentage if we are being realistic with each other.

[Hillbilly Jim]

2 hours ago, Major Kong said:

6th in 2022, thank you! NU faces some big challenges in the NIL/transfer portal era. Right now we do not have a B10 lineup. Chumbley, Mayfield (who is injured), Fisher and Bates are the only starters who are competitive. So far, only one of the freshman appears to definitely have a potentially bright future - and he's redshirting. I don't have the answers but Storny has his work cut out.

Well they will also get a boost with Talshahar coming back next year.  The medical RS would give him two more years if he wants them.

[poorwrestler]

Joel Vandervere was a high ranked recruit that hasn’t done much, I wonder what the story is there. Sam Cartella should be pretty good when he comes off redshirt. I think NU will always struggle to field a great dual team top to bottom but they can get back to having top individuals fairly quickly imo.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

3 hours ago, bnwtwg said:

People are forgetting a few things, Micic aside.

You enroll at Northwestern for the NW degree and you get to wrestle, not the other way around.

At T1 schools, you rarely get your grad degree from your undergrad. Maybe boomerang for a Ph.D. but even that is not commonplace. And referring to point #1, if you get a degree from NW then you are extremely likely to either go directly to the workforce highly regarded or are a highly regarded prospective grad school student. Sports are second priority.

This is why I think it’s so important to have D1 programs at all the ivies (6/8 currently) service academies, and other prestigious schools. Even if they aren’t great our HS athletes need the opportunity it compete in college at elite institutions. 
 

Imagine a wrestler who’s dream is to go to darmouth, can get in, and  who also has the skills to be D1. It’s rare but some of these schools have $10B endowments and wind fund a sport for $300k a year or less.

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

Just now, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

This is why I think it’s so important to have D1 programs at all the ivies (6/8 currently) service academies, and other prestigious schools. Even if they aren’t great our HS athletes need the opportunity it compete in college at elite institutions. 
 

Imagine a wrestler whose dream is to go to darmouth, can get in, and  who also has the skills to be D1. It’s rare but some of these schools have $10B endowments and wind fund a sport for $300k a year or less.

 I think the NCWA growing could really help with this. Club programs could grow to be more and more respect and maybe eventually could be seen on par with D2/D3/JUCO/NAIA in that its “real” college wrestling, it’s also not about athletic directors who only care about football to determine their fate. The more I learn about the NWCA the more I’d like wrestling to somehow be self governed.  

[flyingcement]

48 minutes ago, Hillbilly Jim said:

Well they will also get a boost with Talshahar coming back next year.  The medical RS would give him two more years if he wants them.

I was wondering if TalShahar would enter the portal after this season himself considering he is on pace to earn his degree this spring 

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

The Big Ten was always a wrestling conference. Even when it expanded, it expanded to include schools that had D1 wrestling. At least from 1896 to 2022, or about 126 years. This quote from another website about conference expansion is illustrative (and not a little funny, and I mean the "Michigan is voted out" bit):

• 1896: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, Univ. of Chicago, and Northwestern form the “Western Conference”
• 1899: Iowa and Indiana join, the conference is referred to as the “Big Nine”
• 1907: Michigan is voted out of the conference
• 1912: Ohio State joins the conference
• 1916: Michigan rejoins, the conference is first referred to as the “Big Ten”
• 1946: Univ. of Chicago de-emphasizes varsity athletics and leaves the conference; the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Nine”
• 1949: Michigan State joins, the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Ten”
• 1993: Penn State begins conference play after being invited to join in 1990
• 2011: Nebraska joins the conference
• 2014: Maryland and Rutgers join the conference
• 2022: UCLA and USC announce they will join the conference effective in 2024
• 2023: Oregon and Washington announce they will join the conference effective in 202

Here's where the rubber meets the road: Will the conference promote wrestling in the future? Penn State, then Nebraska, were wrestling schools. I personally thought that Maryland and Rutgers were weird choices to join the Big Ten, but I did love the fact that they were wrestling schools. It seemed that a requirement to join the conference was a wrestling program. 

But UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington? Not wrestling schools. Will they add programs? Or, will Northwestern now have an excuse to drop theirs? I don't know. I just wanted a chance to publish this picture of the Wildcat's football coach:

[Southend]

2 hours ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

The Big Ten was always a wrestling conference. Even when it expanded, it expanded to include schools that had D1 wrestling. At least from 1896 to 2022, or about 126 years. This quote from another website about conference expansion is illustrative (and not a little funny, and I mean the "Michigan is voted out" bit):

• 1896: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, Univ. of Chicago, and Northwestern form the “Western Conference”
• 1899: Iowa and Indiana join, the conference is referred to as the “Big Nine”
• 1907: Michigan is voted out of the conference
• 1912: Ohio State joins the conference
• 1916: Michigan rejoins, the conference is first referred to as the “Big Ten”
• 1946: Univ. of Chicago de-emphasizes varsity athletics and leaves the conference; the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Nine”
• 1949: Michigan State joins, the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Ten”
• 1993: Penn State begins conference play after being invited to join in 1990
• 2011: Nebraska joins the conference
• 2014: Maryland and Rutgers join the conference
• 2022: UCLA and USC announce they will join the conference effective in 2024
• 2023: Oregon and Washington announce they will join the conference effective in 202

Here's where the rubber meets the road: Will the conference promote wrestling in the future? Penn State, then Nebraska, were wrestling schools. I personally thought that Maryland and Rutgers were weird choices to join the Big Ten, but I did love the fact that they were wrestling schools. It seemed that a requirement to join the conference was a wrestling program. 

But UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington? Not wrestling schools. Will they add programs? Or, will Northwestern now have an excuse to drop theirs? I don't know. I just wanted a chance to publish this picture of the Wildcat's football coach:

Dufas 

[Major Kong]

4 hours ago, flyingcement said:

I was wondering if TalShahar would enter the portal after this season himself considering he is on pace to earn his degree this spring 

I think he'll stay at NU. Just guessing really, but he's been traveling with the team and seems very supportive.

[dragit]

8 hours ago, ILLINIWrestlingBlog said:

The Big Ten was always a wrestling conference. Even when it expanded, it expanded to include schools that had D1 wrestling. At least from 1896 to 2022, or about 126 years. This quote from another website about conference expansion is illustrative (and not a little funny, and I mean the "Michigan is voted out" bit):

• 1896: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Purdue, Univ. of Chicago, and Northwestern form the “Western Conference”
• 1899: Iowa and Indiana join, the conference is referred to as the “Big Nine”
• 1907: Michigan is voted out of the conference
• 1912: Ohio State joins the conference
• 1916: Michigan rejoins, the conference is first referred to as the “Big Ten”
• 1946: Univ. of Chicago de-emphasizes varsity athletics and leaves the conference; the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Nine”
• 1949: Michigan State joins, the conference is once again referred to as the “Big Ten”
• 1993: Penn State begins conference play after being invited to join in 1990
• 2011: Nebraska joins the conference
• 2014: Maryland and Rutgers join the conference
• 2022: UCLA and USC announce they will join the conference effective in 2024
• 2023: Oregon and Washington announce they will join the conference effective in 202

Here's where the rubber meets the road: Will the conference promote wrestling in the future? Penn State, then Nebraska, were wrestling schools. I personally thought that Maryland and Rutgers were weird choices to join the Big Ten, but I did love the fact that they were wrestling schools. It seemed that a requirement to join the conference was a wrestling program. 

But UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington? Not wrestling schools. Will they add programs? Or, will Northwestern now have an excuse to drop theirs? I don't know. I just wanted a chance to publish this picture of the Wildcat's football coach:

That doesn't look like the NU football coach, it looks like the former NU football coach.  Pat Fitzgerald was replaced by David Braun last summer.  It was a giant surprise, Fitzgerald was viewed as an indispensable uber coach and was on a $50 million contract, he only was removed because the student paper published the details of a hazing scandal which caused the administration to change from a light punishment to a firing (even though they knew all the facts before the first action).  The unexpected result was that the football team, expected to be even worse than their one victory season last year, was terrific, went to a bowl and won, and could have been in the Big Ten title game if not for a long Iowa field goal.  So just as surprising as the hazing story was the revelation that Fitzgerald may not have been a good coach anymore (probably more focused on fundraising for the proposed new $800 million stadium following the construction of the $200 million practice facility), they stunk the last two years and then totally turned around under the new coach.

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

2 hours ago, dragit said:

That doesn't look like the NU football coach, it looks like the former NU football coach.  Pat Fitzgerald was replaced by David Braun last summer.  It was a giant surprise, Fitzgerald was viewed as an indispensable uber coach and was on a $50 million contract, he only was removed because the student paper published the details of a hazing scandal which caused the administration to change from a light punishment to a firing (even though they knew all the facts before the first action).  The unexpected result was that the football team, expected to be even worse than their one victory season last year, was terrific, went to a bowl and won, and could have been in the Big Ten title game if not for a long Iowa field goal.  So just as surprising as the hazing story was the revelation that Fitzgerald may not have been a good coach anymore (probably more focused on fundraising for the proposed new $800 million stadium following the construction of the $200 million practice facility), they stunk the last two years and then totally turned around under the new coach.

 

Well, that makes me sad. Not for the hazed nerds. They signed up for that. Didn't they see Revenge of the Nerds?  I'm talking about one of my favorite all-time photoshops being less relevant.

I'm tearing up a little thinking about it. 

If other Big Ten schools start to add women's wrestling, though, maybe that would jump-start the process out West? It might even save Northwestern wrestling. 

 

[TexRef]

14 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

 I think the NCWA growing could really help with this. Club programs could grow to be more and more respect and maybe eventually could be seen on par with D2/D3/JUCO/NAIA in that its “real” college wrestling, it’s also not about athletic directors who only care about football to determine their fate. The more I learn about the NWCA the more I’d like wrestling to somehow be self governed.  

The NCWA has been helping to add wrestling to enrollment based schools. They sell the idea of adding a men's and a women's team, and hiring 1 coach for both. Pay the coach less than $75K for both programs and they should have 60 kids by year 3. Snake oil at its best.