Big coaching hires in the wings?

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

3 hours ago, peanut said:

Sleeping giants: USC. Maryland (near Pennsylvania & NJ & in a big metro area). UT Austin. 

Any big Texas or Cali school that would start wrestling would see immediate success. I don’t get why they don’t throw their hat in the ring.

 

I hope Tarleton state kills it with Texas kids and that kicks some other ADs in the butt to want to be the “kings” of Texas wrestling.

 

[TheJimReaper]

5 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

Any big Texas or Cali school that would start wrestling would see immediate success. I don’t get why they don’t throw their hat in the ring.

 

I hope Tarleton state kills it with Texas kids and that kicks some other ADs in the butt to want to be the “kings” of Texas wrestling.

 

Wait does Tarleton have a wrestling team?

[Wrestleknownothing]

24 minutes ago, TheJimReaper said:

Wait does Tarleton have a wrestling team?

Indeed

[boconnell]

11 hours ago, peanut said:

OkSt hiring David Taylor stirred the college wrestling world up. In some ways it suggests that Cael’s system has definitively replaced Gable’s system as the gold standard.

But it also showed that wrestling programs can be willing to invest big in potential coaches — who they may not have talked to before — and who they think will be big names and capable CEOs.

Who else fits that bill? And for that matter, what wrestling programs could eventually use a new face? Or what programs are sleeping giants? Cael, of course, identified PSU as a sleeping giant and the rest is history.

A few big names: Spencer Lee, JB, Snyder, Dake. Potential big names: AB, Starocci, Vito.

Sleeping giants: USC. Maryland (near Pennsylvania & NJ & in a big metro area). UT Austin. 

There is a zero percent chance of USC or Texas adding wrestling.  I'd also think there's a zero percent chance of Maryland having the money to make a huge hire.  The DT hire just set a market place that very few schools can compete with.  I think it's far more likely the big names you mention don't go into head coaching and try to earn outside of the head coaching ranks than it is they end up at Maryland.

[ionel]

8 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

Any big Texas or Cali school that would start wrestling would see immediate success. I don’t get why they don’t throw their hat in the ring.

 

I hope Tarleton state kills it with Texas kids and that kicks some other ADs in the butt to want to be the “kings” of Texas wrestling.

 

Cal Baptist & Tarleton oughta be winners then?

[NM1965]

13 minutes ago, ionel said:

Cal Baptist & Tarleton oughta be winners then?

I don't think either of those places qualifies as "big". I don't have the same optimism that FanofPurdue has though. 

[TexRef]

9 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

Any big Texas or Cali school that would start wrestling would see immediate success. I don’t get why they don’t throw their hat in the ring.

 

I hope Tarleton state kills it with Texas kids and that kicks some other ADs in the butt to want to be the “kings” of Texas wrestling.

 

I hope you are right. If they don't make it work, Texas will never get another D1 program. 

[boconnell]

22 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

Any big Texas or Cali school that would start wrestling would see immediate success. I don’t get why they don’t throw their hat in the ring.

 

I hope Tarleton state kills it with Texas kids and that kicks some other ADs in the butt to want to be the “kings” of Texas wrestling.

 

Why would a Texas school have immediate success?  There is very little D1 talent in the state, and very little D1 talent in the surrounding states.  The travel budget would be large and only a few schools in the state play in a conference with wrestling.  There is also very little wrestling history in the state.  It's hard to overstate how few older people there wrestled.  There are near zero boosters at those schools who have a history with the sport.  Most of the coaches in the state come from out of state and a good chunk of the refs never wrestled.  It is just a very young sport there without much history.  I think a big school would probably be terrible if they started wrestling (which is not going to happen).

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

15 hours ago, boconnell said:

There is a zero percent chance of USC or Texas adding wrestling.  I'd also think there's a zero percent chance of Maryland having the money to make a huge hire.  The DT hire just set a market place that very few schools can compete with.  I think it's far more likely the big names you mention don't go into head coaching and try to earn outside of the head coaching ranks than it is they end up at Maryland.

Add UCLA and Notre Dame to this list (amongst others)

[CHROMEBIRD]

On 5/13/2024 at 10:16 AM, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

Any big Texas or Cali school that would start wrestling would see immediate success. I don’t get why they don’t throw their hat in the ring.

My feeling is that it would take a deep-pocketed alum or donor more than anything else. Support from the AD and dept is needed of course, but a wealthy booster could make that happen. Would the DT hire have been possible if the Paycom guy wasn't involved?

[peanut]

18 hours ago, boconnell said:

There is a zero percent chance of USC or Texas adding wrestling.  I'd also think there's a zero percent chance of Maryland having the money to make a huge hire.  The DT hire just set a market place that very few schools can compete with.  I think it's far more likely the big names you mention don't go into head coaching and try to earn outside of the head coaching ranks than it is they end up at Maryland.

A school can be a sleeping giant even where there is a 0% chance of it waking up. 

[peanut]

2 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Add UCLA and Notre Dame to this list (amongst others)

Definitely a lot of potential sleeping giants. 

Edited May 14 by peanut

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

22 hours ago, NM1965 said:

I don't think either of those places qualifies as "big". I don't have the same optimism that FanofPurdue has though. 

No those schools are tiny compared to the giants in the Big10 and SEC . Look at Texas A&M or University of Texas  with 5-7x more students. 

[FanOfPurdueWrestling]

8 hours ago, boconnell said:

Why would a Texas school have immediate success?  There is very little D1 talent in the state, and very little D1 talent in the surrounding states.  The travel budget would be large and only a few schools in the state play in a conference with wrestling.  There is also very little wrestling history in the state.  It's hard to overstate how few older people there wrestled.  There are near zero boosters at those schools who have a history with the sport.  Most of the coaches in the state come from out of state and a good chunk of the refs never wrestled.  It is just a very young sport there without much history.  I think a big school would probably be terrible if they started wrestling (which is not going to happen).

If Little Rock can have immediate success Texas A&M, UTexas, and University of Houston can as well. Texas wrestling is solid and make recognition alone would drive recruits there from anywhere. 

[ionel]

2 minutes ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

No those schools are tiny compared to the giants in the Big10 and SEC . Look at Texas A&M or University of Texas  with 5-7x more students. 

But if a Michigan, Illinois &/or Oregon St. can't make it how can a new CA or TX school?

[NM1965]

44 minutes ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

No those schools are tiny compared to the giants in the Big10 and SEC . Look at Texas A&M or University of Texas  with 5-7x more students. 

More importantly look at how much money UT and TAMU have. Either could easily afford to start a wrestling program, but neither ever will. 

[NM1965]

9 hours ago, boconnell said:

Why would a Texas school have immediate success?  There is very little D1 talent in the state, and very little D1 talent in the surrounding states.  The travel budget would be large and only a few schools in the state play in a conference with wrestling.  There is also very little wrestling history in the state.  It's hard to overstate how few older people there wrestled.  There are near zero boosters at those schools who have a history with the sport.  Most of the coaches in the state come from out of state and a good chunk of the refs never wrestled.  It is just a very young sport there without much history.  I think a big school would probably be terrible if they started wrestling (which is not going to happen).

I read somewhere a few years back that there were over 3,000 Texas schools with wrestling. That sounds preposterous to me. Oklahoma is historically a top 10 wrestling state and only has 4 classes at 32 teams (max) per class. On the other hand I don't think the article specified high schools, so maybe a lot of those are elementary schools with beginner wrestling. Heck, maybe they counted schools that have wrestling during PE classes. 

The only places in Texas that I know of with wrestling are in the panhandle area or in the northern parts of Texas (closest to Oklahoma). OSU has gotten some wrestlers from the Texas panhandle. I can't remember his name off the top of my head but one was a legendary college HWT. The only other Texas wrestler I can think of is Bo Nickal, but I don't think he's actually a Texan, just a guy who transplanted there in HS.  

 

[NM1965]

5 hours ago, peanut said:

Definitely a lot of potential sleeping giants. 

ND and UCLA never had good wrestling teams in the first place. I think to be called a "sleeping giant" that the program has to have been a great program at one time, not just a wealthy school that used to have program.  

 

[boconnell]

1 hour ago, NM1965 said:

I read somewhere a few years back that there were over 3,000 Texas schools with wrestling. That sounds preposterous to me. Oklahoma is historically a top 10 wrestling state and only has 4 classes at 32 teams (max) per class. On the other hand I don't think the article specified high schools, so maybe a lot of those are elementary schools with beginner wrestling. Heck, maybe they counted schools that have wrestling during PE classes. 

The only places in Texas that I know of with wrestling are in the panhandle area or in the northern parts of Texas (closest to Oklahoma). OSU has gotten some wrestlers from the Texas panhandle. I can't remember his name off the top of my head but one was a legendary college HWT. The only other Texas wrestler I can think of is Bo Nickal, but I don't think he's actually a Texan, just a guy who transplanted there in HS.  

 

There are about 300 High Schools in Texas with wrestling.  There were like 20 Junior Highs as of a few years ago.  

[boconnell]

2 hours ago, FanOfPurdueWrestling said:

If Little Rock can have immediate success Texas A&M, UTexas, and University of Houston can as well. Texas wrestling is solid and make recognition alone would drive recruits there from anywhere. 

Little Rock is much closer to good wrestling than Texas is.  They are also an enrollment driven university that was happy to oblige a big donor that wanted wrestling.  The Texas schools you mentioned have zero need for more enrollment.  They have huge enrollments and giant lists of students turned away.  They also have far fewer alumni with wrestling experience because so few in the state wrestled in college.  The odds of a big money donor propping up at a giant university with multiple millions a year for a men's and women's program is near zero.  The University of Texas is a fantastic school with tons of wealthy alumni, but none of those alumni wrestled in college or have deep connection to the sport.  If they did they'd be at a different university.  Also look at the top 10 programs in the NCAAs and tell me how many current AAs are within 100/200/500/1000 miles of campus.  Texas would be a distant last in a list like that.  

I'd love for a big Texas University to embrace wrestling.  I finished my undergrad at University of Houston.  It's just not happening.  

Edited May 15 by boconnell

[boconnell]

1 hour ago, NM1965 said:

I read somewhere a few years back that there were over 3,000 Texas schools with wrestling. That sounds preposterous to me. Oklahoma is historically a top 10 wrestling state and only has 4 classes at 32 teams (max) per class. On the other hand I don't think the article specified high schools, so maybe a lot of those are elementary schools with beginner wrestling. Heck, maybe they counted schools that have wrestling during PE classes. 

The only places in Texas that I know of with wrestling are in the panhandle area or in the northern parts of Texas (closest to Oklahoma). OSU has gotten some wrestlers from the Texas panhandle. I can't remember his name off the top of my head but one was a legendary college HWT. The only other Texas wrestler I can think of is Bo Nickal, but I don't think he's actually a Texan, just a guy who transplanted there in HS.  

 

Bo moved to Texas for 9th grade.  There are a handful of other AAs the last decade, and all are from the Dallas area.  Most are from Allen HS (Nickal and others) or Martin HS (Mondays).  The panhandle is good like you said, but there just aren't a lot of people up there.  The rest of the state south of Dallas has 1 combined team state title back in like 2005.  Good wrestling is definitely all from the part of the state that can take an easy drive to Oklahoma.  The other 200+ schools try hard but don't really approach a national level.  I say that as someone who lived and coached in Houston for a long time.

[peanut]

9 hours ago, NM1965 said:

ND and UCLA never had good wrestling teams in the first place. I think to be called a "sleeping giant" that the program has to have been a great program at one time, not just a wealthy school that used to have program.  

 

Penn State was not good until Cael took over. That’s why it was a giant, but sleeping.  In a fantasy world it’s possible to see lots of schools become elite, based on a number variables working right, but obviously it’s not reality. 

[peanut]

8 hours ago, boconnell said:

There are about 300 High Schools in Texas with wrestling.  There were like 20 Junior Highs as of a few years ago.  

With regard to boys HS wrestling in 2023, California had the most participants and Texas had the third most.

With regard to girls HS wrestling in 2023, California had the most participants and Texas had the second most.

Based on participation numbers alone, it seems like those two states are deserving of better college opportunities. Just my opinion.

[JVStateChamp]

1 hour ago, peanut said:

Penn State was not good until Cael took over. That’s why it was a giant, but sleeping.  In a fantasy world it’s possible to see lots of schools become elite, based on a number variables working right, but obviously it’s not reality. 

I'm not completely disagreeing with you but Penn State has a lot of history and fan support even before Cael arrived.  While they may not have been an Iowa or Okie State, even before Cael PSU teams would still be a top 15 program. I would consider that still good by many teams standards. Cael has brought them to the best program we've ever seen, but by no means were they a bad wrestling program at any point in history. 

[JVStateChamp]

1 hour ago, peanut said:

With regard to boys HS wrestling in 2023, California had the most participants and Texas had the third most.

With regard to girls HS wrestling in 2023, California had the most participants and Texas had the second most.

Based on participation numbers alone, it seems like those two states are deserving of better college opportunities. Just my opinion.

I'm not sure participation numbers are a huge factor in the potential to be successful. While numbers help and show data to prove representation, in the wrestling world culture has a huge impact on success. Right now Texas does not have the culture/history that is shown to be needed to be a "top" wrestling state. The Lehigh Valley for example is not a large population size but has the tradition and culture within their community that promotes wrestling which has a direct correlation with the success of the area.