Iowas problem is Gable

[alex1fly]

20 hours ago, NotThatDave said:

Jimmy gets a lot of hate for dumb posts. He could be trolling. Nevertheless, I find them hilarious. @AgaveMaria posts some insane takes, too, but without leaving the door open to possible trolling. They're simply incredibly bad takes. Usually with some not-so-hidden agenda.

Agaves posts read to me like “I read this on Facebook/Reddit, let me see what the forum says about it”. Not that big a deal, just funny to see someone passionately posting other people’s hot takes. 

[alex1fly]

2 hours ago, GV4444 said:

I haven't been around here long, but I'm already seeing a pattern.   It is the annual "Brands/Ryan need to be replaced".  This thread starts with the Gable coaching tree trying to be too much like Gable.   What I see is Brands being Brands.  Is Ryan trying to be Gable?   Schwab has a Gable problem?   Dresser have a Gable problem?  Or is it only a Gable problem because it is at Iowa?

Once you get a dominate program like PSU in any sport, your guy becomes the guy who can't beat him.   You can't accept that your coach because he can only be second or third.   You start thinking you need to get someone else because second or third isn't good enough.   The problem is that any replacement probably has a higher probably of being worse than what you have that exceeding the #1 guy.   It's a big risk.   One needs to remind oneself of the last two coaches to win the title not named Cael.  

The biggest problem I see with the Brands era has been poor recruiting.   The replenishment rate is 3 guys a year with top 20 ability.   He hasn't gotten it.   But, he brought in top tier transfers to maintain top tier level and he just nabbed a great recruiting class (the first in several years).   The big problem with using the portal is that portal guys typically don't have 4 years of eligibility left.  

OSU is taking their shot by replacing Smith with DT.   I think it is going to work out really well.   But is there a DT type to take over at Iowa?  Big risk.  

Sure I mean this is one oft-repeated perspective in the social media discourse. I don’t buy it though. If it was that simple to armchair quarterback Iowa or OSU or any other non-PSU team to a title (fire your legacy coach, recruit better, have fun!) it would’ve been done already right?? 
 

Not a knock on you. Welcome to the forum for sure! Just being a grump about the whole “the internet groupthink says it so it must be true” phenomenon our culture is wrestling (heh) with. 

[AgaveMaria]

Brands and Iowa pretty much stick to the Gable method, but it isn't working that well because Tom is not Gable & can't tweak & motivate like Dan did. Also, if you watch Iowa no one is scared of the third period on the mat with them any longer. With Gable they owned that time slot. 

Tom Ryan is not pushing The Gable Plan. He has evolved, changed a few things and tweaked it - much like Gable did in pushing his core values while finessing things to fit specific wrestlers. Overall, Ryan is doing a good job and Tom is doing OK - but not stellar.

Jim Zalesky had it the toughest, stepping in right after Gable & then tapering off when the Gable wrestlers started graduating & Iowa didn't win it all. 

 

[Iwrite]

AgaveMaria -- excellent summary, concise and right on target, IMO.

 

[Alces Alces Gigas]

I wonder how T & T would have done at another school without IOWA's name and legacy? Do T & T win titles coaching at TOSU? 

 Same can be asked about Taylor.   Give DT the same financial resources but stick him in Chattanooga instead of Stillwater, does he have success? 

 

 

[GV4444]

13 hours ago, AgaveMaria said:

Jim Zalesky had it the toughest, stepping in right after Gable & then tapering off when the Gable wrestlers started graduating & Iowa didn't win it all. 

 

Gene Bartow - UCLA

Ray Perkins - Alabama

Tough to follow a legend.  The biggest change after the legend is a drop in recruitment.  You lose a few blue chippers who wanted to play for Bear Bryant or John Wooden.   After Gable, the allure is the Iowa program and you lose one or two recruits per year who would have chosen Iowa in order to wrestle for the legend Gable, but no longer see the allure of Iowa City. 

Edited November 23, 2025 by GV4444

[fishbane]

On 11/21/2025 at 4:55 PM, OMW said:

If it weren't for Carl manufacturing the perfect scenario in State College, Tom Brands is probably closing in on Gable's record number of team championships now.

The only "Gable" problem Iowa has, like Gable himself, is a former Iowa State wrestler that went a time zone east to build a respectable program into a monster.

Closing at a rate so slow that he would not reach it in his lifetime.  There have been 18 NCAA championships since Tom Brands was hired as Iowa’s head coach.  They have won 4 of them.  Minnesota won 1, Ohio State won 1, and PSU won the other 12.  Iowa has finished second twice at NCAAs in that time frame.  Once was the year Ohio state won it (2015) and the other was 2023 when they finished 55 points behind PSU.  Only that one year did this PSU directly prevent Iowa from winning under Brands.  Five titles would hardly be closing on Gable’s 15.

Any argument for Brands having double digit team titles in this hypothetical is pretty speculative.  It’s a butterfly effect argument that relies on Sanderson not being able to beat him at ISU and everyone else being unable to figure it out despite the fact that other team finish ahead of Iowa routinely in current timeline.   I think this take puts too much weight on Brands’s initial success which was highly dependent on opportunistic timing and extrapolating it out 14 years whilst ignoring the 14 years that happened.

Aren’t Ames and Iowa City in the same time zone?  Was this different in the 1970s?

[scourge165]

On 11/20/2025 at 2:40 PM, NM1965 said:

Iowa will be wishing it's 2nd banana in the future. I think the only thing going for Iowa at this time is it's tradition, I bet you few if any HS wrestlers today ever saw either of the Brands wrestle, even on Youtube. The Brands boys came along just after John Smith did, and neither accomplished anything near what John did as wrestlers (yes, they were still great wrestlers, but not as great as Smith). Kids like to be coached by guys with a more recent pedigree than Tom or Terry. Those guys are fossils, and I say that as a guy who is John Smith's age. Sure, Cael is pushing 50, but he's still got that one shiny trophy no other NCAA coach has: a 159-0 record, and you can bet every HS kid in America who takes wrestling seriously knows it. 

I'm surprised Iowa recruits as well as they do, to be completely honest, with guys like Taylor and Cael encouraging their guys to actually (gasp) HAVE FUN ON THE MAT, rather than "pushing through the pain" which the Brands like so much. If I was a hot HS wrestler I wouldn't even consider Iowa, to be honest, and this coming from a guy who actually likes the Hawkeyes (somewhat) and respects their tradition. I don't like how their teams seem to come in at NCAAs all beaten to shit year after year, and how they underperform as a consequence. It's like the Brands brothers think every practice should be a soul-sundering pushing of limits, with high potential for injury, rather than just working technique and endurance.  It's macho bullshit. Toughness has a place in this sport, obviously, but toughness is only a small part of it. Yeah, the Hawkeyes looked pretty good against Oklahoma State last weekend, but by the end of the season the Cowboys will be finishing at least 20points ahead of the Hawkeyes at NCAAs. Sig bet on that, anyone? 

1-When I read this thread, the ONLY way I thought I'd take it seriously is if the argument was that Dan Gable set the bar too high. I mean... what PSU is doing isn't new, Iowa did it with Gable. So I thought THAT was where they were going.

But... it's not a terrible take. The Brands idea is to just keep running into that brick wall until the wall falls down. I think there is a certain type of kid that benefits from that a LOT. I think a kid who has a ton of tools but maybe hasn't had to work on his conditioning or mental toughness, that'd be great(if they buy in). 

Problem is Iowa mostly just recruits guys who already Wrestle their style and... it's a little tougher for THEM to elevate those Wrestlers. The guys who will stand in there and battle, but they don't open up and don't have a go-to shot to score. Gabe Arnold is one, Alex Marinelli or... there have been a few. 

 

2-I totally get why people are going to Iowa. I mean, Oklahoma State wasn't exactly a powerhouse anymore recent than Iowa and people understand the gravity of Oklahoma State Wrestling.

It's like Alabama Football before Saban came back. People still knew it was a Blue Blood program, they just needed someone who could bring in some new blood. 

The "Blue Bloods," to me are now Penn State, Iowa, Okie State, Ohio State and then the next group it's Cornell, Michigan, ASU's, Minnesota, there are others, but I'm not going to make a comprehensive list. 

 

I really believe Iowa needs to find a way to get guys to open up more. I mean, they have Caliendo, he does it. Ferrari is such a stud and has such great defense, but he's more typical of how a lot of really GOOD Iowa Wrestlers have Wrestled for a while. Physical, defensive, not as much attacking. 

 

Still a top 2-3 program, so... the question is only how to beat PSU and now OSU(pick one). 

[jchapman]

The Brands coach their wrestlers the way Gable coached them.  However, Gable didn't coach every wrestler the way he coached the Brands.  Gable was able to figure out how each individual needed to be coached.  

[Nak21]

In all fairness, Iowa has a lot of problems…I only somewhat kid.

Sure Gable set a bar that is super high to reach and only PSU now is there. Iowa’s history isn’t quite ancient yet like Okie State’s, but they’ve brought in new blood to try to get the band back together from 19dickety-two when they were winning. So yeah Iowa excellence under Gable is a problem, but less so with each passing year.

Coaching, head and assistant level is a problem. The assistants especially. Need new blood.

The Style, likely outdated and ineffective for most of the new generations. Not aggressive, not attacking, not point scoring - either in matches or for tourney scoring. Real or perceived, grinds kids down come March. Someone(s) is always bandaged up, harnessed up, wrapped up it seems.

Recruiting. Major problem. They still get kids and the one recent huge haul weekend aside, they aren’t cutting it on the recruiting trail compared to several other programs in recent years. Again assistants - rumors of no phone calls to big recruits, no show visits at major HS programs, etc.

The portal. A by product of not recruiting to the level of some other programs lately. Can’t be good for culture. Kids who have ground it out 3-5 yrs seeing new mercenaries show up for a year with big bags of slumlord cash. It’s the way of the world now, but it should supplement a recruiting miss or an injury. It’s probably not good when it starts making up 40-60% of your starters. Was it last year? Teemer and Parco, what was that? About a rumored $1M for 1pt at NCAAs? That can’t be good for a program. 

Money. They have it. But their sugar daddy is a minor problem. Msg board comments and behavior, likely unwanted input into the program, classic rich guy behavior. The tough conversation has to be had - “we want your dollars, not your two cents” - shut up and just write checks.

RTC is not the caliber or quality that an Iowa should have or needs to have. If you can’t grow the talent - outside of Spencer, throw some of that single mom rent doubled cash at some studs from elsewhere who are willing to spend a few years in Iowa City while pursuing world and Olympic dreams.

Those are some of my just off the top of my head thoughts on Iowa since wrestling started recently with Cael.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

On 11/22/2025 at 11:05 AM, alex1fly said:

Agaves posts read to me like “I read this on Facebook/Reddit, let me see what the forum says about it”. Not that big a deal, just funny to see someone passionately posting other people’s hot takes. 

I mean, I've read that post in various forms thousands of times in the past ten years.  Facebook.  TheMat.com. PSU forum.  Iowa forum.  Here.

[Gene Mills Fan]

Iowa has these problems I hear over and over. I wish the worst I had was Iowa's problems. I hate hearing about little problems when I have really big ones.

[fishbane]

3 hours ago, Nak21 said:

Recruiting. Major problem. They still get kids and the one recent huge haul weekend aside, they aren’t cutting it on the recruiting trail compared to several other programs in recent years. Again assistants - rumors of no phone calls to big recruits, no show visits at major HS programs, etc.

If recruiting is a major problem it has been one for Brands's entire tenure.  If anything it's improved and currently sits at an all time high.  In the five year period from 2011-2015 Iowa only had 1 top 10 commitment (Kemerer) at that was in 2015.  From 2016-2020 they had 4 top ten recruits.  It was up again from 2021-2025 with 5.  In the 5 year recruiting period that starts next year they already have 4 top 10 commitments.  

Where Brands has done well with recruiting is getting the most out of them.  Brands hasn't had a top 10 recruit transfer out since Billy Murphy and hasn't had a top 10 recruit fail to AA since Nate Moore in 2008.  He hasn't had a top 20 recruit fail to AA since #15 Nate Skonieczny in 2012.

Compare this with how frequently top 10 recruits fail to reach the podium or transfer out at other top programs like Cornell, Ohio State, and OSU.  Sure Ohio State and OSU get more top commitments, but they need them with the rate at which they washout, transfer, or just don't pan out.

[Gene Mills Fan]

One of Iowa's problems is its grueling schedule.  Thank you TNT!!

Especially this Sunday!!

Edited November 25, 2025 by Gene Mills Fan

[mspart]

5 hours ago, jchapman said:

The Brands coach their wrestlers the way Gable coached them.  However, Gable didn't coach every wrestler the way he coached the Brands.  Gable was able to figure out how each individual needed to be coached.  

This is correct.   Gable was malleable enough to know how to get into each kid's head.   

mspart

[Pinnacle]

Speaking of Teemer, who is this year's Jacori Teemer? That guy getting loads of ca$h aftre transferring in who will eventually score 1 pt at NCAAs. 

[Gene Mills Fan]

13 minutes ago, Pinnacle said:

Speaking of Teemer, who is this year's Jacori Teemer? That guy getting loads of ca$h aftre transferring in who will eventually score 1 pt at NCAAs. 

I figure its Fig's

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 hours ago, Pinnacle said:

Speaking of Teemer, who is this year's Jacori Teemer? That guy getting loads of ca$h aftre transferring in who will eventually score 1 pt at NCAAs. 

Nagao

[Pinnacle]

2 hours ago, Gene Mills Fan said:

I figure its Fig's

Yeah, probably Figs.

 

7 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Nagao

Nagao might not even qualify for NCAAs if his elbow or or wrist need surgery. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

43 minutes ago, Pinnacle said:

Yeah, probably Figs.

 

Nagao might not even qualify for NCAAs if his elbow or or wrist need surgery. 

Probably not figs if he loses his spot.  I can't imagine DT stomaching having to watch him much longer.

Nagao has been an expensive three years for the Nits with no NCAA return.  God's plan, and all that.

Edited November 25, 2025 by Interviewed_at_Weehawken

[NM1965]

14 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Probably not figs if he loses his spot.  I can't imagine DT stomaching having to watch him much longer.

Nagao has been an expensive three years for the Nits with no NCAA return.  God's plan, and all that.

I saw a pic that showed David Taylor yelling at Figs! Yeah, Figueroa looks really bad  out there. He looks like he's out of shape to me, runs out of gas pretty quickly. Plus I think moving up to 133 was a bad move for him strength-wise. Wrestestat shows OSU's 133 starter as FR Ronnie Ramirez, who took Ayala to OT at national duals. 

[bnwtwg]

16 hours ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Probably not figs if he loses his spot.  I can't imagine DT stomaching having to watch him much longer.

Watching Taylor watch Amine last year was always a fun time for the haters among us

[NM1965]

On 11/21/2025 at 12:11 AM, WrestlingRash said:

Lots of paid haters in this thread. Tom and Terry would have NCAA Championship teams if Cael wasn't coaching. Stop overreacting. Low IQ takes here. 

Paid haters? How much can a hater make? 

[NM1965]

6 minutes ago, bnwtwg said:

Watching Taylor watch Amine last year was always a fun time for the haters among us

You should've felt pity for OSU's fans!!

[alex1fly]

18 minutes ago, NM1965 said:

Paid haters? How much can a hater make? 

They do it for free babyyyy