WrestlingRash Posted January 4 Author Posted January 4 2 minutes ago, ionel said: Ask someone who played D1 football and also wrestled D1. Most D1 football players, if they started early enough, could have been D1 wrestlers. Almost no D1 wrestlers could have been D1 football players, no matter when they started football.
Scouts Honor Posted January 4 Posted January 4 2 hours ago, BAC said: I don't think it's any easier to make AA now than it was in prior years when there were more programs. Why? Because high school participation levels are at an all-time high. The talent pool that colleges draw from is higher than it ever has been. That means if you reduce the number of college programs, you're just squeezing all that talent into fewer schools, so there's a lot less "fluff" now than in decades past, and every starter is going to be extremely accomplished. An 8th place finisher today may have had fewer schools to compete against to get that placing, but the number of wrestlers they had to outperform to get opportunity is going to be significantly higher than it was in, say, the 1980s, when there were more colleges drawing from a smaller high school pool. You can change the number of AAs if you want, but don't use the smaller number of colleges as a reason, as that's just faulty logic. well said
Scouts Honor Posted January 4 Posted January 4 34 minutes ago, WrestlingRash said: I know we like to say wrestling is harder than football. Sure, you have to be in better shape, but how do you measure which is harder? There are way more injuries in football. Wouldn't that mean that it is harder? no that means they run at top speed at each other...
Scouts Honor Posted January 4 Posted January 4 (edited) 24 minutes ago, WrestlingRash said: Most D1 football players, if they started early enough, could have been D1 wrestlers. Almost no D1 wrestlers could have been D1 football players, no matter when they started football. i know an Iowa wrestler we can ask. wrestlers aren't football players mostly b/c of size Edited January 4 by Scouts Honor
Hammerlock3 Posted January 4 Posted January 4 26 minutes ago, WrestlingRash said: Most D1 football players, if they started early enough, could have been D1 wrestlers. Almost no D1 wrestlers could have been D1 football players, no matter when they started football. I know multiple D1 football players who openly say high school wrestling it harder than d1 football. Only editorial comment was that football in college was more time consuming. "Half measures are a coward's form of insanity."
Antitroll2828 Posted January 4 Posted January 4 6 minutes ago, Hammerlock3 said: I know multiple D1 football players who openly say high school wrestling it harder than d1 football. Only editorial comment was that football in college was more time consuming. In the new John Elway documentary he says he never quit anything in life expect wrestling bc it was to hard
El Luchador Posted January 5 Posted January 5 (edited) If we limited All Americans to the top five places then can we stop ranking 25 guys. Edited January 5 by El Luchador
ionel Posted January 5 Posted January 5 (edited) 30 minutes ago, El Luchador said: If we limited All Americans to the top five places then can we stop ranking 25 guys. How do you feel about Pablo's 60 guys? And maybe we could get rid of the 33rd seed while we are at it and have a nice clean bracket. Edited January 5 by ionel .
Antitroll2828 Posted January 5 Posted January 5 No one that has wrestled at the college level thinks we need to lower the amount of AAs, this is a couch potato take.
MPhillips Posted January 5 Posted January 5 5 minutes ago, Antitroll2828 said: this is a couch potato take. At best... .
Winners Circle Posted January 5 Posted January 5 On 1/4/2026 at 12:55 PM, WrestlingRash said: There are 77 D1 programs. There are 80 total AAs. Football has 136 teams and named 28 AAs. Basketball has 365 D1 programs and names 15 AAs. If you make it to NCAAs in wrestling, you have a 25% chance of being an AA. That seems too high to me. I think they should only place top 6 at the very most. Sure, wrestle it out for team points, but no medals and no AA honors for 7/8, possibly 5/6/7/8. According to NCAA's website, there were 2,798 D1 wrestlers in 2024-2025. So 11.79% of all athletes qualify for nationals and 2.86% of all athletes AA. I'd say this is a far more accurate representation of the difficulty.
Fletcher Posted January 5 Posted January 5 Optimistically, I'm expecting the trend to reverse and the number of programs will be back up over 100 in 10 yrs. or so, so let's not cut back on the AAs just yet. Though I'd consider making it 7, just to put some teeth into that last medal round match.
Fletcher Posted January 5 Posted January 5 On 1/4/2026 at 4:45 PM, Antitroll2828 said: In the new John Elway documentary he says he never quit anything in life expect wrestling bc it was to hard Not as hard as driving a golf cart.
Fletcher Posted January 5 Posted January 5 On 1/4/2026 at 4:10 PM, WrestlingRash said: Most D1 football players, if they started early enough, could have been D1 wrestlers. Almost no D1 wrestlers could have been D1 football players, no matter when they started football. Wrong. The vast majority who would have started early would also quit early because they don't have the toughness or can't handle the cardio demands. Football players in general acknowledge this.
Show_Me Posted January 21 Posted January 21 On 1/4/2026 at 4:07 PM, WrestlingRash said: 8th placers have always been disrespected anyway. Disrespected by who ? You ? Lol. I respect all wrestlers that compete in D1 wrestling … understanding how difficult it is to reach that level. I especially respect those few that manage to achieve AA status. There may be reasons to reduce the number of recognized AA’s, but lack of respect is NOT one them.
BruceyB Posted January 21 Posted January 21 On 1/5/2026 at 12:28 PM, Antitroll2828 said: No one that has wrestled at the college level thinks we need to lower the amount of AAs, this is a couch potato take. Amen. No matter what level of college you're talking about.
BruceyB Posted January 21 Posted January 21 3 minutes ago, Hilton Head Joe said: I would be really to see what the numbers would be state by state. I'd imagine Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, and California account for a disproportionate amount of high school wrestlers that go on to compete in college.
SocraTease Posted January 21 Posted January 21 On 1/4/2026 at 2:10 PM, WrestlingRash said: Most D1 football players, if they started early enough, could have been D1 wrestlers. Almost no D1 wrestlers could have been D1 football players, no matter when they started football. This is a classic (even textbook example) of an informal fallacy known as "suppression of evidence" (omitting crucial or relevant information that would weaken or disprove one's conclusion). Football players are on average must larger and heavier athletes than wrestlers, especially at the D1 level. So they could more easily wrestle at 285 or maybe 197 while lighter wrestlers from, say, 184 or 174 on down would on average have a much harder chance of making a D1 football team. Size matters. Given the choice, many bigger guys in the US opt for football or basketball, especially in high school. It's arguable that is partly why we see so many lighter (undersized) heavyweights even at the college level. And it is also arguable that the relative talent level (until recently) is not quite as as high at heavyweight (285) than other weights. On the flip side, more wrestlers would probably excel at gymnastics than football players. And likely other sports like soccer
The Kid Posted January 21 Posted January 21 On 1/5/2026 at 5:51 PM, Fletcher said: Optimistically, I'm expecting the trend to reverse and the number of programs will be back up over 100 in 10 yrs. or so, so let's not cut back on the AAs just yet. Though I'd consider making it 7, just to put some teeth into that last medal round match. I'd say it's going to be closer to 50 than 100.
Antitroll2828 Posted January 21 Posted January 21 (edited) 1 hour ago, BruceyB said: I would be really to see what the numbers would be state by state. I'd imagine Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, and California account for a disproportionate amount of high school wrestlers that go on to compete in college. NJ has tons of guys that go D1 every year and are consistently top 3 in AAs and NQs Edited January 21 by Antitroll2828
Hilton Head Joe Posted January 22 Posted January 22 4 hours ago, BruceyB said: I would be really to see what the numbers would be state by state. I'd imagine Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, and California account for a disproportionate amount of high school wrestlers that go on to compete in college. I couldn't find a good chart that did this by state. I would imagine New Jersey would be far and away the best state per capita. With PA having the most D1 wrestlers. NJ if I am guessing probably hits around 7% of it's wrestlers there go D1. But anyway if we keep the AA at 80 that is fair! Wrestling is tough sport to go D1. And this chart is before the NCAA settlement which essentially makes D1 semi-professional especially in the power 4 conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, PAC) and even in the non power 4 (SoCon, MAC, EIWA, Ivy League) it has elevated the talent throughout D1. We need more AA Maybe expand the tournament to 64 qualifiers!
Fletcher Posted January 23 Posted January 23 On 1/21/2026 at 5:12 PM, The Kid said: I'd say it's going to be closer to 50 than 100. More likely to be zero than 50. Over the next 10 yrs, schools will need to figure out if there's a place in this world for Olympic/non-revenue sports. If yes, they'll need to reinvest and build them back up. If no, cut bait.
Sy Strobel West-Oak, South Carolina Class of 2027 Committed to Appalachian State Projected Weight: 184
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