Jason Bryant

I'm with you on a lot of that. The sport needs renovation. It doesn't need wholesale changes from what makes it great, but the old mentality of being tough is one thing, being stubborn lost us a lot more - programs, kids, fans, opportunities.

What makes you think this guy is wrestling media? Social media accounts don't make you "media."

Dual meets need to mean something first. Then we'll see the manipulation of that oddly random scoring metric after it gets gamed or we get one bad call leading to a 16-15 win on criteria before people go back go clamoring "you want a title decided like that?" I also see zero issues with a team winning 4 matches and winning a dual - we have that possibility right now. Only time people complain is when it happens against their team. The harder part is finding a split where a team wins 3 bouts but wins the dual. That's what can't happen now. I'd love to see how many instances this has actually happened. Also, you can't really retroactively apply 'would have won' scenarios because people would completely wrestle differently if they were trying to win the dual knowing they were behind. Applying point systems to what-if scenarios really aren't logical, because it assumes everything would stay the same, when it wouldn't. Keep wrestling til the very end instead of shutting it down when you know you can't get the MD or TF. Is there a problem? Depends on who you ask. Should it be fixed. Depends on who you ask. I think the bigger problem with scoring in wrestling is how few people can actually score our national tournament by hand. Oh, you can score your team by hand, but the type of scoring in tournaments changes based on how big the bracket is, how many you place, etc. A team from the Pac-12 wrestles a completely different scoring format than they do at the NCAA championships because places and rounds are drastically different in size. We have too many nuance rules in wrestling and it makes the acceptability outside of our own people that much more difficult. It's not the casual fan, it's the freaking advertising companies who COULD be convinced to put the sport on the air with more sponsorship. Why do we see cornhole on TV? It's easy to explain. Throw the bag in the hole. It's a bar/outdoor game. Having simple rules for non-wrestling people to understand is pretty easy to understand. Took my kids to a hockey game today. Goal. 1. Simple. Yes, team sports are different, but we adapt or we die. If we try to adapt after we're already in the casket, it's too late.

Then leave high school alone. We have different rules for various levels of wrestling, as many sports do. HS postseasons aren’t the same as the college postseason.

From a college perspective, the "bump" is extremely rare at this level. Outside of Iowa State's bump at Collegiate Duals, we rarely see it. Most recent examples that weren't to avoid forfeits are when Rivera bumped up to wrestle Micic and Gross bumped up to wrestle Meredith. High school is already fraught with bumps, even with the current system. I think the qualification system with requiring matches at the weight is a deterrent.

Until dual meet results actually mean something tangible, it won’t even matter. Also, I was a random fan once who went to a dual meet. 6-5-4-3 is so arbitrary. I’ve yet to read anything historical that can actually justify how it started and stayed implemented. We just added scoring types but didn’t change the scoring method. What would the rule change do? Maybe make duals a better experience. It’s not breaking something. It’s freshening it up and evolving. Even the NBA added a 3-point shot once upon a time. NFL added the 2-point conversion and changed OT rules. Good products change, too.

That scenario ... will never happen unless it's gamed to be that way and if it's gamed that way, someone (more than one) should be fired. Good luck finding ANY scenario (we've looked) where you have 9 one-point decisions vs. one fall. Just doesn't happen. Won't happen despite it being statistically possible. I like point scored and a fall is 20. Yes, there CAN be a 22-point tech fall, but again, you're looking to create some safeguard for the statistical anomaly. Right now, 4 wins can beat 6, 3 cannot beat 7. 3 COULD beat 7 if you get three falls and the rest of the offense is a dude, but hey, you know the rules, you want to win the match, score points. Let's NOT not do something because of the chances to get struck by lightning.

Check out the heavyweights. Cover brothers. There’s three if I’m not mistaken wrestling D1.

Homefield has some stellar stuff, but not much on the wrestling side yet. Vintage throwback stuff is their cup-o-tea. I got plenty of Raygun, the goofy stuff by Compound, but Streaker Sports has put a TON of their stuff in my closet. If it's not a wrestling shirt, it's a brewery shirt and if not that, it's a throwback obscure sports franchise from either Virginia or Minnesota.

@Ban Basketball Raygun?

Some people’s bodies just aren’t made for certain sports. I applaud chasing the dream, but someone needs to advise this guy to hang ‘em up.

I’m confused on how that’s what you got out of any of my input in this thread, especially a response pointing out the public nature of a tweet. Maybe re-read it and look at the context? I don’t get how you can think I clearly don’t like Bono (which is false, BTW) from anything I’ve ever written or posted ever.

Bono has just north of 12K followers. The tweet in question has been viewed 51K times - that’s a pretty “public” statement. Arguing the use case against a post on Twitter isn’t exactly helping your argument here. Unless there’s a padlock on your profile, it’s out there for the world to see.

Most wonderful time of the year.

Well, the google ad is geared towards your browsing history and ad tracking, not WrestleStats.

This should be departmental. If every athlete didn't receive information about any and all changes to deadlines and processes, then that could fall not just on coaches, but the department's compliance office, too. They have to process incoming transfers and selfishly, they should let every athlete know their rights in these situations. There are a number of situations that keep athletes beholden to their school until certain times, not all of them may fit the NCAA calendar. Some schools are on trimester systems vs. semester systems. Others have different defined "championship seasons," so there are moving parts that a google search wouldn't solve. If any rule changes with an athlete's potential eligibility, at minimum, they should receive an e-mail about it. The automated systems these schools use to contact students and athletes make it a simple delivery option. Schools aren't going to open that door for people to leave, but it'd solve a lot more compliance issues outgoing if they at least covered their rear by doing something that shows they did let the athletes know the deadlines. There's also a lot of misinformation out there on the interwebs, so know knows what google search result would have been the most accurate and up-to-date. I will say if anyone legitimately believes Lamont wasn't going to start after transferring to Wisconsin, there's some saying about oceanfront property in Kansas or something. No dog in the fight, no ill will towards either coach or program, just looking at this without bias and trying to provide an alternative rational viewpoint.

No proposal is a possibility until it gets brought up by the Divisional coaches leadership groups, and then recommended to the NCAA rules folks. Here's the PDF of the slideshow I'd created. Since then, Campbell announced it's moving to the CAA, so there is some potential movement with the southern conferences as they struggle with overall numbers to sanction new conferences. https://bit.ly/renovatelink

I like, lowkey kinda love this ...

Can you just post it? Few, if anyone, here remembers what you were banned for (It was before me, so I don't know), so just post it. Might I recommend not continually bringing up the old bans? This is a new home, no need to keep dredging that up. I don't think it matters to anyone. So, what's your proposal?

I spent months on a realignment proposal for D1. To flush out a regional format, let's see how it breaks down. Split the teams up with some data-based information and let's discuss it.

The expense isn't about the school, the expense is a regional would have an NCAA logo on it, meaning the NCAA would be on the hook to pay for every single entry and everything that goes with it. The income generated from three days in March IS significant, but it's not enough to move the entire sport to the NCAA paying the same way they do for March Madness, which brings in money our sport will never see. I will still forever insist that under the current way D1 athletics operates, removing the relevance of a conference is a death knell. I also want to say I don't disagree with your rationale behind this, but even if the NCAA doesn't pick it up, but there are teams that still compete regionally and don't really travel much and don't have the budget (and their admins will likely be unwilling to invest MORE in money-losing sports). The "spread excitement" into 5 regions is a great thought, but TWO tournaments draw. TWO. Big Tens and the NCAAs. Until the season moves away from the high school postseasons, we'll always cannibalize our potential fanbase in March. None of these potential regionals will draw. Remember, we only have 102 duals ALL TIME that have drawn over 10,000 fans in a single punch. I'm not trying to be a debbie downer, but the NCAA will not make changes without actual data. Nothing is going to happen unless there is a real, tangible, replicable benefit here. We aren't calling the shots, we're beholden to the leftovers of basketball and football with NCAA rules and regulations. That's the world we live in.

Thanks Gimp!

The NAIA is a completely separate organization. That would never happen. In the old days, schools that wrestled in both were dual affiliates. The NAIA champ never “qualified” for the NCAA tournament through their tournament. That practice isn’t allowed anymore. It’s an unpopular opinion, but I believe if your goal is to be a Division I champion, pick a Division I school, either out of HS or transfer to one. No other sport gives you “two bites at the apple,” and the potential for this to happen is not realistic or remotely possible. The option for schools to potentially pick their division per sport MAY be something that comes out of the transformational committee.

100%.

As a staunch advocate of realignment in wrestling, there isn't a whole lot that really can be done or suggested until the NCAA's Transformational Committee finishes its work. Conference affiliation has been a constant excuse when it comes to shifty ADs looking to cut sports - if you take the conference aspect away from Division I wrestling, you put pretty much every program at risk if a conference has the out to no longer sponsor the sport. This is the primary reason I'm against regionalization models for Division I. While it may work to a decent degree (save the arguments in Division III for how tough some regions are from year to year and people being left home outside the Top 3), the Division II and Division III athletics model isn't the same as Division I and the conference affiliation is less of an issue for starting and maintaining programs. The NCAA (at least at Division I) got away from historical data to determine qualification methods. These conversations were held back at several NWCA Conventions and the issue is big time financial. It's also about how you distribute the teams. Geographical won't happen with equity. You wouldn't get Top 8 in 4 regions because the geographical imbalance would be too great. Shifting all these teams around just weeks before a regional creates that big financial issue. A hybrid model was broached, with the Top 16 teams being split into regionals and then keeping it primarily geographic, but there were too many financial hurdles there too. The system we have now is ultimately the best D1 has had since it was an open era prior to (I believe) 1968. One tournament doesn't make or break you for the entire season. Sick on the weekend of the regional? Too bad. Everything I've read from the fanbase about the current tournament is you want the best wrestlers there, right? Current format may have its flaws, but no system is perfect. I don't feel the playing field gets leveled for the mid-majors and smaller programs in a regional model. The big programs will just get shifted to each regional. Right now, we need to create MORE conferences to create more access. We need to create, not contract. The Big Ten isn't the roadblock, but I believe the dissolution of the sport's deepest and only full-sponsored conference (until the So Cal schools officially join) would be an absolutely terrible thing to happen. I feel protecting the teams we have is more important to the future of the sport than coaches doing what they do to exploit the qualfying/seeding rules to their advantage. We can change rules, but it's pretty damned hard to get a D1 team back after it's been dropped.