BAC

Yeah... I'm not seeing it, and I doubt you are either. I see a lot of people whining about PSU fans not wanting to go, but I don't see any actual PSU fan saying "we shouldn't go." I'm sure there's a couple if you hunt around long enough, but the "Locked On" people want them to go, Byers wants them to go (see video here (here), every PSU fan I know wants them to go. I don't even see any PSU wrestlers saying they don't want to go. But it's Cael's call, and dissent aside, no one's gonna stage a coup over this. There's always a few saying "it's not a real national dual championship if PSU isn't there," but that's also what the fans of pretty much every other school are saying too, which is why everyone wants PSU to go. I guess it sounds self-important when PSU people say it, but they aren't wrong. It's amazing how jealousy has turned so many non-PSU fans into such whiny little b*tches.

I'm hard pressed to see why what Cael's beef is here. I get that he's a traditionalist who doesn't want to see March's significance diluted, but this is a private invitational, not an NCAA sanctioned event. The only rationale I can come up with for PSU/Cael's refusal is that if they go, and the event is popular, then its legitimacy may carry over to a renewal of demands that there be two separate NCAA championships (dual and individual) and/or that the National Duals results factor into the March individual NCAAs. But that's probably not it, as I think Cael's opposition to National Duals predates the efforts to get it NCAA sanctioned. Besides, other coaches that were opposed to a NCAA-sanctioned dual championship are participating. So... I dunno. I do wonder how long they can hold out, though. If this ends up being a big and popular event, with all the top teams, then PSU will be even further behind than they already are in the number of competitions their guys get. It could be a tiebreaker in recruiting too. Can't imagine the guys on the team are thrilled about being left out either. Hopefully the event's a big success and Cael gives in next year.

Not gonna lie, I'm still pretty bummed about Roper leaving. In the NIL/portal era, it's getting harder and harder for a small market team to excel, but Northern Iowa has been able to do it. No top-20 recruiting classes, no NIL to spend, and yet whoops the likes of Nebraska 24-9. Everything I've heard is that Roper is a bit part of why that is. It'll be hard for Schwab to replace him but I hope he's able to.

That was my read too. Not because I know anything negative about Kennedy, but just process of elimination. It seemed like the conflict wasn't with Taylor, but Taylor wasn't making it go away either -- and didn't make it to Gilman's 2-person-long "list of reasons to stay" (Troy/Roman). I've got to think if it were anyone but Kennedy, Taylor would go to bat for him, but Taylor's hands are sort of tied with Kennedy. Gilman's such an interesting cat. Stubborn, hotheaded, abrasive... but also loyal, self-aware, driven, honest to a fault. I find it hard not to like him. I can see how he'd have a personality conflict with someone, but I also see why PSU would want to have him back.

Isn't Stanich entering his third year at Lehigh this fall? How is he under 20?

On a serious note, I can't help but think that the direct payments are going to result in more program cuts. I'm all for getting the NIL reporting under control, but as I understand it, the $20.5 million cap does NOT apply to third-party donors to NIL. That means donors will continue to make their payments outside that $20.5 million, so as to maximize the college's overall buying power, and the schools themselves will need to come up with that $20.5 million. But where will they get the money? It's coming straight from their revenue stream -- the same revenue stream that funds the colleges' athletic departments. I sort of doubt the administrators are going to take a 22% pay cut. Maybe part will come in the form of increased tuition. But surely at least part will come from AD cuts. And I'd think they'd start with the non-revenue-generating sports. And, if I'm understanding the settlement correctly, cutting non-revenue-generating sports has another benefit too: the less they have to pay the athletes in non-revenue sports, the more they can pay athletes in revenue-generating sports. So if you cut wrestling, you can apply the payments they would have received to make a more competitive offer to top recruits in revenue generating sports. If there were some sort of mechanism that guaranteed equal treatment of sports, or at least pre-allocated what percentage of that $20.5 million each sport could receive, then there'd be a safeguard against it. But as best as I can tell, there isn't. The 5% allocated to non-revenue sports is for past payments, not future. Hopefully I'm wrong here, and I may well be as I haven't studied the settlement in detail. But this whole thing is a mess. Congress really should have stepped in here and legislated the moment the NCAA lost its mini-monopoly, but they didn't, so now everyone sort of muddles through.

Curiously, as soon as Livvy finished testifying and left, the packed crowd thinned out to just 4 or 5 court watchers.

Sigh. I know, you're right, I need to let it go. Although I confess I'm struggling to see how F&M can be two tiers above *anyone* including Bloom. Side note: I remember a similar topic here many years ago, pre-Cael, where everyone was marveling how PSU was only 4th/5th best in PA. (Behind, I think, Edinboro, Lehigh and Pitt, and arguably Penn/Bloom.) How times change.

It kind of defeats the point of having tiers if the second best school is third tier, you need 9 tiers for 11 schools, and some tiers are nonexistent. Does it really simplify anything? Maybe just do groupings. PSU is tops of course. Next level/grouping is Lehigh, Penn and Pitt, all roughly interchangeable. Next is Drexel, Lock Haven, Bucknell, Edinboro. Then F&M and Clarion. Then Bloom.

Ferrari's always going to be Ferrari, but I respect that he's trying to dial it back and at least stay out of trouble. He had all season to implode, and it didn't happen. At NCAAs, won and lost with class. Hope it works out at UNC.

A little off-topic, but can I ask... what on earth is Gary Steen thinking? From the outside, his transfer to OSU makes exactly zero sense. He has no hope of starting at PSU ever again, save an injury or two, but he also has no hope of starting at OSU. Talk about going out of the frying pan and into the fire: instead of getting routinely worked in practice by Luke/Ono/Nagao/Davis, now he gets routinely worked by Spratley/Figs/Sakamoto. What's the point? If this is just about making the 30-man roster cut, I'm not sure it'll be any easier at OSU than PSU. Why not go somewhere where you have a chance of starting? After four years of paying his dues in the PSU room, you'd think he'd want to go someplace where they're actually in need of a 125lb'er.

If it's true, my guess is it's to continue competing. He's been clear that he never retired. I remember he gave an interview a couple months ago (here?) where he was self-critical of how he'd left PSU, sort of leaving coach Cody hanging about going on overseas trip as the Olympic alternate. Said it was on him, and that he'd since patched it up. Didn't sound like he burned any bridges there. I wouldn't be very surprised if he left Ok State in any event. I think it was the same interview where he was surprisingly open about not being particularly committed to OSU. It isn't like he was looking for assistant gigs, went interviewing around, and chose OSU. It was more that his buddy Taylor got the head coaching gig just before the season started, needed to fill out his staff on short notice, and asked Gilman. It gave me the sense that he agreed more to help out Taylor than because he really wanted to move on. I suppose he could be coaching at PSU/NLWC too, if he decided OSU wasn't for him. But whatever's going on, I'm guessing it's less drama-filled than people will make it out to be.

The most reliable of all. It has "truth" in the title so that means it's true.

Thanks. Is that what explains the transfers, Ludington decommitting, etc? Not sure what to think about Zeke. Assistants and recruiting usually seems decent, they've developed some (e.g Schultz 5x AA, Figs last year), and they sure got more out of Parco/Teemer than Iowa did. But everyone seems to get hurt, and their best guys transferred out. Not sure if they have any NCAA points returning. Hope they bounce back.

Yeah that's the word on IG & X and they're usually pretty reliable.

People are saying that when AJ made the semis, Cael told him he could inherit Carter's $1.3 million deal since Carter was graduating. Handshake deal was done weeks ago; portal is mere formality. Barr's headed to OSU.

Ok maybe the flyer went too far, but at least we agree that the fix was in on the Iowa/Dean thing *months* ago. Yay! :]

I'd have counted those regular decisions losses to Kolat as victories.

Lying indeed! But let's not water it down with this "there was contact" stuff, which makes it sound like innocuous sauna chatter with another team's wrestler during some random summer camp. We're talking coach-initiated, mid-season affirmative money inducements, and resulting "handshake" deals, such that the entire portal process is a sham, right? Such as Brands telling Nichols (e.g. after Dean upset Lilledahl) "I want this guy, go get him, pay whatever you need to pay, but make sure to tell him to sit in the transfer portal for a few days before actually committing to make sure it seems like a fair and open process." Or Brands doing the dirty work himself, sneaking in a chat with Dean at NCAAs to convince him how $mart it is to transfer to Iowa. In fact, I have it on good authority that in post-dual handshakes this year, Morningstar subtly palmed a "How Iowa's NIL Works" flyer (which includes Brands' burner phone #) to the opposing team's wrestlers as they "shook hands." But it's no biggie since everyone does it.

Maybe this is in another thread but what's going on with ASU? I can see how losing the RTC hurt them, but what else is going on? Is it that Martori cut off other support too, so they've lost NIL funds? Coaching issues Seems unlikely they'd be losing so many guys to transfer if there weren't something else going on beyond $.

But he's clearly lying right? If there's one thing I'd learned from this thread, it's that wrestlers lie and that the transfers are "almost definitely" initiated by the poaching school's coaches long before entering the portal. Bad Brands, bad! *slaps wrist*

Did he say no? I know he's said that in the past but I saw they're trying to rekindle it.

Seems harsh. The kid wants to start. Maybe he has goals of being a 4x AA. Is everyone who transfers because they want a better shot at starting "mentally weak"? He could think he'd win 3 of 4 against Welsh, but I'm guessing he's no dummy -- he knows he could also drop some against a NCAA runner-up. Personally I'd pick Ryder over Welsh. Hope we see it next year.

LOL. No need to be so vague, what exactly did those cheaters at PSU "almost definitely" do in this (as you call it) "classic Lance Armstrong situation," and what's your evidence? Surely there must be some objective basis to accuse impugn them and Welsh beyond Basch's premature call, no? Looks to me that Welsh wanted to come so he came, which made Ryder want to leave so he left. But clearly you are aware of some nefarious "poaching" going on so maybe you can lay it out for us?

I wonder how this is going to go down for the schools who have way more than 30? Especially since only a fraction of the guys at risk of being cut are in the portal. One possibility is some guys are transferring but not using the portal to do it. There's very few guys who aren't good enough to make the 30-man roster cut, but still good enough to attract a scholarship offer from another school. So for those guys, if they really want to wrestle, can't they just forego the portal and transfer to another school where they think they can walk-on and make the team? Another possibility is the schools are devising a workaround, so there won't actually be any cuts. Back in the day, my college coach walked in one day and said "Due to Title IX we have to cap our roster. It won't impact you, but from now on, half of you will be on the varsity team, and half on our newly-created club team. We'll all practice together." Everyone shrugged and went back to practicing. It literally had zero impact. Guys who were starters or spot-starters stayed varsity, other were on club, and they'd swap back and forth as needed. Nothing more than an accounting gimmick. Can schools like USU do the same thing now? For example, can Taylor tell these guys, "you're now on the RTC but we'll all keep practicing together as before" and nothing else changes? I'm reading there's no exceptions to the roster caps, but... I wonder. If I'm wrong, then I guess some guys might just quit or get cut next year.