Boring

If I was wrestling Starocci, I'd go upper body mode and try to throw him. I bet he'd freak out if somebody aggressively tried to get a bodylock on him and work for a throw.

You think "The Irishman" is dull? Go watch "Remains of the Day'. Go ahead, I f**k**g dare you!

My bad, I meant RTCs with world class wrestlers, not a bunch of R24 types. Buchanon left Wyoming a couple years back and he's still listed, btw

Just a straight across comparison across the weights.

Branch is doing pretty well considering what he's got to work with. Imagine his pitch to hot HS wrestlers: "yeah, we're within a thousand miles of an RTC and it's colder here than a witch's titty 90% of the time. Going outside is a pretty bad idea for 5 months of the year, so get used to some pasty-albino chubby chicks around the university swimming pool. There is nothing to do in the state of Wyoming if you don't plan on joining a white supremacist militia or herd cattle. We do have lots and lots of cold, open space".

Oh. Well I'm not looking at just the points, I'm looking at the wrestlers and how they match up. This year's PSU team would smoke the 79-80 NCAA champ Hawkeyes. I suspect it would probably look the same through all 7 years if I examined them.

I'm not sure if I ever saw the superior grappler lose a fight between 2 grapplers.

Well, we can parse this out logically. I'm not going to go through all 7 of those, but let's take a look at the 79-80 Hawkeyes and today's Nittany Lions. I'm just going to go straight across on these guys even though the weights don't match perfectly (no 118 pound or unlimited HWT classes today!). left column Iowa, right PSU, finish at NCAAs last tournament for PSU 118 Dan Glenn - 2nd no modern weight equiv 126 Kerber DNP 125 Luke Lilledahl TBD 134 Lewis 1st 133 Davis R12 142 Zalesky 4th 141 Bartlett 3rd 150 Mueller 3rd 149 Van Ness 3rd 158 Stevenson 7th 157 Kasak 3rd 167 Anderson DNP 165 Mesenbrink 2nd 177 Banach 1st 174 Haines 1st 190 no qualifier 184 Starocci 1st 197 Barr TBD HWT Phinney 3rd HWT Kerkvliet 1st Alright, let's score this like a dual. 118 Glenn forfeit PSU 6-0 125/126 Lilledahl MD Kerber 6-4 133/134 Lewis MD Davis 10-4 141/142 Bartlett dec Zalesky 10-7 149/150 Van Ness dec Mueller 10-10 157-158 Kasak dec Stevenson 10-13 165/167 Mesenbrink TF Anderson 10-18 174/177 Banach dec Haines 13-18 184/190/197 PSU TF "no qualifier" 13-23 HWT Kerkvliet MD Phinney 13-27 So I have this year's PSU squad beating the 79-80 Hawkeyes 27-13, and that's probably being a bit too generous to the Hawkeyes since I gifted them 6 points at 118 pounds.

Oh yeah, the gap between #1 and #2 is tremendous. Plus, and this will piss off some guys, the gap between #2 and #3 is pretty big as well. Iowa is a much stronger team than Oklahoma State.

I saw a ridiculous factoid on the screen during the dual. It showed this year that PSU wrestlers have 240 takedowns and given up only 15 (or so). That's ludicrous.

I forgot to mention, Steiber's medal was a gold, not silver, but it was at a non-Olympis weight (61 kg).

I don't remember Gable's teams ever being as dominant across all the weight classes like PSU today. Plus, and this may annoy some people, I think today's PSU teams would utterly dominate the best Gable teams if we could get a time machine and bring those teams together.

Sounds pretty unfair, am I right?

Meh, Ferrari wouldn't go unbeaten for his career anyway. I can see a few titles in his future, but he's going to lose a handful of matches.

True, but we all know Ferrari isn't going to be at B1Gs or NCAAs, it'll be Arnold. So Tom Brands killed two birds with one stone: he got Ferrari great experience against a 4 time NCAA champion (and I'm sure a good deal of confidence moving forward), plus he helped preserve Arnold's unbeaten record. There's no way Iowa comes close to beating PSU at NCAAs, so might as well preserve Ferrari's RS for next year. Regarding Starocci. Carter Starocci has to be the least intimidating NCAA champion returning this year. I don't understand when a guy has overwhelming talent and physical skills and wrestles so...dull. How can guys stand wrestling like that? Starocci reminded me of Beau Barlett in that match.

It depends. If Ferrari still redshirts, then it won't go on HIS official record as a loss. If he doesn't redshirt it does go on his official record. Cael lost his RS year and it doesn't count against him.

CSU can't ban "the media" from campus, that's literally unconstitutional at a public university. I suppose they can threaten to revoke schollies though or threaten to withhold future information to media. In any case making threats, even empty ones, is a dick move.

Nobody has beaten McEnelly yet, last I heard.

I don't think Arnold "ducked" Starocci. I think Tom Brands held him out for seeding reasons.

I'm not sure Plott could beat Arnold or Ferrari, although he'd certainly be favored over Arnold.

Ferrari. Pffffft. I'm sure there's a wrestler named Corvette out there somewhere that's quicker and slicker.

A whole lot less. Buchanon/Parco are probably good for 20 points at NCAAs, and Teemer maybe 15-20 points. The scrubs for Iowa at those weights might score 3 points at NCAAs between them, assuming all of the backups qualified. So, figure Iowa's predicted point score at NCAAs would be 52-57 less than it is now (119), so 67-72 points (5th place in tournament rankings).