JeanGuy

I'm with you on the 5-time thing. To me it is pretty meh. The better discussion would be who of the 4-timers could have been 5-timers if given the chance. I would guess most. I do think it will be an interesting match-up. I think many underrate the strength of Starocci. I think he has an edge there in his ability to finish when most guys would give up for the stalemate. I am interested to see who Steveson is today (March) versus when he was last competing.

For whatever reason Sanderson seems to like to keep guys between 15 and 20 matches in the regular season. He isn't interested in seeing guy wrestle 35-40 matches a season. There does seem to be a downward progression in his thought process. Taylor and Ruth wrestled 137 and 139 matches respectively. Move to Nickal and he was at 123 matches. Now you look at guys like RBY going down to 111 and then Brooks at 92. I don't know if it is ducking or just philosophy one what is the right number of matches for a guy.

He seems to have crazy strength. I've seen him pull some legs to get a takedown that didn't look like he had a chance.

The Big Ten Dual schedules are different to say the least. Sometimes you will have a dual against a league member and it not be an official conference dual. I would be surprised if Haines did not go out against O'Toole. With schedule that they wrestle there is no load management reasons for guys not to go. I really look forward to the match.

my mistake I thought Jimmy was saying who would go into the post season undefeated not NCAA's

They won't meet until Big Ten Tournament, correct?

What makes Lee's competition tougher? I don't know that you can weight competition by weight. You are only wrestling who is there. I can't say that 125 DURING Lee's years is tougher than Nolf's 157 class. Are you basing or on Lee being beat by other guys? I can argue Lee is lesser for losing to those guys just as easily as I can say it was tougher because Lee lost.

I can't count the Hodge as a real factor. It is so subjective. Is Jason Nolf a lesser wrestler because he never won a Hodge? It is interesting looking at the data. I am not sure where I would rank Lee using my own eye test. As dominant as he was, he is also a guy that was caught staring at the lights multiple times.

I think fix is he who is. Kind of like Beau Bartlett. Some guys are just going to sit and wait to counter. That leads to a lot of close matches and against high level competition those are 50/50 at best.

I will be surprised if he wrestles more than 4 NCAA matches prior to Big 10 championships. I am thinking the 4-home matches after the first of the year.

I do believe there is a backflip injury clause.

It seems that the problem is that the NCAA lost control of the NIL game. It was supposed to be that an athlete could be reimbursed for the use of the name, likeness or image. All of that seems perfectly reasonable, but the NCAA somehow let it become the wild west so I am not sure you can put it back in the tube at this point. Eligibility should also be a no brainer. They are an organization that should be able to set their own rule for participation. Whether it be 5 years to compete 4, an age limit, or academic progress should definitely be in their control. My guess is they are gun shy and don't really want to fight that fight and soon sports will separate from the schools. What the academics refuse to acknowledge is the marketing power of athletics and its place in applications. They think that students want to go to good old State U because it has the top geology program in the country and that just isn't all that true.

I am concerned that he is losing flexibility as that split isn't all the way down.

Are you talking about an athlete signed somewhere or verbally committed. I am talking verbal commitment which means nothing. If you are talking about someone that has signed a letter of intent or is under scholarship somewhere than I completely agree. From this perspective I don't even think it is ok for a David Taylor to walk by a Levi Haines and say jokingly in passing say, "you sure would look good in orange."

I think you have to keep recruiting "committed" guys. Until they sign they could change their mind at any moment so you have to be in regular contact with them.

I usually look at dynasties by chunks of time. The Green Bay Packers were a dynasty in the 60's. They won 5 championships in that period (3 NFL Championships and 2 Super Bowls). All that said, OSU's NCAA run is pretty amazing. They have either been first or second 48 times in the 92 championships. That is pretty impressive no matter what the sport.

CSUB will be at Cliff Keen so depending on who everybody sends he could see some top guys should have at least a few ranked guys.

It just doesn't seem like Facundo could be effective at 157. That would have to be an awful cut, no?

I really hate the way eligibility is going now. He wrestled at a TFR and wrestled 10 matches as a Soph. He should have two more years of competition remaining. They really screwed up the COVID thing. If they were giving anyone an extra year it should have been graduating seniors because they missed their last chance. I hate that Starocci can wrestled this year. He got his 4 NCAA championships. He doesn't need to complete in a fifth. Oh well no reason to carp about this. I just think about all those athletes in the past that only got three years of competition due to the rules and now Miami FL has a guy that is in his 9th season of college football and 26 years old.

It has been so long since he competed, I don't know how you rank him. Anything you put out is a guess. He doesn't even have F/S results that you can extrapolate. I am not saying that he isn't likely a Top 8 guy at the weight but he probably needs to show it somewhat. The last we saw him he was beating Glazier with a last second takedown.

If the people in charge of the sport don't have an interest in a National Dual Championship, why is it needed? The Stewards of the sport are saying it isn't a big deal or necessary. They have always decided the team championship based upon the individual championships and most seem to be satisfied with that fact.

Champions don't change weights to avoid people. Neither PK nor CS would move based upon the result of this match.

I am in a weird spot with this. I thought that the old rules were so restrictive and harmed the athlete especially in lieu of a coach's ability to go to different schools on a whim. Where we are now has really become untenable. Players coming and going multiple times in a career. This can't be good for sport. I would like to see the athletes get one free transfer. After that there has to be a penalty. Coaches need to be able to know how to build their rosters. NIL needs to be reined in and there be actual NIL work associated with any pay. If a guy makes a deal with Dave's Chevrolet or Nike great. I don't want some murky transfer of money to come to State University to play soccer. The NCAA seems to have really dropped the ball here with their own rules. I can only speak for myself but all of this as currently being executed is driving me away from college athletics.

For whatever reason it seems pretty clear that he doesn't want to wrestle be it freestyle or folk. Good luck to him in his endeavors. As to NIL, I know there is no way to prove how much guys get, but I just can't see these groups sending hundreds of thousands of dollars at wrestlers. You see reports that players are getting 100's of thousands or even millions but I just can't see it if it is coming from a school's NIL collective. If you sign with Nike maybe I get it but it is hard for me to believe that Mitchell Messenbrink or Ben Kueter is getting a ton of money from collectives.

Hard to know what will happen with the COVID guys. Lee is going to be just shy of 30 for LA in 2028. I don't know what his weight cut is like but that is a long time to be managing weight. Sometimes you want to move on. The US must start to work on getting guys Sr. level FS events at earlier ages. A guy like Starocci will still be in college at 24. I would like to see guys getting real Sr. level FS experience at 20.