Rams93

First time poster, long time reader on lots of these wrestling forums, and those going back +15 years always seemed to me that Cael’s lack of interest in national duals came from minny beating them early on in his tenure during the old national duals. That year they ended up winning the national tournament. Seemed he wanted more control over winning events and didn’t want to dilute his victory with an upstart dual tournament. The new regional format of the duals was great and exciting. Cornell similarly didn’t want it, which was actually to their detriment as koll had great dual teams during the early mid 2010s. Don’t understand Koll’s motivation but the 2 of them killed it together. now that Cael is so well established it seems weird and illogical to not embrace a national duals. It’s way more interesting for the casual fan. No back story is needed, just one team v the other. Way better to grow viewership. For the preservation of the sport the national crown should be given as a dual format and individual crowns at the ncaa tournament. It’s the format we all grew up with in high school - same in every state. why this format changes in college wrestling makes no sense. The high school format solves the problem of a team spending large amounts of nil on 2-3 great wrestlers. Teams will need to be more balanced. The team part of the sport will be preserved. Using the ncaa tournament to crown team champs should have stopped years ago. It has served to maintain lauds for the handful of really powerful programs who consistently place multiple AAs. Now, when wrestling is competing among other sports for interest and relevance, for funding and self preservation, this needs to change. We need more viewers at events and greater interest which can come from a dual team national championship. kudos to ok st. However, I do disagree with using the ncaa tournament standings to decide who makes it, as outside of the top 6-8 teams that’s decided by one AA wrestler and where they place. Would be more appropriate to use the number of wrestlers each team qualified than the performance of one wrestler.