AgaveMaria

Watching Oklahoma State vs Wyoming and thought I heard John Smith was something like 24 or 26 to one in winning against his former athletes/assistants who become coaches. Pretty good record. How about Gable and others? Anyone have statistics showing how various head coaches do when facing their own guys who are now coaches in dual competition?

DIE HARD. A tale of a good guy who goes out of his way to help people who are in trouble. His helper loves Twinkies. A good Christmas Story.

Used to be the guy who screwed up bad. Now folks are too lazy to say "Greatest of All Time' and have changed that.

Hey guys, at least I don't have AJ committing a bank robbery or stealing all the corn in Iowa or anything.

Ferrarri is coming to Iowa and hoping to lose enough weight quickly to make 197 and stop Brooks from being a 4 timer. T&T are more attuned to Reality and gun shy now with their Last Great hope at a 4 time champ flopped in a last second pin. So - AJ will be taking an Olympic Redshirt season to put off his competition to next year. Unfortunately, Brooks might come back next year to try for a 5th NCAA Title.(assuming he wins his 4th this year) T&T have worked a deal wtih Salt Lake City headquarters to get AJ Baptized Mormon and immediately called on a Two Year missionary tour as an Ambassador for Jesus on the Mat. He will be called to Russia, Iran and Turkey so he can spread the Gospel of Magic Rocks, Top hats and Joseph Smith as a wrestler while demonstrating all this on the mat. Then he will return to the USA and Iowa after two years of Praying Penn State can't come up with another Brooks. Figuring into it is the Mormon historical practice of baptizing young women and then bringing them home to be plural wives. This is the hook to get AJ to go along with things - the promise that Polygamy is The Order of Heaven. Looks like a foolproof plan. Tom & Terry have it all figured out.

AJ should spend time watching these guys so he learns more about how to Flex and make great faces while doing so. As for Johnny Cash. He never spent any prison time. Merle Haggard first heard Johnny live IN Folsom Prison when Johnny did the concert there. Two years for Bank Robbery had Merle in the can.

He will come on he mat to the Chorus of this one and Iowa Crowds will go crazy as they know every line.

Not at Iowa. Spencer Lee was there, was excellent but didn't change much of anything about iowa Wrestling. Spencer Lee was the leader in a team not prepared to follow courtesy of Coaching not equipped to take advantage of his presence. They followed him rather than pushing and developing him even further. Penn State or Cornell are the two that make sense. Forget Iowa and tOSU isn't doing a great job at developing top shelf talent once they hit campus.(a good job, but not like PSU and Cornell) He is looking like a long term great - but still has not won an NCAA title. Let him continue his path in High School, entering some College tournaments and see how he progresses. See if his knees, elbows and back hold up to the pounding.

He survived child birth?

Will say I have watches some more duals and some of the Iowa guys are looking better. Real Woods in particular seems to have the fire instad of phoning it in. Maybe it is the level of the competition? Don't know. I do know that unless Tom & Co does something different from "This is how Gable Did It" they are out of the running for titles most of the time. They wrestled for him but they are not The Man. Really saw it with Zalesky - a tough job for a great wrestler who just couldn't get it together after the Gable group was moving on. He isn't alone, check out Eggum and the Minnesota program after J Robinson retired. Iowa is good but too many of them are still Grinding away.

When he took ove he was hell on Wheels as a coach. Did a great job and had them ready and winning. At that, he was not Gable nor now Cael. He had guys winning but then tapered off even as they were still top tier. Gable did have a four year drought but brought the program back to the top position. He also had them winning NINE in a row - something Cael has not yet accomplished. Instead Caels guys win a number of years and then retreat and reload. John is not in the same rarified atmoshere as those two no matter what. Good program, tough on the mat but not the top program now for more than a decade. Just understand we are talking "the best of the best" here, not every day or even top tier programs that occasionally hit the heights. The rare three to judge all others by. After all, for decades now it had been OSU, Iowa and Penn State with multiple titles with a few others finally breaking through but not able to sustain it.

Yojo generation here and have to agree with Roderick: Yojo was the best. As Roderick said: I never saw him tested on the mat. Add in Yojo would get so frustrated at the team members when he was a Grad Assistant because they couldn't even keep up with his warm up exercises on the mat. But, we can speculate and discuss all we want. Four timers have the advantage of not losing the Freshman year. As for three timers who had four shots and didn't get their - after Yojo it is (for me) guesswork only. As good as everyone else has been I don't believe any of them match Uetake.

Why the extra charge if one is aleady paying the high fees for Amazon Prime?

Always. Great tradition and good fan support even if not on the level of Iowa and Penn State. In some ways John Smith has held them back. Appears as if his successor is on staff now. Hope it works out. John is tired and frustrated and it shows.

Real question is whether Penn State finally getting TWO four timers puts them at the elevated level of Cornell with TWO four timers? Cornell did it first, Penn State hasn't yet done it. Iowa has not done it either and under the current coaching cabal doesn't stand a chance. mspart wrote: "no one has offered comment on my statement that someone needs to step up and bury them like Mark Schultz did to Banach. " Nope, no one like Mark out there in either weight class. One big difference is these two are going for their Fourth having actuall won three already. Banach was being hyped for Four before he had Three in hand. Big question here is whether they can win their Fourth by squeaking by in a close one or like Cael - going away and pushing for more scoring through the final seconds?

The heavyweight match was a showcase for why so many can't stand the fat boys. Little action and both looked like they were half asleep. Only thing missing was they were not carrying 40-50 pounds of extra fat like some High school heavies. I don't think either stands a chance against the quick and agile heavies we are seeing on more teams now. Add in the broadcast production values. Terrible. NO scoring shown. High camera angle was blinding - easily remedied by going a bit lower. The matside camera angle was good but looks like the lens was dirty and cut out the color big time. Production values looked like a High School class project.

Make it for bus passes and it will be popular at many Colleges.

Watched Iowa at Penn. One Iowa wrestler showed well at 165. Transfer from NoDak State. Good attacks and finishing and then kept it up. Most others were score and stall, or close things by preventing scoring while on the edge of stalling. Woods looked tough but should have been called for stalling with his 'whap the head and keep away' stall tactics. Iowa won. Did not put out all its best so that factors in. But the "Iowa Style" is an embarassing example from a once dominant program. The idea that they can be good with NitLion and Cowboy transfers is hopeless. Yes, they are good.., but nowhere near Good Enough.

Would the younger brothers go there if the older Brother was not coming along?

Yes, am looking at AJ after all the legal/illegal stuff, personal behavior and such. When he was wrestling you could see John Smith turning red on the edge of the mat.

AJ will find out quickly how well STALL calls are enforced. Iowa is desperate and clutching at straws courting him to get his youngest brother.

Hike ticke p prices on most matches and the crowds will drop from 77 to 13 willing to pay to get in.

Why not use Downey the Great to push this one. After all, he is the greatest wrestler in Iowa history and now has at least 29 PhD's to his name.

All the Cael coaching tree guys coming up. Hope they do better than all the Assistant Coaches under Bill Belechick who got head coaching jobs in the NFL.

He is waiting for a big snowstorm so he can go snowmobiling and get lost again.