fishbane

These are valid points. I wasn't sure of including Evans and Nagao since they haven't wrestled this season. Nagao's injury wasn't reported as season ending. I think Sanderson said he wasn't healthy to start the season, and I suspect that if he doesn't return angling for an injury year may be involved. If PSU needed him he'd be back for conferences. If Evan's weighed in for a dual then he likely ready to go. I have him at 149, but maybe he's a 157. I'll keep him where he's at. He might weigh in at 157 more because with Facundo sidelined PSU doesn't have another 157 whereas at 149 they have a couple of backup options. Facundo's injury did not sound serious. Sanderson said he "tweaked something" and have a timeline of a few to several weeks to return. Though if this dual took place today he likely wouldn't feature. Overall I think the lineup is pretty fair. I think all of these guys will compete at these weights at least once this year. If someone was out for the season I wouldn't include them, but I don't think that's the case with Nagao, Evans, or Funcundo. It might be skewed slightly in PSU's favour if they aren't all healthy at the same time, but if this team were entered at big Tens I'd bet they'd be available. If we were to try and make the best possible dual lineup for the second team, it might be Pierce at 149, Evans at 157 and Facundo up at 165, but that may be hard to simulate and Evans and Facundo may prefer to be down. When Askren returned for an episode of FRL a few weeks ago he said PSU has "a second team that's likely a top 10 NCAA tournament team." I thought that was an overstatement. OSU was 10th last year and they had 3AAs with 2 finalists. I'm not sure I see that coming from this group, but Askren may. Two of the backups are AWA guys he likely has them as high AAs if not national champs in his mind.

Recently PSU sent 9 wrestlers (all backups and redshirts) to the Southern Scuffle and they finished tied for 2nd in the team standings with Oklahoma and 6 points behind Army. PSU obviously didn't send their best 10 backups to the Scuffle. They didn't even enter a 157 and their backup 157 (Facundo) is pretty good and probably a top 10 guy. Still they finished level with Oklahoma (#19 in Internet's Dual Rankings) and 6 points behind Army (#24 in IM DR). How good are PSU's backups? Are they top 25? Top 20? Top 15? Top 10? For the purposes of this discussion lets have PSU's team 2 as following 125 Kurt McHenry (#39 Wrestlestat, 5th at the Scuffle) 133 Aaron Nago (#12 WS, 5th NCAA's 2023, R12 2024, 0-0 this season, not at Scuffle) 141 Cael Nasedo (#59 WS, 5-3 this season, won the Edinboro Open over the weekend, not at Scuffle) 149 David Evans (#22 WS, 12-3 last season, has not wrestled this season, not at Scuffle) 157 Alex Facundo (#25 WS, NQ 165 in 2023, 5-1 this season, not at Scuffle) 165 Aurelius Dunbar (#122 WS, 3-2 this season, 3-2 DNP at Scuffle) 174 Matt Lee (#48 WS, 2-0 this season, not at Scuffle) 184 Zack Ryder (#11 WS, 8-0 this season, won Scuffle) 197 Connor Mirasola (#31 WS, 8-1 this season, won Scuffle) 285 Cole Mirasola (#23 WS, 8-0 this season, won Scuffle) With this lineup they likely win the Scuffle. Nagao wasn't at the Scuffle and he probable outscores PSU's entry (Steen) who went 2-2. Nasedo wasn't there either and instead won the Edinobo Open last weekend. He probably would have been a points improvement over Levin. Evan's wasn't at the Scuffle, but PSU sent Pierce (#36 WS) who made the finals. Facundo likely would have placed at 157. At 174 PSU sent Kelly, but Lee would have been a better option. Lee beat the Army starter earlier this season and that guy was 5th at the Scuffle. I'd say PSU's optimal lineup of backups is a better team than either Oklahoma or Army and would have won the Scuffle against this year's field. I also did some dual simulations with this lineup on Wrestlestat. PSU T2 over #25 (Intermat Dual Ranking) Purdue 17-16 PSU T2 over #20 (IM DR) ASU 20-19 PSU T2 over #15 (IM DR) Little Rock 19-13 #10 (IM DR) Illinois over PSU T2 20-12 #5 (IM DR) Ohio State over PSU T2 25-9 (note - inserting Lucas Cochran at 197 makes this 22-12.)

Thats unclear. Maybe he was closer to beating Ramazanov than Lee was to besting Higuchi, but he'd still have to defeat Yazdani in the final. There is no guarantee Yazdani would get injured in this match.

Bellarmine head coach Ned Schuck belongs in this group too. He was at Iowa from 2000-2005 which was during Zalesky's term, but Brands was there as an assistant for some of it. I can't think of anyone that Brands coached during his time as a head coach that is/has been a D1 head coach.

Since that post Smith and Borrelli have retired. Penn announced a plan to transition from Reina to Valenti after this season. I apparently had the wrong Nate Carr and I missed a bunch of others. Roger Reina 1984 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Current Penn head coach - plans to retire April 1 2025. Kenny Monday 1984 graduate of OSU. 63 years old. Current Morgan State head coach. Mark Manning 1985 graduate of University of Nebraska-Omaha. Nebraska Lincoln head coach. Mark Cody 1985 graduate of University of Missouri. Head coach Presbyterian College. Kevin Dresser 1986 graduate of the University of Iowa. 62 years old. ISU head coach. Tim Flynn 1987 graduate of PSU. Current WVU head coach. Rob Koll 1988 graduate of UNC Chapel Hill. UNC head coach. Glen Lanham 1988 graduate of OSU. Duke head coach. Pat Santoro 1989 graduate of Pitt. Lehigh head coach. Joel Greenlee 1989 graduate of UNI. Ohio head coach Larry Jones 1990 graduate of ASU. 58 years old. ASU head coach. Jay Weiss 1990 graduate of F&M. Harvard head coach. Brian Smith 1990 graduate of Michigan State. Head coach Missouri. Tom Brands 1992 graduate of Iowa. 56 years old. Iowa head coach. Tom Ryan 1993 graduate of Iowa. Ohio State head coach. John Hangey 1993 graduate of Rider. Rider head coach. Sean Bormet 1994 graduate of Michigan. Michigan head coach. Brands isn't too old to coach at this level, though he may never win another national team title. On the mat his teams have done very well and a change isn't justified. Realistically he is unlikely to still be the coach 10 years from now. Coaching at a place like Iowa or OSU is a high pressure experience and most still aren't doing this at his age. He is currently 56. His predecessor, Zalesky was out in Iowa City at 46 years old. Gable retired early at 49 and his predecessor, Kurdelmeier, moved to a different position at 40 years of age. It is similar at OSU. Smith retired at age 58 after last season. His predecessor Joe Seay was only 52 when he found himself out of the job. His predecessor Tommy Chesbro got the axe at 45 years old. Myron Roderick had handed over the reigns to Chesbro when he was only 35.

Besik Kudukhov

His grace period is up unless he plays a different sport. That's how JR Smith and Chris Weinke were able to play NCAA sports after playing different sports professionally out of high school. If you continue competing/training you get a 1 year grace period to enroll. After a year your 5 year D1 clocks start ticking whether or not you have enrolled full time. Military service and Mormon missions keep the grace period going because the individuals are not training/competing in that sport

Carter Starocci lost his first official NCAA match...

Unlikely. And also unlikely to be exactly what Starocci had in mind. Many of those guys would later win NCAAs, but in 2008 I think only three had titles. Schlatter won in 2006, Gillespie in 2007 (but he moved up), and Metcalf in 2008. It wasn't until 2009 that Burroughs and Caldwell would win NCAAs with JP O'Connor winning in 2010 and Jenkins the following year (2011). I suspect Starocci is talking about beating guys who have already won NCAAs.

I wonder how much the extra COVID year had to do with the current drought? The outlier year of 2022 with the most guys on a title streak was the year after everyone got a free year. That probably shouldn't be too surprising. The high school class of 2021 and after have had to wrestler, on average older, wrestlers than every past year. Someone that graduated high school in 2021 and wrestled as a true freshman like Dean Hamiti would have a difficult time getting to the top immediately.

He was 8th as a sophomore in 1981.

Matt McDonough won as a redshirt freshman in 2010. So he should be included with Dake for 2011

I don't get it either. Flo could just write the article about how Blaze has scheduled the press conference for 11/12 where Flowrestling sources expect Blaze to announce his commitment to the PSU Nittany Lions. Probably happens across many sports for many announcements. New outlet states the press conference date/time and in the same article also discusses what some unnamed insider source has told them to expect. I think that is what happened and the real mistake was Blaze telling a news outlet something they didn't want known publicly. Flowrestling didn't need to know his decision ahead of the public. How does it even help Flo if all they are going to do with the information is try and not leak it before the announcement?

They didn't say more damaging, but Pyles first describes the reach of their original article as small (it was up 10 only minutes/100-200 page views) before going into his white knight rant where he credited the twitter white knights with amplifying it to 100,000 people. By my math that is 50-100x the number of people Flo directly informed. Their mistake was small before the twitter white knights 100xed it was the message I got. The bold parts are where I think he was shifting blame. I am sure Pyles is not annoyed when Flo puts out news intentionally and wrestling fans amplify it to 100,000 people on social media. He can't really be upset at wrestling fans when they amplify big recruiting news Flo put out unintentionally. He might as well be upset at the internet and social media for existing. He's in the news business and people talking about the news they produce is kind of the point. When they mess up criticism will be part of that discussion.

If he gets it out in 2024 I'll be sure and send him my apology without mentioning any of my haters.

In today's NCAA landscape the OSU infractions would likely not result in a post season ban or perhaps more accurately be totally unnecessary to begin with. Diakomihalis could also fall into the coulda category too. He won his first two years out of high school then sat out in 2020 for an Olympic redshirt and again in 2021 as the Ivies didn't participate. Perhaps he wouldn't have wrestled even without the Ivy League's decision to focus on his Olympic goals. Lewis reversing course and competing in 2021 after taking an Olympic redshirt in 2020 didn't work out for him. He got injured and missed the trials all together. Even what Smith actually accomplished 4 win 5 years immediately out of high school distinguishes him from some other 4xers. Brooks and Diakomihalis only won 4 out of their first 6 years after high school and winning his first three years out of high school is second best behind Dake.

Minnow was also entirely correct in the tweet he made. "Someone is getting in trouble!" Someone did get in trouble. Spey admitted that in the discussion on FRL. He said "We took the responsible party out back in the alley earlier and beat the crap out of him as punishment." Were they talking about Minnow in the white knight discussion? It doesn't really make sense to call Minnow's tweet that was copied here that of a "white knight." Minnow is closer to schadenfreude than standing up for Blaze or outrage on his behalf. If Pyles is actually talking about people who expressed outrage on behalf of Blaze on twitter ahead of the announcement, he is addressing fewer than 10 individuals of limited social media reach. Why even bother to address them? If he's talking about Minnow then I think he is incorrect. From Minnow's vantage point I understand the amusement. Before calling out the "white knights" Pyles said they had Blaze's decision earlier from indirect sources (Not the Blaze family, not Perrysburg, not PSU), but didn't talk about it publicly like "other podcasts." I get the impression Flo considers themselves to be above that and better than Minnow and "other podcasts" (to a certain extent they are correct), but to hold that opinion and then accidentally leak the biggest recruiting announcement of the year... I would be laughing too.

Yeah, but the ironic part isn't Minnow amplifying their error - that was totally expected. The unexpected bit is that Flo was the source of the leak that preempted the announcement this time. Calling Minnow out as the one that ruined the announcement isn't any kind of gotcha on Minnow it's literally something he does on the regular. The thing that ruined it more than a normal Minnow tweet/post was that was that he was able to quote Flo as a source instead of an unnamed source which may have just been a rumor or straight up guess. For Minnow to make a gaff of similar gravity to Flo's misstep he'd have to accidentally include the name of an insider source in a tweet for something like that. It sounds like they are blame shifting. Like they are implying the people talking about it are more to blame than Flo for preempting the announcement. Only 200 people got it directly from Flo and if they didn't tell anyone it would have been fine, but 100,000 people found out early because of the white knight haters. Of course people are going to talk about it - it's big news and they got it early from Flo a reputable source. I am sure more people were talking about it from its newsworthiness than simply a hating on Flo angle and when there was hate it was often a mixed with a response to the news itself. I think the thing to do is to apologize and it's fine to say the steps taken to address it - edit the article promptly, reach out to the family, etc. but end it there. Could you imagine a legitimate news outlet doing this? Like an anchor at NBC, CNN, Fox News, ESPN, ect trying to argue people criticizing their mistake was somehow more damaging than the mistake itself. It makes no sense and it wouldn't go good.

Exactly. Just apologize. To many the call out will sounds like they are attempting to shift blame. Like they were really saying "We're sorry, but fewer than 200 people say our mistake directly. It was all you haters calling us out that really ruined the announcement." This will only fuel more criticism by their haters.

That's a good point as I would have included O'Toole in 2023 and missed that. I think if Lewis had won 4 out of 5 NCAA tournaments I'd view that feat a little differently too, but still a 4xer. It would be a similar to the difference in how I view Greg Jones and Earl McCready as 3x champs. Your explanation got me thinking about how infrequently 4xers and near 4xers wrestle 4 seasons in a row right out of high school or 4 straight years at all. Dake is the only person to win 4 straight years right out of high school. Sanderson, Stieber, Brooks and Staroocci all won 4 consecutive years, but not the 4 immediately following high school graduation. This got me thinking about that standout 2022 year again. Should Lee and Diakomihalis be counted this year? Diakomihalis didn't wrestle at all that season as the Ivies sat out winter sports due to COVID. He won his 4th the following year in 2023. Lee wrestled something like two matches and then shut it down taking an injury redshirt. He lost at NCAAs in 2023. Only 4 of those 7 guys actually wrestled at NCAAs in 2022 and only 5 of the 7 used a year of eligibility in 2022 (Ferrari used a competition year). If O'Toole and Lewis are viewed differently by you perhaps Ferrari should too. He used a year of eligibility in 2022 and if successful will be the first to win 4 that failed to win NCAAs in a season where a year of eligibility was burned. He was injured too late to take an injury redshirt in 2022. This is very similar to Lewis in 2021 the only difference was Lewis's injury allowed him to compete albeit at a reduced capacity and Ferrari was not cleared to compete.

Flo announcing it early is news. It would have received its own thread here and tweets with screen captures regardless of people dunking on Flo. If Mineo had worded his tweet in a more neutral way like "Flowrestling announces Marcus Blaze's commitment to PSU in a since edited article." It would have had the same effect as "Someone is getting in trouble" with a laughing emoji. I don't even think Mineo taking pleasure in Flo's screw up fits the definition of white knighting. Nor do I consider this post to be that. So who exactly is Pyles calling out and what reach do they have? A few replies in thread like this or retweet/comments on Mineo's tweet. That's likely in the noise and not worth doing since Pyles and Spey explaining it took longer than the actual apology. This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where George was expecting an apology and didn't exactly get what he wanted. "All right, George, all right, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. I'm so sorry that I didn't want your rather bulbous head struggling to find its way through the normal-sized neckhole of my finely knit sweater." George should have been happy with that! Lol.

At least they don't have any backups wrestling in it this year.

I think you're missing a wrestler for 2022. Lewis won his title in 2019 then took an Olympic redshirt in 2020. In 2021 he was competing as a Sophomore, but it was a free year so he still had three years remaining into into 2022. Because 2021 didn't count no one could have been eliminated between 2021 and 2022, so there were actually 8 wrestlers (Lee, Diakomihalis, Lewis, Ferrari, Carr Griffith, Starocci, and Brooks) with a shot at winning 4 titles going into 2022 NCAAs.

Does Steveson's return settle this?

Good to see Flo finally reporting the news when they learn it rather than not reporting and/or delaying it so as to not ruffle feathers.