fishbane

In professional sports and athletics at large it doesn't. College athletics are activities for students to do whilst pursuing their education. Running minor/professional sports leagues is not part of the mission of any university. With all the money that's come into college sports and NIL, absolutely if the NCAA eliminated limits like 4 years of competitions, 5 year clock, 1 year grace period for enrollment, professionalism, ect there absolutely would be individuals that remain in college competing for 5-10 years and marginally pursuing education simply to stay eligible or former professionals that retire and go back to school for the competition or money earning potential and not education. It makes sense that college and universities agreed to set limits so they don't end up accidentally running professional sports leagues and detracting from their primary mission. Unfortunately, the current rules are only somewhat effective. Yes, a person who takes 10 years off and then goes back to school and wants to wrestle isn't what the rules are intending to stamp out, but its sufficiently rare to begin with that they shouldn't try and work the rules around it and there are always the lower divisions. Lower divisions have different rules for eligibility. Someone who wrestled in high school and took 10 yeas off would be eligible to wrestle D3 as there the eligibility clock stops when not enrolled. There have been several instances of athletes competing in their 30s in D3. The lower divisions generally don't have the money incentive of D1 nor the platform, so the thinking is it should not be abused in the way that it could be in division 1.

It's true. There are maybe 3 programs where such criticism wouldn't be completely absurd. Couple Iowa being one of them with the Brandses being small and the range of weights in question being at the heavy extreme, and people will read more into it than they should. Back to predictions Flo posted there whiteboard war and Bray picked Iowa to win 21-12. It's a more lopsided Iowa win than anyone predicted in this thread.

I think that is fine, but there should be some limits on it. The mission of all Colleges and Universities are tied to education. It makes sense to have the education open to all students regardless of age and for a long period of time. Studying at a university for 10 years plus is entirely justified by the mission. That could be 4-5 years for a Bachelors degree and 5-6 years for a Phd. Those are completely normal. Athletics started as just some activity for students to do in free time whilst pursuing education. I get the line of thinking that if a student wants to do some some campus activity during that time they should be able to. But with all the money in D1 athletics you have to put some limits on it or else it is just hard to justify allowing an athlete to stick around 10 years pursuing an athletic career whilst doing a minimum amount of education on the side.

This isn't really a new phenomenon. Greg Ruth was a double champ for Oklahoma back in 1965 and 1966. There must be some interesting back story to his career. He graduate high school in 1958 having never won PA state. He was 2nd at 145 in 1957. In 1958 and 159 he attending Lehigh and finished 4th at EIWAs at 157lbs in 1959. Then he took 5 years off and transferred to Oklahoma where he won a title at 167lbs in 1965 before dropping to 160lbs and winning a second title in 1966. He had to be at least 26 when he won the second title. Of course back then 1st year students weren't allowed to compete so maybe he wasn't beating 17 and 18 year olds in 1966.

I don't recall making that argument, nor saying that Perry didn't count. Borschel is the better example to refute the statement that Iowa/Brands hasn't produced a champion over 157lbs. More over 157, more recent, coached exclusively by Brands. Putting number on the statement it essentially said Iowa/Brands produced 0 champs in the top 5 weights since Brands took over (2006). If Perry were the only exception it would only require a slight change to the statement. No champs in the top 4 weights since 2006 would be true or No champs in the top 5 weights since 2008. Borschel is also an exception. So to make the statement true it would have to be no champs in the top 3 weights since 2006 or no champs in the top 5 weights since 2010. One weight up and two years more recent. I don't think the best example of Brands "producing" a champion is taking a finalist who already had beaten an NCAA champion to a title. Perry probably wins a title at some point under Zalesky. Maybe you argue that he wouldn't have beaten Hendricks, but they were close before Brands took over. Two years before they wrestled three times and they were all close 1-2 point matches, overtime, ect. Even if you have Hendricks as a prohibitive favorite (90% chance of winning) after 6 matches it's only a coin flip that Hendricks wins them all. At some point Perry gets one by him. Heck even Askren was 1-7 against Pendleton. Brands deserves some credit for getting the best match out of Perry on the biggest stage, but not as much as getting Borschel to a title. The sentiment from the original statement still have some underlying truth. Iowa has struggled to produce champions at the heavier weights under Brands. They have had success at 165 and 174 under Brands consistently producing title contenders. Perry, Borschel, Kemerer, and Marinelli were all legitimate title contenders. They either made finals, were the 1 seed at nationals or won titles. Warner is the only finalist Iowa has had 184-285 since 2004 and both of them were somewhat surprise finalists coming from the 6 and 10 seeds. Their last title from the top 3 weights was Steve Mocco 20 years ago.

Jay Borschel is probably a better example. He was a Brands recruit. Perry was a Zalesky recruit and had finished 2nd and 3rd under Z. Borschel was more over 157 and more of a Brands product than Perry.

What I remember most distinctly of the wrestling scene in that movie was that the out-of-bounds line on the mat was rectangular and not a circle. You can kind of see it in the photo you posted. The outer line on the mat is farther from the inner circle on the left and right side of the image, but closer in the middle. This would not be the case if they are concentric circle. I have never encountered such a wrestling mat in the real world.

Askren, CP, and JD all picked Woods on FRL this morning. Below are their predictions

He may not care about duals very much, but should PSU win this one and finish the season undefeated it will be his 7 such season at PSU. Gable had 7 undefeated dual seasons in 21 years at Iowa. This will 7 in 14 at PSU for Cael.

With the changes to the redshirt rule for this season wouldn't it make more sense for Iowa to wrestle Ayala at 125 if they were to bump Lee to 133?

In case you missed it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lXhHMXT03I&t=20649s

Can you consider their freestyle success up to this graduation? Lee has won multiple age level world titles (2 juniors, 1 cadet) as well as a US Senior Open/OTT Qualifier in 2019. I don't think Dake had won anything in freestyle through NCAAs his senior year. I recall in 2018 in Budapest the announcer read off the previous credentials of all the finalists. This is stuff like Olympic/World medals, Age level word medals, continental titles, and representing your country at the world championships/olympics. All the finalists had several accomplishments listed except Dake. The only accomplishment read off was that he wrestled at the junior world championships in greco. Domestically he wrestled at the WTT in 2011 where he DNP and the OTT in 2012 where he finished 3rd. He was also 2nd at University Nationals one year.

Yeah but this dual all the titles are on one team, Spencer excepted. Any PSU dual this season will have 7 NCAA titles in the lineup. The additional of Spencer Lee is significant, but he will be wrestling the #40 guy or something like that. That is true, but Cael has done an amazing job producing these at PSU. Probably 90% of PSU dual meets from the 2010-2011 season through today featured 3 or more wrestlers that would ultimately win 2+ NCAA titles. It's crazy. The only think that would result in this dual rivaling the 2018 Ohio State-PSU dual is if Iowa somehow pulls it out, but that probably won't even do it. Maybe if it was at Carver-hawkeye.

Glory, Lizak, Mueller?

If you wait until they hatch then you aren't counting eggs. You are counting birds or reptiles or something else entirely.

It's a much more compelling distribution than the upcoming PSU-Iowa dual. That dual had 5 on one side and 4 on the other. This is a 7/3 split. Also those 9 championships were spread over 7 wrestlers (4 for PSU and 3 for Ohio State) Friday it will only be 5 with PSU fielding 4 of those 5.

125 Lee pinfall 6-0 Iowa 133 Bravo-Young dec 6-3 Iowa 141 Woods dec 9-3 Iowa 149 Van Ness dec 9-6 Iowa 157 Haines MD 10-9 PSU 165 Facundo dec 13-9 PSU 174 Starocci dec 16-9 PSU 184 Brooks dec 19-9 PSU 197 Dean dec 22-9 PSU 285 Big Tone dec 22-12 PSU

The 2018 dual meet between PSU and Ohio State featured 9. It would have been 10 but Nolf sat out with an injury. Breakdown is Tomasello (1), Retherford (2), Nolf (1 DNW), Joseph (1), Hall (1), Martin (1), Nickal (1), Snyder (2).

I get the point that 120 or 160 AAs in a year is far too many. Still from 1963-1978 (16 years) there were only 6 AAs per weights and 1928-1962 (32 tournaments) there were only 4 per weight. Calculating it as a % of total AAs like you did earlier should somewhat account for the difference. Though I suspect it still helps Smith relative to Sanderson over how a tournament would have played out. It's an interesting match. There is a path for Iowa to win it, but the odds of all that happening at BJC seem unlikely to me. That path would be for Spencer Lee, Real Woods, and Max Murin (all favorites by the rankings) to win along with Kennedy and Big Tone, who have both beaten their PSU rivals in the past. Lee supplies the bonus points that make the difference in the match. I'll say 22-12 PSU. Lee wins, along with two out of Woods/Murin/Kennedy/Cassioppi.

Of the 6 coaches in the table this only affects Smith and Sanderson. It seems especially dubious to count HM AAs as AAs. Counting 2nd team selections probably maps with how other sports with 1st and 2nd team designations count AAs. For Sanderson it doesn't matter either way. He has 7 qualifiers in 2020 and 5 were top 12 seeds and the other 2 were outside the top 16.

"Superior as a coach" leave room for debate, but not much as it currently stands. If AA's are your metric of choice Gable is ahead and it is impossible for Cael to catch him in his first 21 years as a head coach. Even if Sanderson coaches 10 AAs/year for the next 5 years that's only 50 AAs and not enough to catch Gable's 152 in 21 years. Similarly, Sanderson has won 9 national team titles in 16 years and can get to at most 14 in 21 years. That would still be 1 behind Gable's 15. What's interesting is the ways that Sanderson has a realistic chance of surpassing Gable. And by realistic they don't have to do "much better" as you put it. Gable coached 7 undefeated dual teams in his 21 years at Iowa. Should PSU finish this season undefeated, which they are favored to do, Sanderson will also have 7 undefeated dual seasons as a coach in 4 fewer years as a head coach and in only 14 years at PSU. Gable coached 5.67 3-time NCAA champions (Ed Banach, Jim Zalesky, Barry Davis, Tom Brands, Lincoln McIlravy, and Joe Williams (2/3 titles)). Sanderson has coached 4 (Ruth, Retherford, Nickal, and Nolf) and has 3 wrestlers going for their 3rd this season (RBY, Starocci, and Brooks). Should all 3 pull it off and he will have coached more 3x champs than anyone else except Gallagher who coached 7. Should Brooks and Starocci both finish out their careers as 4x champs then Sanderson will be the first coach to coach 2-4xers. Koll could kind of be part of that club too as he coached Dake and Diakomihalis (2 of 3 years) who is going for his 4th. Flo has now labeled Levi Haines a title contender giving the Nittany Lions 6 title contenders this season. Should 5of them pull it off he will have coached 5 NCAA champs in the same season none times than any other coach (3) and should all of them pull it off he will be the first coach ever to coach 6 champs in the same season. Going back to the original topic of the thread before we started talking AAs, Cael has coached 34 individual NCAA champions through 16 seasons compared with 45 through 21 seasons why Gable. He currently has 6 national tittle contenders with 14 years of eligibility remaining. He has an excellent chance of coaching at least 45 through 21 seasons with the guys he has in the room now. This wouldn't need them to do any better than they have over the past 5 NCAA tournament where they averaged 4.2/season or even the 2.46/year PSU averaged over Sanderson's time there including the no tournament 2020 season. Sanderson has coached 9 national championship teams in 13 seasons at PSU. They are a prohibitive favorite to win this year which would be 10 in 14 years at PSU and the same rate at which Iowa won titles under Gable (15 in 21 years). PSU would not need to do much better than they had been doing to hit 15 titles in 21 years under Cael. It's essentially their current title winning rate. All that stuff isn't going to happen, but some of it will and probably enough by the conclusion of 21 years that this it is a real debate.

I took that number from John Smith's bio. OSU has a list of AAs in wrestling here, but it's only updated through 2021. From 1992-2021 inclusive I have 147. In 2022 OSU had 2 AAs, Fix and Plott, which would make 149 by my count. That is not the 150 in his bio. For Douglas I used his ISU Bio which said he coached 52 AAs at ISU and 58 in his previous gig at ASU. I didn't fully check the OSU list for accuracy, but it has 133 through 2019 inclusive. Then it has 8-2020 no tournament AAs (Picc, Hone, Lewallen, Sheets, Wittlake, Smith, Montalvo, Greer) and 6 in 2021 (Lewallen, Sheets, Wittlake, Ferrari, Greer, Fix). With makes 147 plus Plott and Fix in 2022 makes 149. If the number through 2019 is 134 like you and the NCAA claim then the 8 in 2020, 6 in 2021, and 2 in 2022 would make the 150 in his bio.

Indeed. It's hard to say how important the % of bracket to AA really is. Likewise I am not sure how impactful the change in # of D1 programs is either. In theory there is a system that pares down some # of high school participants> # of college wrestling programs># starters per team># qualifiers to team># AAs. If high school participation stays about the same and the end number of AAs stays the same, then if the processes that select the best high school wrestlers to wrestle in college, the best wrestlers to start on their college team, the best wrestlers to compete at nationals, and the AAs at nationals is efficient you should end up with the top 8 wrestlers or whatever at the end. The would be participants on additional programs or with a larger bracket or more programs should in theory be not as good as the ones with we get with fewer participants... soup cans as you put them in the open era. That said there were likely significant inefficiencies in the system especially in the old days. I can imagine some AA candidates in the open era not going because of budget reasons or non-wrestling reasons. There have been significant changes with increased the efficiency of the system. Determining automatic qualifiers by in season results and having at large bids. Also seeding all participants in the tournament and having full wrestle backs. These inefficiencies I think would even out to an extent for a head coach though. A wrestler like John Smith might take a random loss and lose out on placing because of this and have to wait until next season for another opportunity. A coach on the other hand has many more opportunities with 10 wrestlers/year and many years to coach one wrestler might benefit from it and another hurt by it. You had different numbers in this graph for Nichols and Smith than my table. Did I get them wrong or was this a copy past error? This is interesting. I think the % of total AAs is a significant metric. Changing the end number of AA's (4 or 6 or 8 or whatever) and the number of weights is a really important factor in how many AAs you can get. It really makes Nichols number more impressive. Just looking at the comparison of total AAs and years coaching between him and Sanderson and you'd think Sanderson is miles better, but that's not the case at all. Nichols is better in terms of AAs The numbers here are different than the graph. Smith is 150, which is what I have. In the graph you had 124. Nichols you have at 154 in this table, in the previous graph you had 152, and I had 156. I think I got that from ISU, but it could be off by a few. Sanderson can't catch Gable in AAs through the first 21 years as a head coach. Gable is too far ahead. Even if Sanderson ran the table 50/50 it's impossible. I doubt he could do it in first 21 years at PSU. Cael has only have 8 AAs once and Gable averaged over 7. I think 9.9 vs 11 scholarships could make a difference here, but it is also probably a different focus. Sanderson could well be ahead of Gable by a fair margin in individual national titles and pretty close in team national titles after 21 season. There is a reason Sanderson doesn't want the NCAA tournament replaced by a dual tournament.

Hendricks came from behind to beat Churella in 2006.

Lambrecht may have lost that match but he went on to have success in the PDGA with 4 career wins. A Bo Jackson of college wrestling and disc golf. https://www.pdga.com/player/32039 What do you think was the bigger disappointment in his athletic career? Failing to win NCAAs to failing to achieve a ranking of 1000+ in disc golf?