fishbane

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?

Jamil Kelly is probably the top wrestler John Smith coached (I don't think he's coached an Olympic gold medalist) and his best finish in high school was 4th at the state tournament.

Haha, I was thinking the same thing and was about to use Tom Ryan/Ohio State as an example. Coaches don't get enough credit when top recruits pan out. What Cael has done turning top recruits into all-time greats is highly abnormal. Ridge Lovett might not have, but in Oklahoma everyone still knows about John Smith. Outside of OK he might not have the same name recognition he once enjoyed with high school wrestlers, but what OSU alum surpasses him in that regard? Possibly Cormeir or Hendricks for entirely different reasons than Burroughs.

You make it sounds like 4 in a row with all-time greats is a knock against Smith. Literally no coach has won more than 4 in a row since the scholarship limit changed to 9.9. Not even Cael and Gable. And 4 titles alone would be good enough to be the 3rd best NCAA program of the past 50 years behind Iowa and Penn State. No program outside of those two have won 4 or more total titles in the past 50 years. OSU only won 3 outside of this dynasty. All coaches in the 9.9 scholarship era with multiple NCAA titles won at least back-to-back titles followed by a drought. The only ones that were able to win more than 1 outside of their big streak was Gable and Sanderson. Brands won 3 in a row with an all-time great recruiting class followed by an 11 year drought before getting his 4th. Zalesky won 3 in a row and then never again. J. Rob was back-to-back titles and 5 years later after OSU's dynasty won another. Smith is literally the 3rd greatest coach of the past half century. He's 5th all time in individual national champions with 33. Only Gable (45), Nichols (38), Gallagher (37), and Cael (34) have more. It's a rate of more than 1 per year, which is better than Brands, better than Jay Robinson, better than Rob Koll, better than Bobby Douglas, better than Tom Ryan, better than any PSU coach outside of Cael, better than any Iowa coach outside of Gable. Only 5 programs have more individual national champions than Smith has coached (OSU, Iowa, ISU, OU, and PSU). It's more champions that storied programs like Lehigh, Minnesota, Michigan, Cornell, and Ohio State have in their entire history. Smith has coached 150 AAs which is 3rd all time behind only Nichols (156) and Gable (152). It's an average of nearly 5 per year (4.84). It's more AAs than in the history of Cornell, Illinois, Wisconsin, Arizona State, and Nebraska.

I believe Gable coached for 21 years as he won 21 Big Ten team championships. 21 for 21 in Big Ten championships is a remarkable accomplishment and something unlikely ever to be equalled. Back to AAs that would make for 152/210 or 72.4% for Gable. Cael has 90 in 160 or 56.3%. Either is an exceptional rate. Though Cael's is slightly inflated because of the oddball 2020 AA standard. Gable's may be considered slightly inflated because of higher scholarship limits. Currently the max is 9.9 for wrestling and it used to be 11. It was reduced by 10% sometime between the 1992-1993 and 1994-1995 seasons. Now the NIL might more than make up for the 10% difference in scholarship, but at least at this point Gable had more season with 11 scholarships than Cael had with NIL.

Not sure on that, but Sanderson is 6th all time in individual AAs. 1) Harold Nichols 156 2) Dan Gable 152 3) John Smith 150 4) Jay Robinson 124 5) Bobby Douglas 110 6) Cael Sanderson 90 The totals for Sanderson and Smith probably include 2020 no tournament AAs.

In the 20 years before Smith got the job, OSU had only won 2 national team titles. Smith has done a lot better than that and college wrestling has changed significantly since the OSU dominated the sport in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Really what coach has done better in the last 50 years? It a short list. Gable 15 national titles, Sanderson 9 national titles, Nichols 6 national titles, Smith 5 national titles. The reality is that when OSU hires a replacement he will likely not do as well... very few have.

Cael has had enjoyed some unprecedented success at Penn State and the total individual NCAA champions he's produced has really accumulated. To date he has coached 32 individual NCAA champions at PSU. This is one fewer than John Smith coached at OSU and he became the head coach there in 1991. Cael only got the PSU job in 2009. Adding in the two champions he coached at ISU, Cael is at 34 and ahead of Smith despite starting 15 years later. The only coaches with more individual NCAA champions than Cael are Ed Gallagher (OSU 37), Harold Nichols (ISU 38), and Dan Gable (Iowa 45). Cael has 4 wrestlers currently ranked #1 by the #1 ranking service, Intermat, and a 5th wrestler that's a returning national champion. It seems possible that Cael will move into 2nd on the all-time list behind only Dan Gable this season. Cael has a realistic shot at catching Gable by 2024-2025, which is crazy. Cael's averaged 4.2 individual NCAA champions over the past 5 tournaments and he's only 11 back. The 5 title contenders he currently has on the squad (RBY, Starocci, Brooks, Dean, and Kerkvliet) have 10 combined years of eligibility remaining including this season going through the 2024-2025 season. 2024-2025 will be Cael's 19th season as a head coach which would be 2 fewer than Gable's term at Iowa. What do you think the all-time list will look like at the end of the season? The end of the 2025 season? Can John Smith get 4 more champions to match Gallagher's school record?