TylerDurden

I heard he wanted to go to a football school.

I'm not a PSU fan. The issue was that they dropped him to the No. 9 seed, which was as asinine now as it was then. It screwed up the entire bracket by punishing him (everyone else) for not wrestling twice (and the missing RPI). They didn't need to give him the No. 1 seed, but there wasn't a rational argument for him be the No. 9 even if you act like he wrestled and lost - which is what I said then and is still true today.

Agree about Sasso. It's a great story and I'm happy he's back competing, but with the way he looks right now, he's might not get an auto spot out of the B1G.

Interestingly enough, I think both Goldman and Escobedo tried/is trying to be more than a bottom feeder in different ways. Goldman hoped that podium finishes would lead to building a stronger team (it didn't - his dual record was abysmal, especially toward the end of his tenure). A top-down approach. Escobedo seems to be taking the opposite approach, while still trying to hit the home run in recruiting, by building the room depth. He's undoubtedly built more room depth than Goldman - which is a good thing - but the problem is that it still puts you in the bottom half of the B1G and the record is still something like 3-5 in duals. I mentioned this in the previous post, but unless there's a ton of money about to flow into IU Wrestling's NIL fund, they're going to have a hard time ever competing for high-end portal guys and recruits. At the current investment level, IU's ceiling is probably 8-9th at the B1Gs. Heck, they had 6 NCAA qualifiers last year and finished 12/14. They had more NCAA qualifiers than Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan State, Maryland, Northwestern and Illinois. Having said all of that, IU is now a football school and football money is huge, so you never know!

Maybe they don't like living in Wisconsin.

I can agree with the idea that he's still searching for that breakthrough recruit. I know that they've been close on a few, but close doesn't count. He's not exactly working with the same resources as the top-end of the B1G and the dynamic is 180-degrees different from when Goldman was in charge - portal, NIL, etc. IMO, he's going to have to convince one of the top in-state kids to stay home and be the face of the program...and help bring another guy or two with him. There are talented kids from the state and have been for a while - Parris, Red, Nick Lee, Davison, Mendez, Lemley, Brayton Lee, Micic, Hildebrandt, Tsirtsis, Howe...AA-types and some National Champ contenders. Having CJ Red on staff may help, but I do agree that a seasoned recruiter would be beneficial.

I don't think anyone is a solid favorite over O'Toole in folkstyle. I know we all fall into the trap of looking at freestyle results when trying to predict folk matches, but it just doesn't translate cleanly.

His seat isn't even lukewarm.

Side note - I really dislike Flo Arena.

Probably more like AJ Ferrari transfers in, a party happens, police are called, hostages are taken, the compound is raided, and everyone leaves with at least one gunshot wound. Then we have a race.

It doesn't account for a lot of things. Was simply a quick illustration to demonstrate the gap between PSU and everyone else and pat myself on the back for not sticking my foot in my mouth. There's an embarrassment of riches in Happy Valley these days.

I'm not sure even that would make it a race. PSU is deep, deep. I'm sure @Wrestleknownothing could run some numbers from his vast database, but my guess even if PSU lost Starocci and Haines that their backups, plus the remaining PSU starters, could still score enough to win.* *Now I'm going to look at last year's results to see if that has any foundation in reality. Edit: I looked. If you take Penn State's 2024 results and remove Brooks, Haines, Starocci, Truax, Nagao and Davis...they still total 82 points between Kerk, Bartlett, MM and Kasak. Cornell finished second with 72.5 last year. So without even speculating how many points they may get from Lilledahl, SVN, Barr, hypothetical replacements for Starocci and Haines...PSU is the favorite

RAAM is a serious ride. Takes a level of self determination that most people will never be able to muster. Kudos to anyone who even attempts to qualify for that race, much less finishes or places. I'm pretty meticulous with my nutrition on my long rides, but couldn't imagine actually executing a nutrition plan on something as mentally and physically exhausting as RAAM.

You can clear 6,000 calories with a couple of Costco pizzas. Simple.

Nothing to see here