CHROMEBIRD

He seems to be a bit injury prone early in the season. Didn't he get banged up early a few times before?

Agree with this. 157 might be more open, but there's no reason for Cal to suck down a weight when he could win 165. We'll see if he closes the gap with MM this season. Likely higher finish than Kennedy, anyway.

Would he beat Messenbrink though?

I agree with most of this, though I can see a coach stashing a 4th stringer or walk-on in the RTC. It doesn't really cost them anything, and why not have a scrappy kid with a chip on his shoulder in the room? Nick Saban makes a good point about the value of walk-ons: "To not be able to offer those opportunities to guys I think is very unfortunate. I hate it because those are the kind of guys you want on your team. They're motivated the right way, they're working hard every day, they're trying to prove something and not to be able to give them the opportunity to do that is something I don't think is good for college sports." Realistically though, I think those guys will either quit the sport or move to a smaller program or conference where they might actually get some sort of tangible benefit by officially being on the team.

I know those suites usually get picked up by celebs or businesses, but it's wild that NCAA wrestling of all things is looking to pull $60k a pop. I can't tell if that's a good or bad sign for the sport.

How do the Iranian fans feel about the bump? I wonder if Yazdani is a better fit at 86 if for no other reason than his gas tank at 97.

Nice to see tshirts back in the Chicagoland area. What a huge get.

Making the 30 doesn't mean you're getting any money from the school. Most won't. It just means you can be a part of the team. The loophole is that they could just move to the RTC, but since we're talking most third stringers and walk-ons it's more likely that they'll leave the sport, sadly.

Facasak?

Official visits have a two day limit, so that itinerary may be cutting it a little close

Since eligibility is losing its meaning: Henry Cejudo and Aaron Pico, come on down On the women's side, Clarissa could wrestle and be head coach!

Epic would be an understatement. Dresser got completely outcoached and IIRC ISU dropped around 4 tossup matches. Kind of surprised that Cyclone fans didn't make more noise about it. Nice to see CyHawk get competitive again though.

Does Bubba count?

Idk, a lot of us thought Amine would slow Mes down last season.

Would be kinda wild if basketball players went to play for the Harlem Globetrotters (or the Washington Generals), Marathon Oil, etc. or baseball players went to the Savannah Bananas and came back to school. Not that there's money in those entertainment sports relative to the WWE, but still.

Nice find. Doing sprints up a steep hill in Phoenix in July sounds brutal I also noticed thay MM's dad helped run the Olympic Team training camps in Phoenix and Colorado Springs that year. I guess that's not a big surprise since Askren was there.

Does it feel to you all like the overall skill level of high schoolers have improved, or that there's just a much much sharper and wider gap between the best of the best and your average wrestler these days? Average as in, a kid who is serious enough about the sport but doesn't have the ability or resources to travel across the country to tournaments all the time, or attend world-class camps, or is destined to start at the top D1 programs, etc.

Maybe The Incline near the OTC? There's kind of an Olympic training tradition where athletes challenge themselves to do the climb. I hear the place is littered with fitness influencers these days, though

True. Regarding the NCAA specifically, there are concussion protocol standards and procedures in addition to the testing and administration at the team level, but I'm doubtful that they are as robust as they need to be, no matter how much the NCAA says they take concussions seriously. I can't tell if it's due to a lack of medical diagnostics, or the NCAA doing some hands-off bs and pushing the responsibility to the conferences or teams, or just plain $$$. The way I understand it: while there are assessments that can positively diagnose a concussion, there's no single neurological test or tests that can be performed on the spot to definitively rule one out. The serious effects of a concussion tend to lag when the brain injury actually occurred, so I guess incurrence and recovery can be pretty subjective.

Agreed. Was anyone else surprised that the big bump up wasn't no thang for Sasso? I thought it would be. Great to see him back on the mat. I hope he's feeling it now that he's got that first match, and a dub, under his belt.

Spencer won his second Hodge with about a dozen or so matches, including Big Tens and Nationals. Definitely fewer than 15.

I thought the conference OKs medical redshirts and appeals go to the NCAA, although with today's NCAA I suppose almost everything will become permissible

Should we read that as Oz is redshirting for sure?

Re-read what I wrote. Competing in college doesn't have any impact on his freestyle, or the sport, or (probably) his earnings. I don't really buy the legacy thing because he's already won multiple NCAA titles, Olympic gold, and is something like 200-2 in folkstyle going back to the 8th grade. There's no challenge for him in college.

Yeah, what's his connection to Va Tech?