dragit

Or change the rules to make holding and taking down offensive linemen legal?

Does he have a secret plan to grow 6 inches? And to have Superman fly around the earth a bunch of times to go back ten years so he can play football in high school, to, you know, learn how to play the sport in question?

That's what the announcers said which didn't make sense to me at the time - wouldn't have meant a bonus point.

We all did, immediately, but appreciate the effort so much that we didn't want to say anything.

That's true and last night didn't demonstrate he can recruit amd develop recruits, as he must to compete with Penn State. But of course given the timeline it wasn't possible for him to have demonstrated that this weekend. What he did do was show that he can get the most out of a roster, which at a school with that tradition and that commitment to getting back to the top will translate to him being the most likely coach to challenge Penn State since 2011. Doesn't mean it's going to happen but based on what I saw this year I think the odds are better with him than for Nebraska, Iowa, or anyone else.

When Dan/Gable lost the biggest upset of the 20th century, he used it to fuel the most dominant Olympics ever. Or to be more precise, I guess he felt sorry, moped around, drank a lot of beer, then his mom whacked him upside the head, and he then used the loss to fuel the most dominant Olympics ever. Gable/Dan can and will do the same thing, but only if he's got the interest for it to fuel him. If he does, I don't think that Captain America and David Taylor or anyone else, including any Iranians or Russians, are going to keep him from any gold medals. But Gable/Dan is a much different guy than Dan/Gable. He isn't as obsessed with wrestling as his namesake. In fact, he may be the least obsessed with wrestling of all of the 330 guys in the brackets this weekend. My view is that he's best off committing to wrestling. He's better at this than he is or will be at anything else, he's healthy largely because he's not obsessed with the sport, he's the best in the world when he's engaged, he'll do as well or better financially as he could in anything else in life, and he won't get punched in the face (which I doubt he has the personality for) or be subject to a capitalist making capitalist decisions about his marketability (which didn't work out for him last time). But I think the odds he'll go this route with full commitment are no better than 50/50. Sadly.

I agree that you'll remember tonight more for Starocci and Lt. H. For sure. And you should. But I think that Coach Taylor will have a bigger impact on the sport in the coming decades, and tonight was when we saw that he does in fact have what it takes as a coach to jump past everyone else and produce the most viable threat to Penn State since wrestling was invented in 2011. Think it was Metcalf's second in 2010 after he got upset in 2009.

Nuance in the public square? I thought that wasn't allowed? What are you doing trying to unpack the merits of these issues? Please call back under your cozy rock.

Good point and it's a matter of opinion, but I'd put this upset over Ramos and Lee. Ramos put Lee on his back their prior match, and Lee was a walking MASH unit.

My hope is that he'll use this as motivation to go all out for this upcoming quad. For guys at his level, wrestling today is a real job, he could make as much or more money winning gold medals with stipends and endorsements as he could as an MMA novice. My guess is his MMA earnings potential just went down, which if so would be great news for us. We had an awful 2024 at the world senior level, we could really use him back on the world teams, and if he were to put everything he has into it the results will be incredible.

Couple years ago I think he was there. Stayed for every match to his credit. Not surprising on the ratings. Matches haven't been great, not a lot of action and the length of the TV timeouts and the other filler is demoralizing. 70 minutes of wrestling in 180 minutes of TV. I can't watch it live, it's too boring, I start about an hour in and then fast forward through the commercials. Only downside is I have to stay off this board and not look at texts to avoid spoilers.

I said "the stories of the night." A commissioned officer in the Air Force coming out with the flag and winning the biggest upset in half a century and saluting the president is a great story. That doesn't mean Trump hit a slick slide by or that anyone has to like him or his politics, or even Hendrickson and the flag. But it certainly by definition is a big story, whether the beholder likes the story or not.

Maybe we can agree that it wasn't going very well before he got there.

Yeah agree that is wrong even though I don't think it's the biggest ever. I probably would put Gable Dan's loss below Dan Gable's loss as number two in terms of surprising. Hendrickson is a very bad man with a very nasty record, a more fearsome opponent than Owings. And he's huge. But it's still stunning. Made me think of a few other matches. Reminded me a little of Snyder and Gwiz. As the match went on, you could see that he was figuring out how to deal with the other guy's advantages, and he was close enough that if he could hit the big takedown and do it late enough for the rideout that he had a chance (Snyder's rideout got him to OT, not the win, but that's all he needed because Gwiz was gassed). Also made me think of Gable and Cassar. Shorten the match, get it to the end, Gable might have a brain cramp, which is a little bit what happened tonight, I thought, it looked to me like Gable could have gotten out of the attack if he went pure defense, but thought about trying to turn it into his own takedown which he didn't need, and that split second let Hendrickson pull him in far enough to be able to eventually get control. Not perfect analogies but I think relevant.

Just like those rookie announcers who no one has ever heard of who were absolutely stunned. Although I guess a lot of Burroughs' experience is actually wrestling in the finals, which technically isn't watching the finals.