The Minnesota coaching staff with Gable Steveson (Photo/Tony Rotundo; WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Each Monday, Big Ten correspondent Cody Goodwin recaps the biggest results from around the Big Ten Conference.
Michigan - Probably had the best weekend of any Big Ten school. The Wolverines finally beat Ohio State in football for the first time since 2011 (for reference: Stevan Micic was still in high school, and he's been in college FOREVER), and Sean Bormet and Company scooped up perhaps the biggest recruiting win this semester by landing the services of Nick Suriano. That gives Michigan a tremendous boost at 125 pounds, and firmly inserts them into the NCAA trophy conversation.
Michigan's lineup could look like this come January:
Pretty salty.
Michigan wrestles Arizona State on Jan. 3, Ohio State on Jan. 14, Penn State on Jan. 21, Minnesota on Jan. 28, and Nebraska on Feb. 4, to name a few notable matchups worth adding to your calendar. That's in addition to the Big Ten Championships on March 5-6 in Lincoln, and the NCAA Championships March 17-19 in Detroit.
Something else to ponder … what if Suriano's addition brings Logan Massa back into the mix and he ultimately goes at 174?
Giddy up, you guys. The Big Ten just got a whole lot more fun.
Minnesota - Registered the 1,000th dual victory in program history on Sunday with a 27-13 win over South Dakota State. Minnesota is now the fifth Division I program to record 1,000 all-time dual victories, joining Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Oregon State, and Iowa. The Jackrabbits led 9-0 after the first two weights, then the Gophers rattled off five wins in a row, anchored by Gable Steveson's 22-6 technical fall over A.J. Nevills at 285 but highlighted by Michial Foy's 9-3 upset win over Tanner Sloan at 197. Nobody is safe this college season. Stay ready.
Iowa - Defeated Army West Point, 36-7, before another ‘sold-out' crowd at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. We say ‘sold-out' with heavy air-quotes, because it was not actually sold-out. It was more like a Nebraska Football Sellout - which is an official term now, if you ask Iowa wrestling fans - where it was only technically a sellout because all the tickets were purchased, in one form or another, but not all of them were used.
Anyways, the coolest part about this particular meet was that it happened at all. The Hawkeyes were supposed to host Oregon State on Saturday, but the Beavers ran into some gnarly flight issues and didn't make the trip. Army, who was in Ames on Saturday to wrestle Iowa State, drove two hours east to wrestle Iowa on Sunday after Tom Brands called Scott Green and explained the situation. Shoutout to the Black Knights for stepping up to the plate on a moment's notice. Pretty righteous, if you ask me.
Jaydin Eierman (141), Alex Marinelli (165) and Tony Cassioppi (285) all recorded pins for Iowa, who won comfortably. (Shoutout to OG for two victories this weekend, though.)
Wisconsin - Topped both North Carolina, 20-16, and Hofstra, 38-12, at the Garden State Grapple on Saturday. That dual with the Tar Heels was a doozy: six lead changes, a handful of upsets - Austin Gomez over Zack Sherman, 9-4; Clay Lautt over Andrew McNally, 6-1; Gavin Kane over Chris Weiler, 8-2 - and big Trent Hillger registered a second-period pin over Brandon Whitman at heavyweight to give the Badgers a win.
The dual with Hofstra featured significantly less drama, as Wisconsin won seven of 10 matches, but there were two surprise results that went Hofstra's way: at 184, Charles Small defeated Weiler, 3-2; and at 197, Trey Rogers knocked off Braxton Amos, 6-4, in sudden victory.
Again: Nobody is safe this college season. Stay ready.
Rutgers - Also beat North Carolina, 28-9, and Hofstra, 35-6, at the Garden State Grapple, but didn't wrestle Wisconsin because they're scheduled to wrestle on Sunday, Jan. 9 in Madison. We all know New Jersey loves their wrestling, right? The crowd was rowdy inside the Prudential Center, to the point that, during the Rutgers-North Carolina dual, one fan referred to the Tar Heels as the “Tobacco Road Mother Firetruckersâ€â€¦ except without the “-iretr-†if you catch my drift.
Rutgers is now 8-0, which is the most dual victories at this point in the season. Next closest: Purdue, at 6-0. Behind them, Utah Valley is 5-1. The Scarlet Knights won eight duals in 20 calendar days. They wrestled just four duals all last season. Wild.
Also of note: Rutgers' JoJo Aragona entered the transfer portal on Monday. He started for the Scarlet Knights as a freshman and went 13-12 at 141 pounds. He wrestled at the 2020 Big Ten Championships, but didn't see action last season and hasn't wrestled yet this season (so far as we know).
Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State and Purdue did not compete last week.
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