Eagle26

9th place in the Big Ten is in the top 1% of all wrestlers so I don’t think it’s fair to say it “sucks balls” Being a national qualifier is a HUGE honor for most wrestlers. Maybe Manning cares about one of his wrestlers missing out on their goal more than he cares about a few team points. Or maybe Nebraska is only a point or two away from 2nd place or 4th place or whatever. It is a big deal when you pour your heart and soul into something

Exactly! Totally agree I can see both sides… Cael obviously believes he needs to look out for his guys above all else. That’s why we had the whole national duals debacle as well. I get it, but as a fan I don’t like it. I really wish our top coaches put the sport first. JRob was a great example of this

Guys, his point is about how a known injury blows up the bracket at conferences and he believes the right thing to do would be let the coaches know and seed Starocci last. It’s not that he thinks Wilson deserved a wild card, but he probably thinks he deserves to be at nationals more than Baumann, the Purdue freshman with an 12-14 record does. Baumann got a forfeit from Starocci to get to the top 8 which qualified him for NCAAs. I don’t see how any can argue that is indicative of getting the best guys to NCAAs (as should be our goal). It was simply luck of the draw to hit a bye on the backside. If Carter is not seeded that high, someone will still get a bye, but would have to win their next match to get into the top 8. Thus allowing the wrestlers to “earn it” (and there’s a very good chance Wilson does if this is the case)

This is true. Maybe not the best example because it didn’t happen yet, but I think the point is still valid.

Did freestyle attendance really drop 90% after the implementation of that rule? I get what you’re saying… folkstyle attendance is much higher than freestyle attendance in America. But that has nothing to do with the current rules set. It’s all about culture and tradition. But that’s a whole different topic. Point is I like your idea of not simply giving free points for stalling. I was simply showing that freestyle already utilizes that same concept. Personally, I’d rather go with the shot clock because mat wrestling can tend to get boring, but your idea is still better than the free point.

Or instead of giving them choice of position, you could put them on a 30 second shot clock

That’s not necessarily true… Starocci just forfeited out of B1G and is competing in NCAAs in less than two weeks. It may not even have to be that bad of an injury to cause them to forfeit out if they are already in the consolations. It comes down to how much they value an NCAA medal… and if it’s not gold, I doubt those two value it very high compared to their Olympic dreams.

All of those are definitely within the realm of possibility. But to have all of them happen in the same tournament?! That would be an astronomically low chance. And they would probably need every single one of them to happen for them to not win. PS you forgot Brooks L to Hidlay

Exactly. I get what they were trying to do… you want to make sure you emphasize the qualifying tournament or it will start to lose its significance. But you are right it had some unintended consequences and I think it needs some tweaking. Maybe something like conference placement out of number of automatic qualifiers? For example, 4th place in a weight that takes top 7 should be considered higher placement than 3rd place in a weight that takes top 3 IMO.

125 - Poulin 133 - Chlebove 141 - Matthews 149 - Rooks 157 - Zerban 165 - Fish 174 - Mocco 184 - Feldkamp 197 - Novak 285 - Pitzer

Good stuff. I’ll add one of my takeaways… Generally speaking, being in the Big Ten hurts your seeding. This is likely because they are weighing fairly heavy on conference placement and a lot of highly ranked guys don’t finish very high at Big Tens because of the depth.

Two bads = a good?

It’s pretty bad… I agree he should be punished with his seed, but I just don’t know how you can lower than 7. Now you’re punishing Lewis for earning the number 1!

Really dislike Fix over Crookham for number 1. Crookham wrestles and beats the returning NCAA and World champ twice and Fix ducks Crookham in the dual and is rewarded with the #1 seed.

My bad… hard for me to tell sometimes without non-verbal cues [emoji23]

Neither of those things you said are true. If you have ever wrestled in a big match, you know your adrenaline is rushing even if you tech or pin the guy in the first period. And to say he doesn’t care about the match is crazy. He works extremely hard and has put so much into the sport it’s impossible not to care. Now, what Cael (and other coaches) have done a good job of is helping them keep it in perspective. (See O’Toole interview above for another example of great perspective). At that level, it’s easy to think wrestling is your life. In order, for them to be able to wrestle “free” and not tighten up in big matches, it helps to keep the match in perspective and have a bigger purpose. No matter what you believe, it’s clear to see that having a bigger purpose in life makes it easier to have that mentality of keeping the match in perspective (it’s not impossible though and there are the exceptions that can do it without religious beliefs). I believe Cael recognizes this and actively recruits this type of kid when he can. I believe he helps foster these beliefs even though the vast majority of his wrestlers are of a different religion than him. I’m not a Penn state fan, but you have to respect that.

Great interview! I agree that’s a great perspective and if others shared their views in the same manner, it would be received better. However, I know that giving interviews is hard especially after a match when adrenaline is kicking and emotions are a whirlwind. And college students just generally don’t have the life perspective yet to give a great speech off the top of their head. So I tend to extend grace for interviews that aren’t the best.

In years past, it seemed like they valued conference placement and wins over automatic qualifiers the most. Looks like @Wrestleknownothing had to show he knows he knows something and posted the actual criteria… see the document he referenced for the criteria breakdown

I agree PCN did a great job. I think the flo announcers for the AAA finals were excellent too though.

That’s crazy prices for those tickets! Its terrible that they force you to buy online and then add an extra fee

I don’t disagree it’s you, but don’t you find it odd that it seemed like no one took this stance with Spencer Lee last year? And before someone tries to speculate on the legitimacy of the injuries, please realize that’s all it is (speculation)…none of us know/knew exactly what injuries either are/were dealing with.

Yeah I was trying to be smart… point is that cable is not free. If they were on Fox, NBC, or some other other-the-air network, then they would be free. PCN was never free (not sure about NPR). You either had to pay for cable or now pay for flo. More and more people are ditching cable subscriptions, so a lot of people would be left out from watching it either way.

When was that? I don’t ever remember them being on an over-the-air network?

Seems like it’s pretty easy to see what went on… Carter wanted to wrestle and thought he could, Cael thought it was best for him to rest so he did, Carter was upset about the decision and sent a tweet at midnight (probably after a few beverages) that made it seem like he was done. I’m sure he’s going to wrestle at NCAAs and I’m guessing he’s going to win it too. If he’s healthy enough that he truly thought he could wrestle now, he’s going to be healthy enough to win Nationals in two weeks. He will thank Cael later.

You don’t need the parentheses… in PA it is States!