SetonHallPirate

Getting an FBS school (and especially an A5 school, which all of those schools you mentioned except Rice are...all of them are FBS) to start a program is like expecting a unicorn to wish upon a shooting star that you'll win Powerball this Wednesday...it's completely unlikely to happen. Tarleton is a smaller Division I school (in fact, they're still within their transition period...2023-24 is their last year of their transition), and as such, their required fundraising level to start a program is much lower. Further, as I mentioned in a previous thread, you have to go back to 2016 for the last time a non-FBS Division I school dropped wrestling (Grand Canyon). Priorities, put simply, are a lot different at non-FBS institutions than at FBS schools.

If Dallas Baptist were to start a wrestling program, unless they moved their entire athletic department to Division I, DBU would be a Division II program.

Yep! Congratulations to Grant Leeth!

Poor University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

They have a roster of 30 for this season, 25 of whom are freshmen. Not sure how well they are going to do this year, although my expectation is not great. (if a brand new Division I program is competitive in year one, I would have to wonder what the coach is doing wrong for down the road)

I'm far more worried about programs at FBS institutions than FCS or non-football D-1's (UALR doesn't sponsor football, which is why they left the Sun Belt for the OVC). You have to go back to 2016 (Grand Canyon) for the last time a non-FBS D-1 program was dropped. Not-so-fun fact that nobody pitching a new program will mention (hopefully): no AD that has started wrestling at a Division I institution in the last 10 years has been around to see that program's first home dual (this is a streak that will continue with Morgan State).

That must be a relatively new change...(last couple of years or so)

Well, Wisconsin (to use one example) has their teams compete in a tournament for regionals, where the winners of each regional advance to sectionals and (eventually) state, which is wrestled in a dual format.

Yes...Bellarmine is in its last year of transition this coming year. Queens (and Lindenwood) won't be eligible until 2026-27.

If the Ivies ever do split from the rest of the EIWA, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dartmouth and Yale instantly started paying attention…

More allocated spots doesn't mean it's easier to make it to nationals. On the other hand, more allocated spots means it's a tougher road to get to nationals. (it's really meant to be neutral in that regard...as in, you aren't benefiting more or less by going to another conference) The only caveat to that is, if a conference has nobody within threshold, they'll get an automatic bid to nationals anyway. (as we're reminded every year at the Convention, only the conference champion receives an automatic bid. The rest of the bids given to each conference prior to the conference championships are allocated spots)

My experience is that it always populates for me with Florida tournaments first…maybe that ought to be selectable (and maybe it is and I haven’t noticed it yet), because I don’t pay a large amount of attention to what goes on within the state at the Youth level (and barely know what goes on at the HS level here)…

A two-and-a-half hour drive away. Bear in mind Tarleton is in the absolute middle of nowhere.

tournaflex.com

I assume Track is going to eventually be phased out as well, but since the OPC is based there, it was impossible to completely shutter it.

My understanding was that it was going to the electric chair. In all seriousness, FloWrestling is shutting down Arena and only supporting the TrackWrestling software.

First confirmed elsewhere by @BobDole.

And Georgia Tech is a very male-heavy institution as well (mentioning for Title IX reasons)

Would need one more program, but wonder if the United Athletic Conference (would be Bellarmine, California Baptist, Queens, Tarleton State, and Utah Valley, plus one more program) could expand to wrestling...just a thought. (also wouldn't be eligible for a bid until 2026-27, due to Queens being in transition until that time)

No tech falls are worth four anymore. This rule was changed in 2015.

My understanding for conference placements is that for at-large selection, wrestlers are either one-spot away or not, and the only other time the 15% comes into play is between conference foes. For seeding, conference champions are above everybody else, and otherwise, they are only compared, again, between conference foes. Am curious as to how concussions or skin check failures would affect the minimum matches at conference tournaments. As far as the two-second injury default, that's still in-play, but the wrestler will now need to do it twice, and take both losses. The bumping of the allocation criteria wouldn't really affect the balance between larger conferences and smaller conferences that badly, but what it would do is bring A LOT more of those bids to the at-large pool instead of being pre-allocated.

The minimum number of matches for the CR hasn’t changed. This was the minimum participation requirement at the conference championships to be eligible for an at-large.

CR was also 5% more than anything else other than head-to-head or quality wins. (when CR was initially bumped from 10% to 15%, it totally replaced "match count")

Wouldn’t say that…if that were the case, the coaches’ ranking would be eliminated entirely. It’s more them trying to make the conference championships more important, to reduce the medical forfeits and defaults that often take place there.

I do have to laugh that you referred to the former upperweight wrestler as "Focus".