PSU literally has Dake in the room working with there guys. He was opening talking about during the broadcast on the matcast. Not sure what rule that breaks if any, but I’m sure there more going on than that.
Reason for optimism
- Thread starter Ok_Longhorn
- Start date
Oh I’m sure there is more going on as well, but the fear that Oklahoma State will be sanctioned and not Penn State is just an excuse to not get one IMO. Oklahoma state will not take the next step without an RTC
So despite this threads title, I am yet to see a reason for optimism 🤣 🤣
I’m looking for some optimism too. Dynasty Defined podcast due out tomorrow. Maybe Lee will have some. He’s been pretty quiet so I’m guessing he doesn’t have much.
A couple of things...
- I think we can safely say John held back on building up the RTC because of stubbornness. It wasn't concern over sanctions or the inability to raise $. Several things back this up.
- RTCs are great, but NIL is more important today. Yes, a better RTC would certainly help Daton. In a perfect world, you'd land a top 10 PFP recruit and then pair him with an Olympic gold medalist. But the key is to first get that top 10 recruit. The UPenn room has a 7x gold medalist, an NCAA champ, an NCAA finalist, and a multiple x AA. Yet their team had no AAs this year. And their lineup included a #15 PFP recruit and a #27 PFP recruit. There's just no substitute for talent.
- I think we can safely say John held back on building up the RTC because of stubbornness. It wasn't concern over sanctions or the inability to raise $. Several things back this up.
- RTCs are great, but NIL is more important today. Yes, a better RTC would certainly help Daton. In a perfect world, you'd land a top 10 PFP recruit and then pair him with an Olympic gold medalist. But the key is to first get that top 10 recruit. The UPenn room has a 7x gold medalist, an NCAA champ, an NCAA finalist, and a multiple x AA. Yet their team had no AAs this year. And their lineup included a #15 PFP recruit and a #27 PFP recruit. There's just no substitute for talent.
I recall Steve Mocco saying that part of why he transferred from Iowa to OSU (a controversial move to the wrestling world) was because of the senior level athletes training at OSU. I don't remember who those athletes were (maybe Tyrone Lewis?) but that has stuck with me as we talk about RTC.
Does anybody remember senior level athletes that were training for Olympics at OSU during the 90s & 2000s?
@Wrassler17 I really like your example of UPenn with their RTC. It just goes to show you that having big name talent in the RTC can help a program and certain guys develop but doesn't always mean it will. It goes back to what I've been preaching for the last several days about being able to develop the guys you recruit and that falls completely on the coaching. We could go out and spend serious big money bringing in big names to our RTC, but that doesn't automatically mean its going to help turn all our guys into studs on the mat. Those senior level guys make good workout partners and I'm sure provide a lot of great insight but they aren't the ones coaching them on a daily basis and breaking down their matches and mentally preparing them. In the short term the current coaching staff either has to completely change their coaching approach and philosophy or we need to bring in new assistants. I don't believe its time to let John go, I think that's a big change and we need to make a lot of little changes first.
It’s about the Jimmy and Joes and having coaches to push their development with other high level RTC guys
And I thought Football was doom and gloom. Holy shit....
You all are reading way too much into everything.
Again, we placed 14th last year....We literally lost an NCAA winner to being a dumbass and driving like one also. That's ALOT of points.
This year, we didn't fill that NCAA champion with anyone outside. I'm still convinced Surber would've done better at Heavyweight than Doucet by a LANDSLIDE, but had NOBODY to plug in at 197 (Surber's natural weight class).
Just like other men's programs, John Smith isn't immune and I know he's feeling the heat (same as Baseball, Football, and Basketball). He needs to figure it out.
Working to get off the bottom would do wonders for this program. Working on keeping the pedal all the way to the floor would do woonders (Surber and VV are the only two who push the pace EVER). I'm good with losing and placing 18th, as long as we got beat by being aggressive and not lackadaisical and lazy.
I'd be interested to see if Fix, Young, and VV could move up in weight. Could Plott and Whitlake drop down also?
125 - Witcraft
133 - Hughes
141 - Fix
149 - Young
157 - VV
165 - Plott
174 - Whitlake
184 - Thompson
197 - Surber
HWT - ANYONE ELSE (Carroll maybe?)
I think Young and VV most definitely have body types to carry extra weight easily.
Stop with the doom and gloom. Everyone goes thru down periods. Making knee jerk reactions have never been OSU's style (unless they can get out of buyouts).
You all are reading way too much into everything.
Again, we placed 14th last year....We literally lost an NCAA winner to being a dumbass and driving like one also. That's ALOT of points.
This year, we didn't fill that NCAA champion with anyone outside. I'm still convinced Surber would've done better at Heavyweight than Doucet by a LANDSLIDE, but had NOBODY to plug in at 197 (Surber's natural weight class).
Just like other men's programs, John Smith isn't immune and I know he's feeling the heat (same as Baseball, Football, and Basketball). He needs to figure it out.
Working to get off the bottom would do wonders for this program. Working on keeping the pedal all the way to the floor would do woonders (Surber and VV are the only two who push the pace EVER). I'm good with losing and placing 18th, as long as we got beat by being aggressive and not lackadaisical and lazy.
I'd be interested to see if Fix, Young, and VV could move up in weight. Could Plott and Whitlake drop down also?
125 - Witcraft
133 - Hughes
141 - Fix
149 - Young
157 - VV
165 - Plott
174 - Whitlake
184 - Thompson
197 - Surber
HWT - ANYONE ELSE (Carroll maybe?)
I think Young and VV most definitely have body types to carry extra weight easily.
Stop with the doom and gloom. Everyone goes thru down periods. Making knee jerk reactions have never been OSU's style (unless they can get out of buyouts).
Down periods last 20 years now?
The Ferarri situation really hurt us this year, so I can see knee jerking if this was just a two year deal. We haven't really been a threat in almost 20 years.
Just depends on what the expectation is. If it’s championships we’ve done poorly since 2005. If it’s decent dual seasons, producing student athletes that the OSU family can be proud of, and occasional All Americans we’ve done great. If it’s top 10 finishes we’re not doing so well the last few years. If it’s staying culturally relevant then we’re still okay but reputations suffer. All depends on the expectations.
Comparisons matter, too. As a small example PSU has superstar Dake in the room and brings in funky techniques from other combat sports, Iowa is hitting the transfer portal hard, Cornell just got a 4 timer, meanwhile our coaches are still scratching their heads at why guys can’t get off bottom (“they just have to want it!”). They’re perfecting the icing on the cake while we’re still trying to gather the ingredients. I love our team and the fight they show at times but watching the NCAAs (not even the finals… consos were full of great wrestling and cool techniques) made it pretty clear that there’s a lot happening in wrestling that OSU simply doesn’t employ and have no answer for. Things have progressed and if we don’t get on board with changes in the sport (even if it’s strictly updating our techniques and no NIL or RTC) there’s no reason we won’t continue to be an outlier. Not the end of the world but it is kind of a bummer compared to many years of dominance.
It is far more likely that Fix will go down to 125 as he will be competing at 57KG at the Olympic Trials.
Carter isn’t getting to 149 and fix is too short for 141. Hell Vito’s arms looked like they were a foot longer than Datons at 133
Along with Carter being a little undersized for 141, at least muscle wise he is. No way he could go 149. That’s why a RS is a must for him.
BA Wrestler from 2000-2004. I've been out of the high school scene for awhile, but what has happened to them lately?
When I wrestled it was Ponca, El Reno, Mid West City, and Broken Arrow in the higher classes.
Bixby, and Stillwater were after thoughts.
Bama or Georgia go 5 years without being in discussion for a championship in football would go nuts. That should be OSU fans in wrestling.
Bixby had done a great job with coaches, they hired a guy from Stanford and then they have added Coach Nefus (wrestled at OU) plus they have a mandatory weightlifting class. BA has done a really good job with their youth program, one thing they do that we don’t do (Union) is have cuts for their program. We take everyone and anyone who wants to wrestle.
Plus I was told Coach Crutcher cancelled the youth program at Union for like 5 years which really set us back.
Also Union is land locked, we have lost some good wrestlers to BA and Bixby because their parents moved out of district. I live in BA but coach at Union.
Not trying to make excuse just personally I think BA and Bixby have done such. Better job with their youth programs than we have
One thing I noticed with BA which I think has set them back is the Junior high programs seem cut.
We had Broken Arrow North, and Broken Arrow South which had separate teams, and had more kids wrestling.
So there was North A team, and B Team. South also had an A team, and B team.
The Freshman also wrestled together with the High school team until the junior high teams season started.
We had weight lifting every morning at 5:30 till 7:30am. Then practice from 1:30-5:00pm every day in season.
When BA dropped the Intermediate high schools, and made the Freshman Center is when it seems they have gone down hill.
I wrestled for Coach Steve Dunlap, and Coach Steve Allen. I don't think they would be happy with how its going in BA at the moment.
My son wrestles for the BA youth team, and the mats are not in great shape, and the boys rooms seem to be run down.
The girl's side is newer and seems in good shape.
I might be transitioning to Union girls team: they are back to back state champs.
BA Jr high and high schools teams kicked out butts. Their Jr high team has some good talent coming through. BA and Bixby both have some really good kids that will be coming through the HS ranks in the next few years IMO
Young needs to move down if anything. He doesn’t have the size and strength the the top 141’s have.
Daton doesn’t have the size or length to bump up. If he changes weight for 2023/24 it will be down to 125 to prepare for the trials.
Young would be better off at 133, he is not strng enough for 149, he would have an even harder time getting out from 149
They are Training TOO MUCH, Colleges Never or Almost Never go over 2 Hours and The Athletes are always Exhausted and with Weightlifting 45 Mimute 3 Days a Week, Wrestlers are not robots, they need to recover To benefit from Weight Training and there is a point of diminishing returns where you will not improve and could even regress.
I could see that, but we had a strength and conditioning coach it wasn’t maxing ever, and it was a set routine for each day.
Every other day switched between legs, and upper body.
Archie Randall at UCO was pretty hardcore after he left El Reno. Those weren’t fun practices.
The practices back then at BA were about an hour of cardio/conditioning. 2 hours of standard wrestling practice, and 30 minutes to how ever long you stayed working on unorthodox moves with Coach Money.
I played club soccer as well so three of those nights I went straight to soccer practice for two hours.
Probably why I wrestled
Freshman year 103lbs JV, 94lbs Junior High, and won JR High state at 87lbs.
Sophomore and Junior year at 112lb.
Senior year I wrestled 119 till I broke my foot.
Tried to wrestle 133 in college.
Last edited:
I thought Archie went to OCU after El Reno and started that women’s program? Did he do a stint at UCO as well?
That guy meant business. I wrestled 4A and El Reno was in our Region. This was when they were winning team and state titles every year. Witness a lot of ass whoopings by those guys. It was also the first time I had really seen a team do the white singlets. I believe this was around 2000.
Last edited:
He went to Oklahoma City University, and one of the old Broken Arrow Coaches Link Davis was there as well.
I don’t know why I typed UCO.
I believe we would have done much better this year in everyone but Surber and Doucet had wrestled down one weight. Our guys almost always looked smaller and weaker than their opponents (even Surber and Doucet).
With all the talk of RTC and wrestling partners along with NIL, I'd like to know how Cornell has done in these areas.
A couple of years back Rob Koll said Cornell had $1.6M in RTC assets, which was 2nd behind PSU's $9M. Kyle Dake was the star before he left for the NLWC. Right now they have Gwiz (also their volunteer coach), Kemerer, and Hemida. They also hosted the Ukrainian national team in December. Previous resident athletes who've trained there include JO, Nahshon, Henderson & a Russian 57 KG who won the Yarygin. The Russian knows Vito's dad.
Their RTC is sponsored by Spartan Combat, which has NIL deals with Yianni and Vito. Spartan also sponsors some other guys, including Carr & Carter Young.
I don't know about that - be honest, even if Ferrari comes back and wins a title and scores 20, we're STILL not a top 10 team this year.
If Ferrari had won a title scoring only 20 points (the absolute minimum a champion could score) and you trade those points for the 1.5 Surber scored at 197 then OSU would have finished tied for 11. Every champion scored at least 1.5 bonus points this year. If Ferrari scores just one bonus point or Surber moves up to 285 and scores one point in place of Doucet's zero points, OSU would have been tied for 10th this year.
If you meant for 2024, the 2023 seniors only scored 1.5 points. Adding 20+ points for Ferrari means they would project (in a way too early projection) to be barely top 10 next year.
If you meant for 2024, the 2023 seniors only scored 1.5 points. Adding 20+ points for Ferrari means they would project (in a way too early projection) to be barely top 10 next year.
LOL - you're right, that changes things. In the imaginary world where we keep Ferrari on the roster and he wins another title, we sneak in at 10th. Doesn't the fact that we're having that discussion show you where we're at as a program?
We scored 28.5 team points this year. Zain Retherford scored 28.5 points by himself in 2016.
Retherford wrestled as a true freshman (young for his class too) and took 5th. He had no bonus wins at NCAAs that year.
When he returned from redshirt, he reeled off 13 straight bonus wins at Nationals. So not only was he undefeated his final 3 years, he also scored 21.5 bonus points. More than the equivalent of another champ.
Retherford wrestled as a true freshman (young for his class too) and took 5th. He had no bonus wins at NCAAs that year.
When he returned from redshirt, he reeled off 13 straight bonus wins at Nationals. So not only was he undefeated his final 3 years, he also scored 21.5 bonus points. More than the equivalent of another champ.
Love it! Personally, I think we'd have been injured less, challenged Penn State for the title, and threatened the '05 team for most champs, but, Ferrari...
