Flo released the wrestlers going to the Scuffle. Not the same tournament it used to be. Would be nice to see some of the redshirts/non starters for OK State there wrestling! Penn State is sending the Mirasola's and Ryder, along with some other wrestlers.
Southern Scuffle
- Thread starter DEWrestlingFan
- Start date
Yeah it looked like LR, OU and UNC were sending everyone. Past that is just a mix match of starters and backups from VT, NDSU, N Col, Duke, Campbell, Army etc.
PSU sending Ryder and the twins will be interesting.
Wolak, Nasir Bailey, Andy Smith and Steve Poulin are the only top 10 guys there. TJ Stewart is there too but he’s fell off a cliff this year.
PSU sending Ryder and the twins will be interesting.
Wolak, Nasir Bailey, Andy Smith and Steve Poulin are the only top 10 guys there. TJ Stewart is there too but he’s fell off a cliff this year.
Jordan Williams won the Southern Scuffle at 149 for Little Rock. Had a major with 20 seconds left and his opponent had Jordans leg up in the air and he tried his back flip. The good news is he did not hurt himself the bad news he gave up the takedown and lost his major.
Yes, it has gone from 1 of the best tournaments in the Country to sort of a sad tournament. I don't know the reason why?
It was good when OSU AND PSU went. Otherwise was it really good? Mizzou maybe too some but without OSU and PSU it will struggle
I would say it is a very sad tournament now. Midlands is not very far behind it. I used to look forward to these two tournaments, but not at all anymore. Do coaches look at them as being too late in the season now and decline to go?
It appears, although not certain, that Cael is not big on two day tourneys in the early season any longer, as it does not fit his training regimen toward March.
Last two day tourney for the PSU starters was the Southern Scuffle on 1-2 January 2019. Other than the Black Knight Open, which is a one day event in November, PSU no longer does early season tournaments it appears.
If it works it works, I’d be ok with an earlier season start and more holiday and pre holidays tournaments.
Could change the rules too and let true freshman to get more matches without burning redshirts.
If events aren’t well attended, enjoyed and funded by a fanbase, they die off.
The sport, in fact, is in trouble.
Letting these events die will only exacerbate the problem we currently face.
But yeah, it may work in the science of winning in March? But that science is cheapening that field in March.
Then we’ve gotta figure out a way to make those events matter in March to coaches. I don’t know what the answer is to how you make that happen, but it’s what’s gotta happen. I’m sure coaches care about “growing the sport” up to a point, but the truth is growing the sport doesn’t make them money. Results in March does.
When you judge taking care of the sport of wrestling, I would judge John Smith as a leader in that regard. Cael Sanderson, Tom Brands and most of the rest are or were not in the same ballpark.
If you want to grow the sport, you have to figure out how to make the duals matter. I am less concerned about in-season tournaments. Even with a great field, how many people are really going to watch the Southern Scuffle or CKLV?
I would put the top 12 wrestling programs in one conference with promotion/demotion fluidity. Make all 12 programs wrestle one another in a dual. Whoever the top dog is at the end of the dual season is your conference champion. It would kill the conference tournaments but who really cares about those anyway?
We need the top programs to wrestle each other in duals that matter for something more than just pride.
I would put the top 12 wrestling programs in one conference with promotion/demotion fluidity. Make all 12 programs wrestle one another in a dual. Whoever the top dog is at the end of the dual season is your conference champion. It would kill the conference tournaments but who really cares about those anyway?
We need the top programs to wrestle each other in duals that matter for something more than just pride.
Keep the conferences but incentive big duals by having national duals and dual championships. We need multiple conferences to feed the sport coast to coast imo
and when David does the same?
The head coach is hired and paid $1M annually for success on the mats. In March. Talk about growing the sport is nice and all but eventually gets you fired.
Listen, I want more wrestling too. Wrestling season has become more boring over the years. 40 years ago there were 2-3 times as many programs, so more action overall. Now, there are 70 programs and only about a dozen worth following. Wrestling is healthy at the high school level, so the problem is in the university system. Maybe wrestling should only loosely affiliate with universities, and become a club sport untied to the financials of football and basketball, and most importantly the NCAA. Have its own benefactors and support system.
I honestly think the current "business model" for collegiate wrestling has run its course. Time to rethink how we get to the future with bold ideas. Maybe partially dump collegiate associations and craft something new.
Disassociation would likely lead to less, not more. Not sure how this would work. There’s maybe 4-5 programs that could swing this. 4-5 programs that are profitable maybe.
I don't believe any program is profitable at the moment. Especially Olympic sports. I feel like being tied to the university system is holding back Olympic sports due to the profitability issue. In 5 years, some wrestling programs like OSU and PSU will be largely scholarship-funded by program benefactors (donors). At that point, why allow universities and the NCAA to continue to control the conversation? With money comes power and a voice. That's all I'm saying.
Statistics are hard to come by these days (after the death of Jay Hammond and OSU’s web site dropping theirs) so I don’t know the exact number of matches that our wrestlers have had since the early 2000’s but I sure it’s getting less every year. I remember Pennstate1985 talking about Penn State’s smaller numbers.
The historic numbers have changed greatly over the years and although I have large holes in my information I know our top forty single season match numbers. Lee Roy was our first wrestler with 40 in 1979 and the top three are Barber (49, ’90), Baze (49 ’88) and John (47 ’88). We’ve had 19 wrestlers with 40 or more matches in a season from ’79 to 2004 (Hendricks 43).
Interestingly Uetake, Keller and Fozzard wrestled only 58, 68 and 55 total matches in their three years as wrestling in the 60’s so I guess the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s were the hay-days of high match counts. Anyway, just FYI.
The historic numbers have changed greatly over the years and although I have large holes in my information I know our top forty single season match numbers. Lee Roy was our first wrestler with 40 in 1979 and the top three are Barber (49, ’90), Baze (49 ’88) and John (47 ’88). We’ve had 19 wrestlers with 40 or more matches in a season from ’79 to 2004 (Hendricks 43).
Interestingly Uetake, Keller and Fozzard wrestled only 58, 68 and 55 total matches in their three years as wrestling in the 60’s so I guess the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s were the hay-days of high match counts. Anyway, just FYI.
If Cael somehow gets fired for not winning NCAAs he'll probably have job interviews lined up the next day. He should do more to grow the sport given his status and success, unfortunately it seems like if he had his way there would be no wrestling matches until March.
You can have less matches and still put out a good product.
Not sure of the future model or how to get to a safe spot with the sport, but I know these once great events dyeing is not a good sign.
You’re not wrong, but my point is if there isn’t an NCAA wrestling I’m not sure we have a dozen programs to form their own entity.
What do we consider "big duals"? I'm assuming top 10 matchups? The biggest dual of the weekend was UNI/ Nebraska, 2 top 10s. It would never happen but what if for the good of the sport the NCAA instituted a rule that every team in the top ten had to schedule to 2 duals with a top 10 team outside of their conference which is almost always possible? OSU already has this type of schedule with VT and Iowa. They also wrestle UNI and ISU which are both top 10 (Flo), so 4 top 10 total. I'm sure there's other teams similar. Iowa has/had 2 top 10 out of conference dual (us) and ISU. PSU had Lehigh which is ranked 10th/11th depending on where you look. A little tweaking like this and you could see at least 4-5 more top 10 duals a season. This way with proper scheduling you could possibly see 4-6 top ten matchups a month or more (Dec-Feb) when you add in the in conference top 10 matchups. And teams wont have to dual the same team twice like you would possibly see in a Nat dual championships.
Just thinking out loud.
Cael Sanderson 1999-2002 159 matches
Davis Taylor 2010-2014 137 matches
Bo Nickal 2015-2019 136 matches 5 seasons
Carter Starocci 2020-2024 97 matches 5 seasons (Remove his 16-0 RSFR year, as well as B1Gs and NCAAs, he averages 11 bouts/yr)
Aaron Brooks 2020-2024 92 matches 5 seasons (36 of his matches came at B1Gs and NCAAs)
PSU last attended the Scuffle in January 2019, so it seems like a decision was made before the 2019-20 season to train in a manner that reduced wear and tear on the body come March.
Collegiate association will push more interest than anything else imo. They just have to make a true dual champ race that gets people engaged at duals.
Similar threads
