Wrestling true freshmen

[Orangebomber]

I think most agree that John will wrestle the best regardless of class. Of course it isn't always so definitive. It might be better to say John will pull the redshirt if they can help the team win a title. In order to help they must score points. I don't know how to find out the points scored by freshmen over the years but we can look at how many have won national championships, conference championships, and earned All-American.

These are for OSU only from LAST years media guide.

National Champs (4) Hutton and Smith were True Freshmen
Richard Hutton, Pat Smith, Mark Branch, Jake Rosholt

Conference Champs (19)
I am not going to list them all but just those since 2005. There are nine in the past ten years. And only those in BOLD were true Freshman. 11 of the 19 were true freshmen going back to 1969.
Nathan Morgan
Coleman Scott
Jordan Oliver
Chris Perry
Alex Dieringer
Eddie Klimara
Anthony Collica
Dean Heil

All-Americans (34 total and 15 were true freshmen.)
Since 1990 there have been only TWO true freshmen earn All-American honors and they are Pat Smith and Coleman Scott. There have only been five in the past ten years.
Daniel Friskhorn
Coleman Scott
Jordan Oliver
Alex Dieringer
Dean Heil

The odds we could have two this year would be low but anything is possible. I think John watches GW Harding and Chance to see where they end up ranked and how Kaid and Joe perform. I think John is all in this year and will pull the shirts if they can score points. But if they can't score at Nationals the best option is to redshirt them. It could come down to the weight class difficulty.

Flo Rankings
133 - There is only one wrestler in the rankings sophomore or freshman and he is ranked 19th.
157 - There are only four wrestlers in the rankings sophomore or freshman and that includes the defending champ IMAR, Nolf of Penn State, and Chance at 19.

 

[OSUMatFan]

I have not idea how we are doing in the recruitment of Daton Fix, but if we have a strong chance of getting him I say pull Kaid Brocks's redshirt now. It is generally easier to recruit a lighter weight wrestler than a larger guy that can be competitive early in their career. Pat Smith was an exception, but even Cael Sanderson struggled his true freshmen year.

Maybe we play it close to the vest until the Southern Scuffle then we figure out what we do. You would sure hate to pull a redshirt if a true freshmen can beat the guy he wrestlers every day and then gets beat by guys that the upperclassmen handles. A larger tournament with tougher competition would sure help. Also we only have two tough meets before the Scuffle being Iowa and Minnesota. Pretty sure our second team would handle Oklahoma.

Also it is all practice until March anyway.