Could college wrestling be on the verge of monumental changes?

[natchrlman]

Is the Big Ten the only conference that awards a conference team championship based on dual results? Or do they I guess I always thought they did.....and the duals do affect the championships as each wrestlers performance in duals determines their seeding at conference tournaments and then the national tournament.....you really can't compare wrestling to sports like football and basketball which have no individual competition.... more like track and field or gymnastics....swimming....it's team results are based on individual performances and that's fine

 

[natchrlman]

Kind of telling Ryan is in on this... if anything takes away from making duals meaningful .... it's holding wrestlers out to protect their seeding....seems like he does a lot of that

 

[pablow]

I did. It was nonsensical. Comparing a dual meet, the results of which have no bearing on anything, to a college football game, where one loss can mean you're not eligible to compete for the national championship, is ridiculous.

I can't help you - I never posted that baseball, basketball, and football games are meaningless. I just stated that the wrestling duals also set the stage for the nationals because the individual matches within the dual impact qualification and seedings at the nationals. If you point is that the actual team score of the dual is meaningless, I thought that was too obvious to even mention.

 

[The Vak]

I can't help you - I never posted that baseball, basketball, and football games are meaningless. I just stated that the wrestling duals also set the stage for the nationals because the individual matches within the dual impact qualification and seedings at the nationals. If you point is that the actual team score of the dual is meaningless, I thought that was too obvious to even mention.

The individual matches are also relatively meaningless. There is no penalty if they don't happen. A person with a loss can be seeded above someone without a loss or with fewer losses.

 

[140wildcatv2]

The individuals are the team - your distinction is meaningless . Your argument make sense only if your proposing a team championship - and the NCAA won't sponsor a dual championship. However, if we go to a strictly dual format, than only 5 or 6 D1 programs will be relevant. That will destroy the sport. As things stand now fans from South Dakota State, Campbell, North Carolina State, Edinboro, and Rider have something to cheer about at the national tournament. Taking that away is flat stupid and will kill the sport.

The only sensible moves to grow the sport are promoting high school (particularly Texas)and women's wrestling and fighting for greater wrestling prominence at the Olympics. Trying to grow the sport with models that work for football and basketball is crazy because our sport has a limited fan base - it's a niche sport [casual sports fans find it boring]. Traditionally niche sports are best marketed through the Olympics or through women.

How is this proposal going to kill the sport? Did I misread the proposal or do we have some people freaking out over nothing. As I read it the proposal would shift the start of the season a month with competition not starting until semester break. Then everything would play out as normal with the conference tournaments and then nationals in March but would add dual meets and a dual championship after that ending in April right? Their not ending the current tourney, at most they'd be changing the way in which a team trophy is awarded.

It also seems to sound like they want two sanctioned championships (although previous discussions with that sounded like for that to happen wrestling would be counted as two sports and thus run into more Title IX problems with scholarship count).

With respect to programs being relevant how are more than 5-6 relevant now? 5 programs have won a NCAA team title in the past 29 years since ASU won it. There are maybe 4-5 programs during that time that had a realistic chance at winning one (and a couple of those programs were teams that had previously won titles in ISU and Oklahoma). The vast majority of programs have no chance to win a title as things currently are. Yet these programs still have fans that attend nationals for seemingly two reasons: 1. To watch their programs wrestlers become AAs and Champions and 2. To watch good wrestling. Take away team scoring and you still have those things. So please explain how adding a dual championship (even if taking away team scoring from the current tourney) is going to kill the sport.

Finally its funny you including NC St in your rant considering they're team from 2 years ago is a poster child for having a dual meet title. They couldn't finish top ten at nationals but beat the teams that finished 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 8th in duals and lost only to the team that finished 4th (who they then beat in their conference tourney). No reason to think they couldn't have been contending for a team title in a dual meet tourney. So whats more exciting for their fans finishing 11th in the current tourney or possibly being in a dual match for a national title?

 

[pablow]

How is this proposal going to kill the sport? Did I misread the proposal or do we have some people freaking out over nothing. As I read it the proposal would shift the start of the season a month with competition not starting until semester break. Then everything would play out as normal with the conference tournaments and then nationals in March but would add dual meets and a dual championship after that ending in April right? Their not ending the current tourney, at most they'd be changing the way in which a team trophy is awarded.

It also seems to sound like they want two sanctioned championships (although previous discussions with that sounded like for that to happen wrestling would be counted as two sports and thus run into more Title IX problems with scholarship count).

With respect to programs being relevant how are more than 5-6 relevant now? 5 programs have won a NCAA team title in the past 29 years since ASU won it. There are maybe 4-5 programs during that time that had a realistic chance at winning one (and a couple of those programs were teams that had previously won titles in ISU and Oklahoma). The vast majority of programs have no chance to win a title as things currently are. Yet these programs still have fans that attend nationals for seemingly two reasons: 1. To watch their programs wrestlers become AAs and Champions and 2. To watch good wrestling. Take away team scoring and you still have those things. So please explain how adding a dual championship (even if taking away team scoring from the current tourney) is going to kill the sport.

Finally its funny you including NC St in your rant considering they're team from 2 years ago is a poster child for having a dual meet title. They couldn't finish top ten at nationals but beat the teams that finished 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 8th in duals and lost only to the team that finished 4th (who they then beat in their conference tourney). No reason to think they couldn't have been contending for a team title in a dual meet tourney. So whats more exciting for their fans finishing 11th in the current tourney or possibly being in a dual match for a national title?

Nice post - I said, and I'll quote it, "if we go to a strictly dual format, than only 5 or 6 D1 programs will be relevant. That will destroy the sport." So I said if we go to a "strictly dual format" - that means no individual tournament - that would kill the sport. That's all I said. You putting words in my mouth. and blasting me for something I never said. Other than that, nice post.

 

[140wildcatv2]

Nice post - I said, and I'll quote it, "if we go to a strictly dual format, than only 5 or 6 D1 programs will be relevant. That will destroy the sport." So I said if we go to a "strictly dual format" - that means no individual tournament - that would kill the sport. That's all I said. You putting words in my mouth. and blasting me for something I never said. Other than that, nice post.

I apologize for misrepresenting your views. That being said neither this proposal nor any other that I've ever heard has argued going to strictly a dual format. Pretty much everyone that argues for the dual tournament is arguing for either two championships, a hybrid system, or simply taking team scoring away from the individual tourney and awarding a team title to a dual team champion. So you seem to be afraid of and arguing against something that isn't on the table and as far as I know hasn't ever been. That being said far more teams would be relevant in a dual team setting than in the current format as can be shown by teams like Mizzou, VaTech, and NC ST and their dual success vs tourney success.

 

[pablow]

I apologize for misrepresenting your views. That being said neither this proposal nor any other that I've ever heard has argued going to strictly a dual format. Pretty much everyone that argues for the dual tournament is arguing for either two championships, a hybrid system, or simply taking team scoring away from the individual tourney and awarding a team title to a dual team champion. So you seem to be afraid of and arguing against something that isn't on the table and as far as I know hasn't ever been. That being said far more teams would be relevant in a dual team setting than in the current format as can be shown by teams like Mizzou, VaTech, and NC ST and their dual success vs tourney success.

Okay - I get triggered every time they bring this up and I go off the deep end. But - one final comment - last year we had a 3-day championship tournament with 340 wrestlers from 70 schools participating - no sport can touch this and I hate it when I feel people are trying to screw with it. Peace.

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

Oh god, for the last time DUAL MEETS are an absolutely idiotic way to choose a national champion. Like, it's so stupid that I'm surprised anyone with half a brain would ever condone the idea.

Also, from the article:

Then as a sport in general, we need to find a way to make the dual meet matter more. Dual meets are exciting. You’re always going to have your wrestling fans, but I think a dual meet is much more likely to capture that casual fan.

This is EXACTLY the opposite way to think about it. You don't want to bastardize the sport to create fraudulent excitement for the benefit of people who aren't even fans of the sport. I mean, my god.

His quote literally says it all. "You're always going to have your wrestling fans." To translate, he's saying that he thinks so little of wrestling fans that no matter what garbage they put out there, the actual fans of the sport will always come calling, so they might as well pay more attention to casual or non-fans.

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

I apologize for misrepresenting your views. That being said neither this proposal nor any other that I've ever heard has argued going to strictly a dual format. Pretty much everyone that argues for the dual tournament is arguing for either two championships, a hybrid system, or simply taking team scoring away from the individual tourney and awarding a team title to a dual team champion. So you seem to be afraid of and arguing against something that isn't on the table and as far as I know hasn't ever been. That being said far more teams would be relevant in a dual team setting than in the current format as can be shown by teams like Mizzou, VaTech, and NC ST and their dual success vs tourney success.

I'm sure we could come up with all sorts of crazy rules that would make tons of teams relevant at the end! Wow, look, we just manufactured some fake excitement!!

 

[pablow]

 

[The Vak]

Oh god, for the last time DUAL MEETS are an absolutely idiotic way to choose a national champion. Like, it's so stupid that I'm surprised anyone with half a brain would ever condone the idea.

Also, from the article:

Then as a sport in general, we need to find a way to make the dual meet matter more. Dual meets are exciting. You’re always going to have your wrestling fans, but I think a dual meet is much more likely to capture that casual fan.

This is EXACTLY the opposite way to think about it. You don't want to bastardize the sport to create fraudulent excitement for the benefit of people who aren't even fans of the sport. I mean, my god.

His quote literally says it all. "You're always going to have your wrestling fans." To translate, he's saying that he thinks so little of wrestling fans that no matter what garbage they put out there, the actual fans of the sport will always come calling, so they might as well pay more attention to casual or non-fans.

Your way of thinking, that we cater only to the hardcore fans, has led us to the point where there are only the 70ish schools (for now) competing.

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

Your way of thinking, that we cater only to the hardcore fans, has led us to the point where there are only the 70ish schools (for now) competing.

Please re-read my post and tell me where I said we cater only to hardcore fans.

I said making drastic changes to the sport in an attempt to woo casual and non-fans is disastrous.

I mean, dual meet championships? Give me a break.

 

[MSU158]

Please re-read my post and tell me where I said we cater only to hardcore fans.

I said making drastic changes to the sport in an attempt to woo casual and non-fans is disastrous.

I mean, dual meet championships? Give me a break.

Couldn't disagree with you more. But, it does further my point that arguing this topic is the equivalent to arguing politics. You aren't going to change each others minds and will most likely only end up with either side digging even further in.

My last comments are simple. Why does a tournament with an arbitrary amount of Individual Qualifiers better determine a Team Championship than having a team have to have all 10 of their guys wrestle against another team's 10 guys? What if the Individual Tournament only included the guys from the top 8 teams? Top 16? To 10? Hell, Top 4? Remember, just last season tOSU beat PSU at B1G's just because of the makeup of Individuals at that tournament.

Finally, I am not saying that the Tournament Format is not a good way to choose a champ. But, I don't see how it is even remotely superior to a dual format.

 

[140wildcatv2]

I'm sure we could come up with all sorts of crazy rules that would make tons of teams relevant at the end! Wow, look, we just manufactured some fake excitement!!

Please explain to the class whats crazy about this proposal or the idea of adding a dual meet championship? Dual meets are already a core component to the sport and are easier for fans to follow/understand. It sounds like they're hoping for two championships which would mean NOTHING would change with the current tournament and they'd just add some duals and a dual tourney to crown a champion after the current tourney.

However, lets say the NCAA says it won't sanction the two championships and they decide to take the team scoring component out of the individual tourney are people going to stop attending or watching it? I have a ridiculously hard time believing if you stopped scoring the current tourney attendance and tv ratings would crater.

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

Couldn't disagree with you more. But, it does further my point that arguing this topic is the equivalent to arguing politics. You aren't going to change each others minds and will most likely only end up with either side digging even further in.

My last comments are simple. Why does a tournament with an arbitrary amount of Individual Qualifiers better determine a Team Championship than having a team have to have all 10 of their guys wrestle against another team's 10 guys? What if the Individual Tournament only included the guys from the top 8 teams? Top 16? To 10? Hell, Top 4? Remember, just last season tOSU beat PSU at B1G's just because of the makeup of Individuals at that tournament.

Finally, I am not saying that the Tournament Format is not a good way to choose a champ. But, I don't see how it is even remotely superior to a dual format.

Without getting into a lengthy post, the simplest way to explain it is that dual meets do not do a good job exploiting relative differences between wrestlers, and they severely under- and over-value wrestlers depending on matchups.

The easiest examples are (i) when two top guys wrestle, such as #1 vs #2, and a team gets no credit for having the second best wrestler in the country at the weight, and (ii) when two below average guys wrestle, and a team with one of the two below average wrestlers gets THE EXACT SAME CREDIT as a team with the #1 guy.

Tournaments tease out those relative differences. Instead of having distorted results such as one below average guy pinning another below average guy in a random outcome, they appropriately assign those wrestlers zero value. And instead of giving a team with the second best guy at a weight no credit (because he's wrestling the #1 guy), they appropriately give him a bunch of points, albeit fewer points than the champion.

Now, perhaps you take issue with the scoring rubric -- that's a reasonable complaint that can be addressed. But dual meets, as a format, make no sense, and they certainly make no sense when you have superior tournament scoring, i.e., where you can appropriately ascertain the value of each wrestler vs the field at a given weight.

 

[The Vak]

Without getting into a lengthy post, the simplest way to explain it is that dual meets do not do a good job exploiting relative differences between wrestlers, and they severely under- and over-value wrestlers depending on matchups.

The easiest examples are (i) when two top guys wrestle, such as #1 vs #2, and a team gets no credit for having the second best wrestler in the country at the weight, and (ii) when two below average guys wrestle, and a team with one of the two below average wrestlers gets THE EXACT SAME CREDIT as a team with the #1 guy.

Tournaments tease out those relative differences. Instead of having distorted results such as one below average guy pinning another below average guy in a random outcome, they appropriately assign those wrestlers zero value. And instead of giving a team with the second best guy at a weight no credit (because he's wrestling the #1 guy), they appropriately give him a bunch of points, albeit fewer points than the champion.

Now, perhaps you take issue with the scoring rubric -- that's a reasonable complaint that can be addressed. But dual meets, as a format, make no sense, and they certainly make no sense when you have superior tournament scoring, i.e., where you can appropriately ascertain the value of each wrestler vs the field at a given weight.

Tournaments also almost entirely remove the chance for an upset. Upsets are the lifeblood of sports. Nobody complains if "the best" NFL team doesn't win the Super Bowl. The "best team" not winning is not a flaw in a sports system, it's a feature.

ETA: This is all accepting your argument to be true. I do not, in fact, believe this to be true. I think there's real value in building up a competitive top to bottom line up. As to "overvaluing" some lesser wrestlers because one match happens to be unranked vs. unranked....well that happens in all sports. How many basketball games or football games are won because of a mistake by one of the lesser players, or a great play by a lesser player (see: David Tyree helmet catch)? It's a GOOD thing.

 

[Inspiteofourselves]

Someone may have already suggested this. What if the NCAA had a team dual national champ, and individual national champ and a overall national champ.
Similar to gymnastics, track(indoor/Outdoor) The USA were freestyle wrestling world champs but took 3rd or 4th overall. Have a weighted scale for dual champs. Example. 8th 10pts, 7th 15pts, 6th 25pts, 5th 32pts, 4th 40pts, 3rd 48pts, 2nd 60 pts, 1st 72pts.
Technically it could be possible to get 2nd place in both nationals and be the overall champ. Just a thought from a die hard wrestling fan. Carry on.

 

[HoundedHawk]

WOB alert - former alum is impossible!

WOB? Maybe if he said farmer alum.

 

[natchrlman]

I apologize for misrepresenting your views. That being said neither this proposal nor any other that I've ever heard has argued going to strictly a dual format. Pretty much everyone that argues for the dual tournament is arguing for either two championships, a hybrid system, or simply taking team scoring away from the individual tourney and awarding a team title to a dual team champion. So you seem to be afraid of and arguing against something that isn't on the table and as far as I know hasn't ever been. That being said far more teams would be relevant in a dual team setting than in the current format as can be shown by teams like Mizzou, VaTech, and NC ST and their dual success vs tourney success.

Okay - I get triggered every time they bring this up and I go off the deep end. But - one final comment - last year we had a 3-day championship tournament with 340 wrestlers from 70 schools participating - no sport can touch this and I hate it when I feel people are trying to screw with it. Peace.

Couldn't agree more!!

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

Tournaments also almost entirely remove the chance for an upset. Upsets are the lifeblood of sports. Nobody complains if "the best" NFL team doesn't win the Super Bowl. The "best team" not winning is not a flaw in a sports system, it's a feature.

Oh, see I like when the best team wins. I personally find it odd when a 15-1 team loses the Super Bowl to a 9-7 team (even if I hate the Patriots). And I DESPISE the format of the NCAA basketball tournament.

But I get that upsets happen, and to be fair it's not like there aren't any upsets at the NCAA wrestling tournament -- there are a ton! What I don't like are rule changes with the goal being to artificially increase upsets and level the playing field. That's where I take a huge issue with the proposals.

So when someone says "we should do X because it will increase upsets", I think that's a poor reason.

 

[4girlsanddad]

(Best 16 year old girl voice)

I mean, like, what are they doing, oh my god!!

 

[natchrlman]

Couldn't disagree with you more. But, it does further my point that arguing this topic is the equivalent to arguing politics. You aren't going to change each others minds and will most likely only end up with either side digging even further in.

My last comments are simple. Why does a tournament with an arbitrary amount of Individual Qualifiers better determine a Team Championship than having a team have to have all 10 of their guys wrestle against another team's 10 guys? What if the Individual Tournament only included the guys from the top 8 teams? Top 16? To 10? Hell, Top 4? Remember, just last season tOSU beat PSU at B1G's just because of the makeup of Individuals at that tournament.

Finally, I am not saying that the Tournament Format is not a good way to choose a champ. But, I don't see how it is even remotely superior to a dual format.

Without getting into a lengthy post, the simplest way to explain it is that dual meets do not do a good job exploiting relative differences between wrestlers, and they severely under- and over-value wrestlers depending on matchups.

The easiest examples are (i) when two top guys wrestle, such as #1 vs #2, and a team gets no credit for having the second best wrestler in the country at the weight, and (ii) when two below average guys wrestle, and a team with one of the two below average wrestlers gets THE EXACT SAME CREDIT as a team with the #1 guy.

Tournaments tease out those relative differences. Instead of having distorted results such as one below average guy pinning another below average guy in a random outcome, they appropriately assign those wrestlers zero value. And instead of giving a team with the second best guy at a weight no credit (because he's wrestling the #1 guy), they appropriately give him a bunch of points, albeit fewer points than the champion.

Now, perhaps you take issue with the scoring rubric -- that's a reasonable complaint that can be addressed. But dual meets, as a format, make no sense, and they certainly make no sense when you have superior tournament scoring, i.e., where you can appropriately ascertain the value of each wrestler vs the field at a given weight.

I'm honestly not trying to be argumentative... usually agree with your posts...but I personally think you are way over thinking all this

Like Forest said "I'm not a smart man" but I really have no idea what you're trying to accomplish with this intertwining the duals.... dual tournament and the individual tournament....the individual tournament is a great event on its own and wildly popular...if we have to have an official dual tournament champ then wrestle and score it on its own....I'm not understanding why you need to reward a team for having a highly ranked wrestler in a dual.... just wrestle the dual and score it by match results like it's always been done....some of the most exciting wrestling events I've been to have been dual meets at Carver... hard to believe 12000 wrestling fans screaming at the top of their lungs during a competitive dual mind them meaningless...I have to agree with what Pablo's said.... I love the sport as it is and have for a long time....Not seeing the need to make all these changes

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

I'm honestly not trying to be argumentative... usually agree with your posts...but I personally think you are way over thinking all this

Like Forest said "I'm not a smart man" but I really have no idea what you're trying to accomplish with this intertwining the duals.... dual tournament and the individual tournament....the individual tournament is a great event on its own and wildly popular...if we have to have an official dual tournament champ then wrestle and score it on its own....I'm not understanding why you need to reward a team for having a highly ranked wrestler in a dual.... just wrestle the dual and score it by match results like it's always been done....some of the most exciting wrestling events I've been to have been dual meets at Carver... hard to believe 12000 wrestling fans screaming at the top of their lungs during a competitive dual mind them meaningless...I have to agree with what Pablo's said.... I love the sport as it is and have for a long time....Not seeing the need to make all these changes

I don't think we're in disagreement. I'm advocating not making any drastic changes, and I'm certainly not advocating that we replace the tournament format with a dual meet championship to determine team champions.

 

[natchrlman]

You know I reread your post and get that now...I had it mixed up with a post that was suggesting taking points awarded from dual results and adding them to the team scores at the individual tournament

 

[artradley]

Without getting into a lengthy post, the simplest way to explain it is that dual meets do not do a good job exploiting relative differences between wrestlers, and they severely under- and over-value wrestlers depending on matchups.

The easiest examples are (i) when two top guys wrestle, such as #1 vs #2, and a team gets no credit for having the second best wrestler in the country at the weight, and (ii) when two below average guys wrestle, and a team with one of the two below average wrestlers gets THE EXACT SAME CREDIT as a team with the #1 guy.

Tournaments tease out those relative differences. Instead of having distorted results such as one below average guy pinning another below average guy in a random outcome, they appropriately assign those wrestlers zero value. And instead of giving a team with the second best guy at a weight no credit (because he's wrestling the #1 guy), they appropriately give him a bunch of points, albeit fewer points than the champion.

Now, perhaps you take issue with the scoring rubric -- that's a reasonable complaint that can be addressed. But dual meets, as a format, make no sense, and they certainly make no sense when you have superior tournament scoring, i.e., where you can appropriately ascertain the value of each wrestler vs the field at a given weight.

Nonsense. Dual meets expose gaps in your roster and rewards having above average guys at every weight. The best "team" is the team that's strong from top to bottom. You can have no entry in a weight at Nationals and do just as good as a team with an above average wrestler, but it would be exposed big time in a dual meet -- as it should.

Further, the better team will always be determined by a head-to-head match between two teams. That's simply undeniable. We don't decide the football champ through a Punt Pass & Kick competition.

 

[FrontHeadlock2]

Nonsense. Dual meets expose gaps in your roster and rewards having above average guys at every weight. The best "team" is the team that's strong from top to bottom. You can have no entry in a weight at Nationals and do just as good as a team with an above average wrestler, but it would be exposed big time in a dual meet -- as it should.

Further, the better team will always be determined by a head-to-head match between two teams. That's simply undeniable. We don't decide the football champ through a Punt Pass & Kick competition.

What's up with your awkward football and punt/pass/kick analogy? Lol are you really trying to compare a team sport to a collection of individual athletes? I'm incredibly confused.

Your first comment is just a matter of perception. Perhaps you take issue with the scoring rubric at nationals more than anything. Essentially what you're saying is that you value 10 wrestlers who are each the 15th best guy in their weight class (i.e., not all-americans), vs 4 NCAA champions and 6 guys who don't make the NCA tournament, is that right?

The NCAA tournament IS a matchup between two (and more) teams. Each weight class performs against the field and then the scoring rubric determines how each team did against the entire field of wrestlers.