and i genuinely appreciate the wrestling talk. (and gave a hat tip to this board on FRL yesterday. in fact i mention this board often).
Rossel - i didn't mean you, specifically. i meant there was (at the time of that episode) (and still is) a lot of talk about how good a coach Cael really is.
can you find the episode? (you cite the 18min mark). i can't.
i don't know what i possibly could have meant by 'doubters' or 'swagger'. there had to be some context to it.
let me also address this:
"
You followed that with a tribute to how Cael develops talent at PSU, the proof being "look at PSU racking up bonus pts at the ncaa."
and this:
"
An aside... despite the pro-PSU bias"
both connotatively and literally, you're writing something I entirely disagree with.
of course, it's on the heels of a similar perspective by Jammen (whose M.O. as the world's foremost PSU whiner, i couldn't care less about).
the fact of the matter is it's not a PSU bias, and not anything I say about them is not a 'tribute' or a method of sucking up - it's my honest assessment and one I don't really know how any one could argue with.
I don't know why it has to insinuated (or even posited bluntly) that my opinion is an angle. 1) there is absolutely nothing to gain by me (or flo) 'sucking up' to penn state. i mean, what do I get from lauding penn state? nothing. 2) i believe the facts are with me in the debate to conclude if penn state can coach them up or not. Part of the Iowa mystique was that their starters (and even backups) could beat about anyone at any time. When I was a growing up, it was almost incomprehensible how many matches hawkeyes won that they 'weren't supposed to'. I see the same thing in the current incarnation at PSU. In December of '12 Zain Retherford was dead to rights against Joey Galasso in powerade semis. He rode out the third and won in OT. Then beat a FR Mason Manville in the finals, 2-0. The next season, he beat Logan Stieber. A FR Zain shouldn't have been beating Logan. A FR Nolf shouldn't be beating IMAR. A FR Ed Ruth shouldn't be picking apart #1 Mack Lewnes. All this - according to some - is washed away by saying 'look at what they were ranked in HS'. Subjectively - I SEE the development from HS wrestler to what they become in college. There is development there - and leaps. Objectively - PSU had 4 wrestlers that were FR or SO last year win a National Championship. I think it takes almost a degree of insanity to marginalize that by saying they were talented in HS. 3) calling it 'bias', to me, is really aggravating. I work for a media company, I consistently call things how I see them, there is nothing to be gained by 'bias'. IDK why you wouldn't, at the very least, arrive at the conclusion that this is my informed opinion (even if you disagree with it) as opposed to dismissing it as a preference or agenda.
i've said it before and i'll say it again - PSU fans think we're OSU biased because we stream their home duals. Iowa says we're biased because we talk about how good a team that won 6 of 7 are. And the rest of the country say we're Iowa biased because we've done 100 docs and coverages of them. It gets old.
anyway - sorry so long. end rant.
