I thought I was developing Alzheimer’s or something, thinking, “No way Morningstar is older than Cael — or am I just losing it?”
Okie State
- Thread starter The cow catcher
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Lynch is part of your “coaching staff.” So it’s recruit over the AA and ignore the guy with the 500 record? You’re a special group.
And that is exactly why they are in the current pattern of getting top recruits without having to give much money to the college wrestlers. It has very little to do with the quality of coaching. It's about training partners. You learn more from doing than being told what to do 99/100.
You threw this out here but didn’t expand on what AOC said.
This is such a weak response. It's irrelevant whether Brands was the headcoach or not. He was there coaching.
And you found, by your own words, the "smallest of extent Cobe and Max were alike."? Good grief, they both also tried to get some single legs. That's zero indictment of Brands.
And your own words betray your argument. You say, unless they caught someone, both Brands could only try to turn by coming out to the side and putting the arm behind the back. Yet, during their coaching time we see great diversity in how Hawkeyes get people to their back during the Brands era. Spencer with the tilt, and untold other ways. Marinelli with the cow catcher, and 1/4 nelson. Cobe with the throw and funk. Just how many Hawks have we seen use cradles? Many.
Check it out. Good interview. AOC wanted to be a Hawk. He took an unoffcial visit to Iowa on his own. Iowa started the recruiting process late in the game and he felt like it was a slap in the face and ended up at NC. M* is a brilliant recruiter. He's probably the best assistant coach as far as recruiting goes. Iowa seems happy with that, but it could be better & needs to be to catch PSU. It simply isn't about how good Iowa is recruiting now it is about how they can be better & this is a way. A recruiting coordinator will be able to help put Iowa's arms around all the guys that seem to fall thru the cracks that grow up wanting to be Hawks.
AOC said that he grew up a huge Iowa wrestling fan and thought his style was tailormade for Iowa. It sounds like he still have huge reverence for the Iowa style and thinks he fits the mold. Hindsight is 20-20 but if we would have reached out during the initial stage of his recruiting process he was a shew in to be a hawkeye.
Well said. The recruiting game needs to be a highly organized and evaluated process.
May be mis-remembering, but I believe he was at or around the same weight as Nelson so that impacted how much interest we had him on. We were interested, but not a top priority since Nelson was out there
Then that was not a very good evaluation of talent.
I 100 percent agree. But having coaches who can beat you daily is where you improve also.
Have all of you had the conversation you talk about with Tom and Terry? I would think they would listen to guys that had been in the room over message board guys.
Solid post, herkcy. Lots of variables being discussed regarding recruiting. Every program can probably do things to improve in this area, and I'm all for Iowa tweaking things in an effort to improve. I'm sure of this: nobody wants to win championships more than Tom and Terry, and nobody works harder than they do to make that happen. If they think they can make changes that improve their chances of winning titles that are consistent with their ethical standards, I have no doubt they will.
All of that said, I think many of the proposed changes pale in comparison to the one major item that enhances recruiting success in today's wrestling landscape: $$$. Iowa has worked hard to raise $$$ in recent years, including a feat Gary Barta said would never happen -- raising $31M to fund the best wrestling facility in the world that will be connected to the greatest wrestling venue in the world. The HWC has also been hard at work raising $$$ to strengthen the club and thereby strengthen the Iowa program. Iowa has worked diligently to bolster its NIL resources, which are obviously a key to attracting and retaining top talent.
Sure, there are a lot of variables that go into recruiting top talent, but ain't nothin' close to the $$$ -- and we're improving daily in that area.
Any time frame on when the facility will be done? I tried looking that up this morning, but couldn’t find anything.
Same to you, sir. Solid post. 100% agree. I just think at some point we need to quit apologizing for what Iowa doesn't have now/yet and figure out what Iowa isn't doing & start doing it to progress. Absolutely no offense because I get it and totally agree, but there are other answers to closing the gap than money. If we keep concentrating on that answer we'll keep missing other answers.
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100% agreed. Beatty and Co. are already working on endowing the HWC. With that said do we sit back and wait until we have similar cash, or do we work on other aspects that can/need to be worked on? Assuming that isn't your point, but when all everyone talks about is the vast difference in the bank accounts I feel like all other improveable aspects get overlooked, and the $$$ becomes a crutch.
No, of course you work on every aspect of the program that can possibly be improved. I was just pointing out that the $$$ is a massive component of winning team titles these days. I certainly don't view it as a crutch. It's a hurdle we have to overcome in order to finish leveling the playing field. We've made a ton of progress in this regard but there's still a lot of work to be done, and the fact is that fans are an important part of that. We can't assume someone else will solve this problem. Yes, Beatty and co. are working on endowing the HWC, but they're counting on Iowa fans to make it happen. We need to remember this as a fan base.
Iowa has lots of pieces in place already, of course -- best tradition in the sport, a strong coaching staff, best fan support, a very recent national team title with the best team in the nation for 2+ seasons only a couple of years ago, best facilities in the nation as of spring 2024, a growing HWC that's getting a massive injection of talent, etc. That's not to say things can't improve (of course they can), and we should be looking to improve in every way possible.
But you can have lots of pieces in place and keep improving as much as possible and still not get back to winning team titles consistently if you don't address the $$$. Funding is key, and it dwarfs every other aspect of the program in importance. People talk about changes to the staff, etc. -- once the funding is where it needs to be, I think our staff will look better and smarter to our fans. Everything looks a lot better to the fans once you have sufficient funding such that your NIL game is second to none, you're filling the lineup with top-10 P4P recruits, you can attract senior-level medalists to the HWC, etc. Funding changes everything these days. Not a crutch at all -- just reality.
Agreed 100% again. I think we both could go round and round here as I do agree with all your points. With that said I'll agree with you for the betterment of the program and quit trying to make this thread compete with the likes of the Ferrari & Grothus threads. 😉
Yeah, I think we agree on pretty much everything here. I think we're just talking semantics. Definitely on the same team!
Work with a guy whose son wrestled with AOC in high school. He told me AOC felt Iowa ignored him and wasn’t interested in him. He told me this right after AOC committed to UNC knowing I was a big Iowa fan.
And Nelson wrestled how many matches at 149/157 over the past 5 years? The weights AOC won his titles. But K I think Murin and Lugo might have been an issue.
that sounds an awful lot like what Borschel, LeClere, and Slaton were saying about Zalesky in Four Days to Glory. Obviously there are a lot of variables in play but you hope they didn't fall into the same "win 3 titles in a row and Iowa recruits itself" trap.
