not necessary. but that ish still hurts. and the kid makes the finals as a true freshman... le sigh.
What I learned at NCAAs this weekend
- Thread starter vhsalum
- Start date
Yeah, I was the guy who had to drop to get into the lineup. It sucked in a lot of ways. You give up energy and mass. You know what you want to do and what you're capable of doing, but nothing is in the gas tank to do it. Very, very frustrating. I guess I should have enrolled at Oklahoma State. Would have felt at home.
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I have no clue what kind of NIL deal Franek got, but maybe it was because Franek and Caliendo were a package deal? Only one year with Franek but, 3 years with Caliendo, so someone was willing to throw some extra money at Franek.
Now THAT was a prickly old man.That should have been held against him, not in favor
The thing is they don't need the wooden horse, they're already kicking our asses. If anything we need one. I'd say that could be Gilman but I think it would amount to something like this...
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Other than Lugo, COVID essentially just bumped our roster one year. We still should have won two in a row, we had the roster, but didn’t get it done the second year.
Other than Lugo, COVID essentially just bumped our roster one year. We still should have won two in a row, we had the roster, but didn’t get it done the second year.
Don't remember his personality, but you may be right. He was just the guy that Carl forced out before he left for greener pastures in PA.
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I am not following the logic. Essentially the same roster? The missing essential link was Spencer Lee. We were better off physically in ‘20 and ‘21, than ‘21 & ‘22.
I agree we had the roster to win at the beginning of the year, not at the end.
I can agree with you that covid may have hurt us more than others, and that a new facility (sooner) would have/will help. I just think those things are a ways down the list of reasons we aren't performing better right now, or in the future if no other changes are made.
I respect your opinion. It was frustrating watching NCAA’s this year. Losing on our own shots in scrambles. Most of the time we worked hard and got countered. I don’t know why we hit low singles and stop. If I was Ayala, I would have walked back to the middle of the mat instead of chasing Figs around. Caliendo did about as well as you could expect.
Most importantly my buddies and I had a great time. The only NCAA we’ve missed since 01 was New York City.
I don’t have any real answers, however I am frustrated.
The roster we should have had for the 2020 and 2021 championships was essentially the roster we ended up having in 2021 and 2022; because everyone but Lugo got an extra year.
As you even appear to understand, we had the roster in 2022 (thanks to all of our guys having an extra year of eligibility) but didn’t win. That is exactly the same roster we would have had in 2021. So if that roster did not win in 2022, why do we think it’s a given they would have won in 2021? We could have had similar injuries and other misfortunes.
Everyone has different opinions on the issue of replacing the head coach. However, an overwhelming majority on here agree with getting rid of Morningstar and Telford. Why not at least start there. Brands wants yes men. Make that change first, and see if there is any truth to it. I understand that's not as simple as it seems, but that's where I would start.
A name that doesn't get tossed around, is Cenzo. I would place him in a recruiting/portal position. He's been in several programs, and has trained and been connected with so many guys around the country. Has a good presence in wrestling media and a platform already. I would also bring in Hayden Hidlay. He's in the coaching world already, and clearly a very smart individual. Both of those guys have enough respect in the community that could maybe balance out the craziness that the recruits currently see. It's not the crazy shakeup, but it would go a long way to showing where the problem lies. I believe they would be two outsiders that Brands might actually listen to. If not, then you get to clearly see if Brands is that stubborn and the root of most of the problems.
A name that doesn't get tossed around, is Cenzo. I would place him in a recruiting/portal position. He's been in several programs, and has trained and been connected with so many guys around the country. Has a good presence in wrestling media and a platform already. I would also bring in Hayden Hidlay. He's in the coaching world already, and clearly a very smart individual. Both of those guys have enough respect in the community that could maybe balance out the craziness that the recruits currently see. It's not the crazy shakeup, but it would go a long way to showing where the problem lies. I believe they would be two outsiders that Brands might actually listen to. If not, then you get to clearly see if Brands is that stubborn and the root of most of the problems.
Of course there is. The roster that you all project would have won in 2021 was still here in 2022, because of the extra year of eligibility. But that roster did not win in 2022. So how is it a certainty they would have won in 2021?
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Covid really hurt the Lugos, Cenzos and Mark Halls. The 2020 seniors did not even get the opportunity to wrestle in 4 NCAA’s, despite earning it on the mat. Then, the NCAA gives everyone else an extra year. It makes no sense. Conjecture about what would have happened in 2020 NCAAs is just that, conjecture. All that is know for a fact is a whole class of wrestlers got a raw deal compared to everyone else.
Not likely to have won two in a row-either win in 2020 being the prohibitive favorite and wrestlers graduate or win the championship in 2021 with wrestlers having eligibility because of COVID who would not be eligible otherwise.
Ummm, only wrestling in 2021 got you essentially a free year. Those that were to wrap up in 2020 still wrapped up in 2020, despite not having a national tourney.
The covid eligiblity gave everyone in 2021 an extra year to wrestle for 2022, so no those weren’t the two options.
It was already known in 2020 Iowa was projected to be even bigger favorites for the 2021 season because Penn State was graduating Cenzo and Hall. Iowa was only graduating Lugo with Jaydin set to fill in at 141/149.
Memory here - $100K and $30K for Caliendo. Franek was offered $30K by on OU allum.
True. Although I think 2020 was a slam-dunk - they were a few days away healthy and prohibitive favorites. 2021 was a year away, with any kind of potential hiccups that could have messed the season up.
The one individual who I really think got hurt was Spencer. He was absolutely on top of his game, and I think was poised to win a spot on the Olympic team and win a gold medal. On the NCAA front, he was going to breeze through NCAA's, and then he would have just needed one more healthy season (instead of two) to get his 4th title. His career reputation would have been very much enhanced.
He also could have started training for freestyle earlier, and IMO could have been the Olympic prohibitive favorite right now.
His career really got jacked-up, just days away from his 3rd title.
Haven’t we already done the changing assistants experiment?
Fire "yes men" to hire more "yes men"? I don't follow the logic.
I was happy to see caliendo have a competitive match with Otoole, especially when he was down big in 1st period. Fig’s should have been losing points with stall calls by the 3rd period, but since that’s his style, refs just swallow the whistle. I’ve seen them call stalls on a few of our guys while they were actively shooting. The bias can be amazing. Caliendo wrestled all the best 65 this year, and was only dominated twice, at the beginning of the season against Carr, and the second match with MM. Nobody really matches up good with MM. Even Carr barely squeaked it out. If MM goes to 157, Caliendo may want to stay 165, think he matches up better with Haines.
Iowa's pay was significantly higher to the NDSU duo than what Oklahoma had for NIL at the time with Kish just being hired.
I never said yes men. I said outsiders he may listen to. If the current coaches are offering advice, it's clearly not being received.
I thought Tom fired Zadick to bring in Morningstar because of his recruiting skills. If he had the guts to can a popular Hawk like Zadick, ending the Morningstar experiment should not be that hard. With Telford, it’s probably harder to find heavyweight coaches, just like it’s hard to find good heavyweight wrestlers. The guy from Minnesota was pretty good, but he left on his own, which lead to Telford.
I'm not as close obviously, but how many have come from outside the system? Not being a jerk, just don't know.
Zadick wasn't good at playing a yes man.
Any assistant hire he makes will likely be a yes man....that's what he wants. My point is you have to cut the head off the snake to get a change in the program.
O’Connor said Iowa didn’t recruit him. And another guy by the name of Kyle Dake said the same thing.
And almost losing Gilman.
Those are just the ones we know about.
Given he has been fired by multiple schools there are also other things he’s not good at.
I think the idea behind Cenzo and Hidlay is that they wouldn't be yes men brought through the same system, but for it to work, TnT would have to be open to listening to outside opinions. If they are too set in what they are doing, then the outside voices will just fall on deaf ears.
I get what you're saying...as Wahlberg pointed out, I feel like we've tried this approach before, and those "outside opinions" don't seem to last very long. That's why, IMO, trying it again would be futile.
Essentially the same.... except no Spencer Lee in 2022. That's a pretty big piece to be missing Most people are pretty confident that Iowa was rolling in 2020. I even had my first NCAA championship tickets EVER. Then they run it back in 202q, when they really underperformed, but still won the title.
Pretty likely Lee is the champ in 2020 and 2021. Giving his no ACL speech after being a 4 time champ. Freaking COVID.
I'm not sure what different roster moves PSU would have had, if COVID wasn't a thing. That'd be the only way you'd convince me that they WOULDN'T have won in 2021, if 2020 wasn't cut short
I heard Zadick’s popularity was part of the problem. I suspect dirty politics, but idk.
