Without transfers we’d be another “also ran,” year in and out.
Article: On Tom Brands' future, possible changes for Iowa wrestling | Leistikow
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Did you not watch Woods his last year at Iowa?!? He looked like a shell of the guy that was a questionable reffing call away from winning a national title the year before.
Agree that grip strength is a real thing and definite positive attribute.
I even proved that theory correct when I broke a finger clapping so hard seeing Jacori Teemer's last losing match as a Hawkeye. I was elated I never had to watch that **** again.
So lesson learned. I'm wrapping my hands like a prize fighter when I know the end is near for current and future Jacori Teemer disciples.
I totally understand the product on the mat is a factor in season ticket sales but having duals on Friday (and a Thursday) hurts attendance. I hope the Big 10 can give us a better schedule in the future. Friday night duals make it so a lot of Iowa high school wrestlers & coaches can't attend.
So you’re discounting him making the finals his first year after transferring to Iowa? And he still finished 4th his last year, which was still better than any previous finish before coming to Iowa, while obviously hurt. Your narrative that transfers haven’t been good for the program is beyond stupid. And then when told it’s a stupid take while posters here point out some of our really good transfers, then you say well those don’t count what about just the last 5years?!
You’ve got an obvious agenda and are trying to manipulate the facts to fit it.
Absolutely. I’ll give them credit for getting a Spencer Lee, and everything and everybody he brought with him. Just like I’ll lay the blame for dropping the ball on a committed recruit like Bassett.
We’ve gone away from what made us a good landing spot for Eierman, Lugo, and Woods as a previous poster said. We have one good example of a one year transfer (Buchanan) and a multi year transfer (Mikey C) working out the last five years. We have essentially everyone else (including Woods, who to no surprise to anyone got injured in the Iowa program like everyone seemingly does now) showing why recruiting elite high school talent and the right transfer guys that are going to be in the program for multiple years is how to win in college wrestling.
There was a reason for that. He required neck surgery afer the season to fix the issue. His horespower wasn't there and he had less than 50% grip strength.
Then why do we ***** so much about our guys wrestling more like Star/Telford than TnT? Why has Cunningham been credited as the invaluable technique teacher in the PSU room, the secret sauce in their program who gets paid enough to keep him from becoming a head coach?
No I was not a college wrestler, but I didn't know that was a pre-req to give my opinion on this board. My bad. I responded the way I did because we want to make this all about his fingers. He has wrestled fine but not great this year. And he certainly has been in some good, close matches against quality talent. But I just don't see him AAing with or without new fingers unless he gets on his offense against quality talent. He's a "wrestle to lose close ones" kind of guy in my opinion. He may or may not have a TD; he may or may not have a gas tank. I just don't see AA in his cards. His fault? His coaches' fault? His fingers' fault? I don't know. And please don't compare Bailey's grip strength with Spencer's...that's just dumb.
I know he was I injured. It was obvious watching him. It happens way too much at Iowa.
Hate the injury news but seems like he might be coaching sooner rather than later. Get the contract signed for Yianni to be an assistant!
This is the 2nd year my group of 8 has been without season tickets, I had had season tickets since 2007. Most of those years I also attended Big Tens or NCAA's.
Last year I attended one dual and caught most of the others on TV. This year, I watched parts of several meets but ended up turning it off. The product of Iowa Wrestling is no longer worth my time or money, it is simply no longer fun to watch.
I don't need a return to dominance of the sport to come back, I know those days are over.
I do not think its unrealistic to expect, (especially considering the resources Iowa has):
1. Fun, offensive wrestling
2. 2-3 guys with a realistic shot to be finalists/champs
3. Consistent progression of wrestlers from year to year
4. Team trophy every year.
Last year I attended one dual and caught most of the others on TV. This year, I watched parts of several meets but ended up turning it off. The product of Iowa Wrestling is no longer worth my time or money, it is simply no longer fun to watch.
I don't need a return to dominance of the sport to come back, I know those days are over.
I do not think its unrealistic to expect, (especially considering the resources Iowa has):
1. Fun, offensive wrestling
2. 2-3 guys with a realistic shot to be finalists/champs
3. Consistent progression of wrestlers from year to year
4. Team trophy every year.
Agree, but Bailey proved once he can be a high AA, and it’s been obvious since high school Williams has AA talent and athleticism with his mental game and off mat trouble holding him back. TNT have never been afraid of the challenge of turning around a guy like Williams, but sometimes they fail. Sound like they are willing to continue to try with Williams for his last year if he’s willing. Sounded like getting Desantos to were he was as an upperclassman was a long exhausting process. They don’t have 4 years to work on Williams. Desantos never had the lack of effort for the full 7 minutes problem. In fact he was the opposite, still going after guys after the final whistle and having Tom have to drag him off the mat.
Probably depends on if those transfers think they can show up and put on a similar pathetic effort and get away with it.
Believe it or not, some actually give a damn when they put that Black and Gold singlet on.
Corby seems like the last of the semi connected posters on here. It won't be long before the bellyachers run him off also. Thanks Dick heads.
Nothing against him at all. A bit young and naive when he responded to our fans that his family just wanted what other coaches were doing(Taylor), not thinking they were breaking rules to do it. I still think he would have been fine with the situation of us following the rules if he hadn’t had a bad freestyle season because Stanich and Blaze had his number, and at the same time his teammate Jax was blowing up in freestyle. This is where his and his dad’s ego’s took over, and demanded what Jax was getting , screw the rules. I guess winning at any cost over rules their superior religious morals and values they preached about. I’m sure they got nasty about it, especially his parents, and a guy like Robie probably would have continued to choke on their D to try to buy more time, but they should have known Tom isn’t taking **** or abuse from anyone, and probably did tell them to eat a bag of D’s, thus burning the bridge. I didn’t like how Bo said God told him to leave Iowa after God told him to choose Iowa a few months earlier, and insinuated Iowa is not the program to go to if you are a Christian or you want to be a decent human. I also the God he was referring to telling him to decommit was his dad.
Dude, he was an absolute monster on top and can now barely ride ANYONE! CTFO…
It’s easier to remember the flops than the ones who were as advertised, or better in the case of Cali. Woods was one stupid upper body move that he should have abandoned from being champ in year one. Even then it was a terrible call by the ref that his shoulders were past 45 degrees that turned it into more than a takedown. Both were looking good to win it their senior year until big injuries happened. The flops were more recent also.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Friday night duals have been the norm for a long time, even back during Gable’s heyday of packing the house.
That being said, I have been wanting schools to start scheduling Saturday Quads for a long time as well.
Either way, it is a bad look to be publicly bashing on kids that are on your current roster.
This is just being disingenuous. Woods took 4th while injured as a senior. He was a finalist for the first and only time the year before, and was the 1 seed.
By and large, the portal guys have been a plus for Iowa, and many of them had their highest placement wrestling for the Hawks. The problem is what they represent, a failure to recruit and develop high school guys.
Football sells out. Women's basketball sells out. Men's basketball is up this year because of the product.
It's almost all product decline effecting the wrestling attendance in my opinion.
I almost feel like the younger 2 are being held hostage. Melvin seem like a quiet kid, not a social media *****, who lets his wrestling do the talking. He didn’t even bash us as bad as Bo when he took us off his list, just said family first. I thought someone said after his visit here with Bo last year he was excited to be a hawk. I just have a feeling he wasn’t as excited to suddenly be a Hokie, even though Robie has done an amazing job bring your talent in the past few classes. We are embarrassed we only averaged 6000 fan per home meet this year, even though more tickets were sold, but we’re V tech has their home wrestling meets and basketball games only holds a little more than that. Just to match this embarrassing number for us, they will have to be packed to the rafters. They may do it for a few years, but I doubt it holds up long term like we have.
Plus national wrestling podcasts are all talking about how Iowa fans are pulling away, and want TnT fired. That has to hurt recruiting because our huge supportive fan base and stability in the program has always been big selling point our competitors couldn’t deny.
The coaching dynamics may be different. And it’s kinda funny comparing Cunningham to our assistants, even if just based on results.
It was pretty common to have duals on Sunday afternoon/evening.
You missed the point. The poster said assistants don’t matter or move the needle. Then why ***** about Star/Telford or give so much credit to Cunningham for PSU ‘s long term success. My way of pointing out they do matter, but not as much as the head man. The way to handle this point in Brand’s career and keep most fans happy and let Brands leave with his dignity in tact is to hire a associate head coach who is named head coach in waiting and move Terry to HWC where he has proven to be a good freestyle coach. That may be the only way a young big name would be talked into being an assistant at all. Nolf said he wouldn’t even be interested in being an assistant for red hot old fellow PSU guy Taylor. He knew he would never be promoted there, and I think would need a guarantee in writing to take over a program at a certain time. It would also solve the question mark some big recruits in the 27 and later classes have about who their coach will be their entire time at Iowa. Tom Ryan may not have that problem with their former 4 timer on staff. With Manning I think it is assumed by most kids their top assistant now will take over or better yet JB would. I don’t think our recruits think Star or Telford are our future head guy, and if they do, that would explain the decline in recruiting.
Assistants won’t move the needle at Iowa with current leadership. Full stop.
And it still is. For as long as I can remember, college wrestling was usually scheduled for Friday night and Sunday afternoon. I think the rise of TV coverage resulted in the Saturday scheduling.
And we did not have a Saturday or Sunday home meet this season. They were all Friday night with one Thursday.
There’s nothing stopping the staff from scheduling matches with other schools on one of those open Saturdays or Sundays.
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Yeah I mean you can believe what you want but Keegan Bassett just isn't that good man. very few kids are training freestyle as hard as him from a young age so he gets to worlds and USA always has quicker developing kids at those cadet worlds. But, in folkstyle, he is not special. He's a Ryder Block level kid. Very best case is like, Max Murin, but Murin was a much better HS wrestler than Keegan Bassett.
Also, wake up, it's 2026, relentless wrestling hasn't been an Iowa staple since George Bush was in office.
I hope not bc he does bring some solid insight. But it's also clear any of these guys that are even minimally connected and also known by TnT are terrified to say anything negative about them.
The problem I see is that what Williams and Bailey were is no longer relevant. Currently they’re both R12 at best kind of guys and we shouldn’t settle for R12 guys IMO. Hell, we’ve got plenty of them.
What a joke!! Corby is a paid perception manager nothing more.
Won’t matter as much as you think it will.
Then why the f*ck have we been wrestling him if he’s that injured? He’s been a beast against much weaker opponents so perhaps if he heals he’ll be like that against all opponents. But I think it’s bigger than one or two kids not achieving their goals…
Bc he bumped a weight and didn't add the needed strength to compete at 141. It's been obvious all year, long before he injured his finger. He's been taping fingers on his other hand for at least 2 seasons and like you said, he didn't have trouble riding guys then.