It's always a stupid comment, posted by the lowest IQ guys on the board. No major team has been as active as Iowa in the portal in recent years.
Portal April 1st
- Thread starter sdvike
- Start date
It's always a stupid comment, posted by the lowest IQ guys on the board. No major team has been as active as Iowa in the portal in recent years.
Agreed. He was pretty advanced physically and thrived accordingly against high schoolers. I'm interested to see how he fares once that advantage evens out. Maybe still damn good. What do I know?
Ross is unbelievably strong for a small heavy and he will be faster than anyone he wrestles. He will be a top 4 guy next year if he doesn't win it all. Absolute Hammer.
We were talking about Merrill. I have no reason to disagree with you about Ross.
Hammer...he's a hammer. Or an absolute hammer. Some tournaments even give out hammer awards. Getting hammered, literally. You want a team filled with....hammers.
Thanks Captain Obvious. It's a stupid statement most anytime the general riff raff on this site make it. Glad you caught that.
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Ross is a hammer but he did struggle against Mirasola (Freestyle) who is a fringe AA, and had very close matches with Merrill from ISU. Ross could very well light it up next year, but heavyweight is near impossible to win as a freshman.
Yeah, but you left out all those guys who won it all at PSU. I’m sure it was an oversight.Dean went from 2nd place at Cornell to 1st at Penn st, to 7th at Penn st... sounds like regression to me
Hildebrandt wrestled the full season. Truax regressed, frame it how you want, he finished higher for cal poly then Penn stm.. Teske was a big time recruit that flopped at Penn st, so did Teasdale... but you frame it how it fits your argument
He didn’t recruit his two ncaa champs from last year. Some of you guys don’t want to give that man credit.
So obvious, it didn't process in your brain before you posted...
Strikes me as a kid who could be a high floor "lowish" ceiling type. Won't have to worry that he will get bounced early at nationals but also won't ever feel kike a true title threat.
I hate to count him out for a title at this point, but get what you're going for. Seems like a safe bet to have a good career. Will it be great? We will see.
Yea I would never completely rule him out from getting a title. Hell, lucas davidson made the finals and I would've never predicted that. Heavy is funny in that way. But with the style and offensive output of other guys and the way modern heavies wrestle, I'd be surprised if he does win a title.
Captain Obvious... so obvious... you couldn't figure out what I wrote. I'll dumb down the comically simple nuance for you even more next time. I hope that helps you. Class dismissed.
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And have been. Hell they bought the most controversial guy in the portal last year. But if we've learned one thing about Nebby fans is they're quite tone deaf.
Heavy is a weird weight class. There are very few high-end recruits that come into collegiate wrestling at that weight...and about half of those are coming in around 230 and need to put on weight. When there are dominant dudes at the weight, they run roughshod over everyone. When there aren't, it's chaos. Football takes a lot of the guys that would be college heavyweights which shrinks the overall talent pool pretty significantly.
Just to illustrate what I mean, here's the 285 pounders on Flo's 2nd Big Board for the 2024 recruiting class.:
12-Navarro Shunke-Football at KSU (legit heavyweight)
16-Sean Kinney-Football at Lafayette (legit heavyweight
24-Parker Ferrell-Wrestling at VT (undersized heavyweight)
26-Dillan Johnson-Football at Wisconsin (undersized heavyweight)
54-Aiden Fockler-Wrestling at Central Michigan (undersized heavyweight)
60-Daniel Herrera-Wrestling at ISU/??? (legit heavyweight)
87-Will Sather-Football at Princeton (legit heavyweight)
That's basically a snapshot of these guys entering their junior wrestling season. The final big board looks a lot different because the better ones weren't wrestling. It's hard for those heavies to pass up better scholarships, Rev Share (or more Rev Share), and better NIL opportunities. When you start looking at the 133-197 kids, there isn't that kind of movement. The elite kids typically stay the elite kids because they are sticking with wrestling.
Here's a list of the wrestlers that were in that class around Shunke in that release of the Big Board:
Aedon Sinclair-3rd @ 184 in 2026
Cody Merrill-2nd @ 197 in 2026
Brock Mantanona-5th @ 184 in 2026
Connor Mirasola-Josh Barr backup at 197
Aden Valencia-1st @ 149 in 2026
Rune Lawrence-NCAA qualifier in 2026 (1-2)
Beric Jordan-Did not qualify
Grigor Cholakyan-NCAA qualifier in 2025 (0-2) redshirt in 25-26
You are really missing the point... Cael And David are good coaches CAUSE THEY DRAW THE MOST TALENT...not one of Vega, Jax, Robideau, Merrill were like man Taylor is a great coach, thats why I pick Okie St... dude was a coach for 15 minutes when he started drawing in the top talent, no one knew what kind of coach he would be... they picked him CAUSE ITS DAVID TAYLOR... the same was for Cael, these guys are not polishing turds , they polishing diamonds... I dont get why thats so difficult for people to understand... no one os saying they are bad coaches, their NAME is what is making them great coaches cause everyone wants to go to where the big name coaches are... yiu could argue Schwab does more with less , so hes probably better at actually coaching, hes just never bringing in big talent
And your comment on overlooking the psu titles from transfers... Dean 1 (then regressed) , Messenbrink 2, Kirkvliet 1... and who else won 1 as a transfer?
Duckunder your posts are spot on. I cannot believe how many Hawk fans do not get this.
Polishing diamonds is super easy. That's why Iowa has killed it with blue chip recruits over the last decade.
But hey...let's go round and round on this again. It would be fun, because you'd get wrecked...again. lol
Spoonfed,
You’re probably in the minority — just because you have 3 people on a message board to agree with you doesn’t mean you’ve won any argument.
it’s called a difference of an opinion! Live with it
All “blue chips” are not equal
You think the majority of people here think coaching doesn't matter?
Agreed. But it isn't just a case of Iowa just picking the wrong ones and PSU and others picking so many right ones.
That’s a convenient way to put yourself in a win-win when it’s clear that Cael has out developed TnT.
Is it hard to believe that Carl Outcoaches and out recruits the Brands Brothers? I think it is pretty obvious that their wrestlers get better every year. It doesn't mean that the Brands don't develop or recruit (gotten better), but to say that Carl isn't heads and shoulders above them is not being realistic. You can't say that about DT yet. Shown he can recruit and might be one of the best at Coaching for NCAA's (only two years to go off of.) Hasn't had to develop anyone yet but he will show what he can do.
Correct. Haines and PK were both blue chip recruits, with Kennedy rated a little better than Haines as a recruit. Haines won 2 NCAAs and was 2nd and 3rd in his other 2 season, while PK was a 2-time AA with a 3rd and a 4th and got teched by Haines in the semis in their senior year. If instead PK went to PSU and Haines to Iowa, PK would have been a multi-time champ while Haines would be competing just to be on the podium every year. You have to have blue chips, but it's the program/culture/coaching that gets more guys over the top at PSU (and now at Ok St).
No reason to throw shade on Schwab, he's done as good or better than could be expected given his resources.
Recruiting follows coaching, and championships make recruiting easy. Cael wasn't really out-recruiting Iowa in the beginning in the 2010-2013 timeframe, but when they started winning championships every year and the subsequent generations of kids saw PSU elevate their guys to champions, the blue chippers started to busting down the door to get in. Why wouldn't they? It's only been two years, but it's looking like the same thing is happening with DT and Ok St, too. In year one, DT elevated two grad transfers from AAs to champions and in year two coached three true freshmen from his first recruiting class to championships (with Jax it probably doesn't matter who the coach is, but Vega and Robideau were significant underdogs coming in to the tournament). They don't have the numbers to overtake PSU yet, but if those results continue to hold, the blue chippers are going to be busting down his door to get in. All of this is sucking talent away from Iowa because equivalent wrestlers aren't getting the same results in the Iowa room with TnT.
He had zero AAs this year
You must be kidding on this example. PK as a multi time champion...Right
That's unfortunate. It's also harder to get to the front when you start in the back of the pack.
Yea I have to agree, I don't think Kennedy is a PSU style guy at all and I think Iowa was a far better fit for him. Not sure if Iowa would have done any better with Facundo either.
Man, imagine if y'all bring in crookham and Shapiro and every match is just eggshells because they could both win against anyone or be severely injured in the blink of an eye.
I agree PSU has out developed Iowa, but the statement is true nonetheless
I didn’t say anything about PSU winning titles with transfers. I think it takes good recruiting and good development, and if we can get a transfer who wins a title that’s icing on the cake.
I said what I said. The longer Iowa keeps thinking the way you are, the longer and deeper this drought will become. PK was a higher level recruit than Haines.