Opening Week College Wrestling Thoughts..

It has been a while since I have posted, since my excursion to the World Championships in Uzbekistan actually. After taking some time to decompress it is back to the grind.

The opening week of the College season has come and gone and there are some initial takeaways I’d like to throw out there just for fun.

I got the chance to watch the All-Star Classic Saturday evening and it was some excellent wrestling top to bottom. Mike McMullan had an impressive victory over NCAA Champ Nick Gwiazdowski, James Green looked great against an electric Ian Miller and Alex Dieringer looks solid moving up a weight to 165 after winning the title at 157 last year.

Given all the incredible performances on the night, I have to say I was most impressed by Scott Schiller. The gopher looked so focused taking on the reigning NCAA Champ J’Den Cox. Yes the match went to overtime, yes the experimental rules (which I will address shortly) came into play and yes it’s only the first match of the season, but from my viewpoint Schiller completely outwrestled Cox. His technique was sound and his motor never quit. Will this result hold up in March? Perhaps not, but I give Schiller the edge over Cox and the rest of the 197 field at this point.

Now to the experimental rules, I think we saw one that could be great for wrestling, a true game changer, and we also saw a ho-hum rule that will hopefully not be implemented.

First, the rule I thought was excellent to watch, allowing the scoring party to return to neutral after scoring a takedown or reversal and not giving up an escape point. Absolutely love this concept. Why not reward the aggressive wrestler who takes a risk, completes a scoring action and wants to do so again without be penalized? Too many times have I seen a wrestler get six or seven takedowns in a match yet only be up by four or so points simply because they have to give up an escape point to return to work in neutral. Dominant wrestlers will be in for a treat if this rule gets pushed through. Let’s separate the great from the average and no better spot to do so than from neutral in my opinion. I am all for it.

Second, the new stalling/out of bounds interpretation, Scrap it.  If you want to create action in the center of the mat implement a pushout rule. Plain and simple.

It was also an impressive week for some young talent with freshmen Nathan Tomasello, Bo Jordan, Kyle Snyder and Bo Nickal winning open tournaments. Having seen all but Jordan multiple times on the freestyle circuit this was no surprise in my eyes. Definitely excited for this crop to say the least.

Moving forward I hope to do a NCAA reaction piece every week or two. Today I will leave you with my preseason (kind of) NCAA Champion selections. Have at me!

125: Nahshon Garrett (Cornell)

133: A.J. Schopp (Edinboro)

141: Logan Stieber (Ohio State)

149: Devin Carter (Virginia Tech)

157: James Green (Nebraska)

165: Alex Dieringer (Oklahoma State)

174: Robert Kokesh (Nebraska)

184: Gabe Dean (Cornell)

197: Kyle Snyder (Ohio State)

285: Adam Coon (Michigan)