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Time for Iowa Wrestling to put Tom Brands on the hot seat.

iowajerms

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Penn State is the standard of college wrestling right now. Ohio State is right there as well. Oklahoma State is not the standard of college wrestling but has not lost the standard for their style of wrestling (side-to-side motion, create angles for shots). Iowa has been the standard for the powerful, attack style that Gable gave them 4 decades ago. Now they are starting to lose that standard.

For Iowa in wrestling, finishing Top 3 is acceptable. Finishing outside of Top 3 is considered a disappointment. Gable set that standard that is still around 2 decades later, but we are more forgiving when it happens here and there. Last 4 seasons, Iowa finished Top 3 once. They had 5 years of Top 3 finishes (which starts off with 3 consecutive NCs).

Iowa is currently 9th rank in the popular WIN rankings with 5 (out of 10) wrestlers ranked and 3 in Top 3. They barely beat Rutgers and Illinois. They used to go to the toughest tournaments, now they are avoiding them, when teams like Penn State, Ohio State, and Oklahoma State dominate them.

Should he be fired yet? No. But I would give him 3-4 years to get Iowa a serious NC contender (still have a chance to win in final round).
 

wingsauce7

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Penn State is the standard of college wrestling right now. Ohio State is right there as well. Oklahoma State is not the standard of college wrestling but has not lost the standard for their style of wrestling (side-to-side motion, create angles for shots). Iowa has been the standard for the powerful, attack style that Gable gave them 4 decades ago. Now they are starting to lose that standard.

For Iowa in wrestling, finishing Top 3 is acceptable. Finishing outside of Top 3 is considered a disappointment. Gable set that standard that is still around 2 decades later, but we are more forgiving when it happens here and there. Last 4 seasons, Iowa finished Top 3 once. They had 5 years of Top 3 finishes (which starts off with 3 consecutive NCs).

Iowa is currently 9th rank in the popular WIN rankings with 5 (out of 10) wrestlers ranked and 3 in Top 3. They barely beat Rutgers and Illinois. They used to go to the toughest tournaments, now they are avoiding them, when teams like Penn State, Ohio State, and Oklahoma State dominate them.

Should he be fired yet? No. But I would give him 3-4 years to get Iowa a serious NC contender (still have a chance to win in final round).

Just curious, If you are giving a time limit, why 3-4 years? It's not like he needs time to install his program. He's been the HC since 2006 and won NCs in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Why has there been such a drop off with the program?

Who are the up and comers you see that could re-light the program?
 

iowajerms

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Just curious, If you are giving a time limit, why 3-4 years? It's not like he needs time to install his program. He's been the HC since 2006 and won NCs in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Why has there been such a drop off with the program?

Who are the up and comers you see that could re-light the program?

One easy name actually committed a few months ago, but everyone knew he was going to. Nelson Brands (Sr) of Iowa City West, I think Terry's son, is a takedown machine. He won state last year. Last year, he had 485 tackdowns and allowing 8 takedowns.

Carter Happel of Lisbon is a 4x state champion and his father is a 3x state champion. He is currently Iowa's 141 with a 5-2 record. His younger brother, Cael, is a sophomore that won state this season. He currently is leading the state in takedowns. I don't see why they cannot have him commit to Iowa in a few years.

157 - Michael Kemerer is a sophomore on the Iowa roster. Placed 3rd last season in the NCAA Tournament and is one of 3 wrestlers Iowa has ranked in the Top 3 right now. With Jason Nolf at #1, it would take a huge upset for him to win it, but I can see him in the finals.

HWT Aaron Costello is a small HWT (at least he was at districts last season) but is good. He is a 2x finalist, won state last season and lost to cross Dubuque rival the season before (who is at Iowa State). He placed 5th at Fargo. He doesn't have a big name yet, but I think he can come out of nowhere at the HWT class.

Spencer Lee is a freshman this year from PA. He won state from freshman-junior year and was runner up as a senior. Gave up 3 takedowns in his career up until his final high school match. PA produces more NCAA D1 All Americans from their high schools than any other state.

RS Fresh Sam Cook was a beast in high school. Not sure how he is doing at the college level. He was a 2x state champ.

A huge grab that I would love to see Iowa get is this Mason City's 106 Cullen Schriever. He went undefeated last season as a freshman. He was ranked #1 last season in preseason, as a freshman. Won 2 freestyle national tournaments and won a Greco national tournament. Got 6th at a folkstyle national tournament. He is undecided, probably will be until after next season.
 

iowajerms

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Here is an article from The Predicament (Iowa-based wrestling magazine. They mainly cover high school and college wrestling from Iowa, but they cover little kids and international as well). Here they list 8 high school wrestlers that have stood out to them that are returning. - https://www.desmoinesregister.com/s...best-prep-wrestlers-2017-18-season/911962001/

  • Waukee's Kyle Biscoglia (120, Sr) - going to Northern Iowa. Will be going for his 3rd state title.
  • New Hampton's Michael Blockhus (138, Sr) - going to Northern Iowa. Will be going for his 4th state title. Placed at national tournaments
  • Iowa City West's Nelson Brands (160, Sr) - going to Iowa. Will be going for his 3rd state title. Ranked 8th nationally by Intermat.
  • Albia's Aden Reeves (126, Jr) - going to Campbell University. Going for his 2nd state title, beat Biscoglia last season's state finals.
  • Mason City's Cullan Schriever (106, So) - Going for his 2nd state title and is undefeated in his career.
  • West Des Moines Valley's Joel Shapiro (182, Sr) - Going for his 2nd state title. Ranked 7th nationally by Intermat.
  • Fort Dodge's Brody Teske (126, Sr) - Going for his 4th state title and is undefeated in his career. He is going to Penn State. Got 2nd at Fargo in freestyle in 2016 and 3rd this past summer.
  • Underwood's Alex Thomsen (126, Sr) - Going for his 4th state title and lost his 1st HS match to Teske 2 weekends ago. Teske had to rally in the 3rd to beat Thomsen. He is going to Nebraska.
Out of the Top 8 wrestlers in the state, one is committed to Iowa and one is undecided. The one that is committed to Iowa is blood-relative to the head coach and son to the assistant coach.

I remember Brands went to Virginia Tech because he was disappointed in Jim Zalesky for letting Don Bosco's Mack Reiter (4x state champ) to go to Minnesota. That was his last straw. Now here Brands is letting many top recruits slip to UNI and ISU. Even to Nebraska.
 

wingsauce7

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Good info. I agree with your comments about letting homegrown talent get away. Is Iowa just not recruiting hard in the state? I can see losing out on a guy like Teske going to PSU (I guess), but UNI? maybe they don't have the grades?

What coaching possibilities are being thrown out there?
 

iowajerms

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Good info. I agree with your comments about letting homegrown talent get away. Is Iowa just not recruiting hard in the state? I can see losing out on a guy like Teske going to PSU (I guess), but UNI? maybe they don't have the grades?

What coaching possibilities are being thrown out there?

Former Hawkeye wrestlers under Gable are the coaches at the 3 Iowa teams. Tom Brands is the HC at Iowa, Kevin Dresser at Iowa State (was hired this offseason and put together a great assistant coaching staff), and Doug Schwab is the coach at UNI. Dresser is also the coach that took over Virginia Tech when Tom Brands left VT for Iowa.

Once he gets his team established, I think the Iowa-ISU rivalry will be back. ISU has been way down and they did fire their coach because of it.
 

Draft Crazy

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I don't follow wresting much, but being from Iowa obviously you know what is up.

I feel like at Iowa it's championship or bust!
 

Draft Crazy

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I feel like basically 6 teams ever win a college wresting championship.
 

wingsauce7

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Big win for Iowa over Okie St yesterday. I was super impressed with Sorenson and his 8 takedowns, but disappointed in Laux losing big @ 133.

It'll be interesting to see what happens at 184 with Downey coming back this week? Bowman did a great job filling in.

Got a match @ Ohio St next Sun that will tell us a lot.
 

wingsauce7

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Really disappointing showing for the Hawks over the weekend. 27.5 points behind Mich for 4th, no individual champs. WTH is going on in IC?

Is this the new reality?
 

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Brands better step his game up. I am not into wrestling, but can't have that with the Iowa program.
 
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