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No. 22 Rutgers Wrestling In Tulsa for 2023 NCAA Championships

Hopefully the weights shake out and Peterson, Shawver, Olivieri, Soldano, Poz are all in the lineup next year. Couple that with NQs in White, Clark and Boone and try and snag a transfer at 165 and the team should be better next year.
Yeah.. we will be a better dual team no doubt.. but realistically only Peterson, Soldano, and Poz might be in AA contention next year .. meaning where will our points be coming from at nationals.. we r missing that Ash/Suriano/Seabass stud rn.. relying on someone to jump huge lvls the following year is kinda just wishful thinking.. but yeah we will have a nice dual team core.
 
Yeah.. we will be a better dual team no doubt.. but realistically only Peterson, Soldano, and Poz might be in AA contention next year .. meaning where will our points be coming from at nationals.. we r missing that Ash/Suriano/Seabass stud rn.. relying on someone to jump huge lvls the following year is kinda just wishful thinking.. but yeah we will have a nice dual team core.
I wouldn’t put a ton of stock into the standings just yet. Not until you’re sending 9-10 kids to nationals and 5 or 6 of them are containing for AA status. The standings (rightfully) get skewed by champions and one champ can make a program with 1 NQ look better than it really is.

Right now Rutgers should be focused on getting multiple AA’s again. If they can do that, they can finish 25th place for all I care and that’s still a good season. Either way, the trend back upward has to happen soon.
 
This would seem to be the most important comment Goodale made

"We need to be challenged in our own room. At the beginning of the year Dean and Shawver challenged each other and were really good for each other. That needs to happen at 10 weights. That’s kind of what I’m talking about.”

He needs to improved the quality of depth across nearly all weight classes. I know it's not easy to do but that is the obvious issue.
 
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Si
This would seem to be the most important comment Goodale made

"We need to be challenged in our own room. At the beginning of the year Dean and Shawver challenged each other and were really good for each other. That needs to happen at 10 weights. That’s kind of what I’m talking about.”

He needs to improved the quality of depth across nearly all weight classes. I know it's not easy to do but that is the obvious issue.
With all due respect to the current assistant coaches (Donnie not included). You need decorated AAs in the room working out to help attract that top talent. I know people are going to come at me with pitchforks, but its reality. You sit down in front of a blue chip recruit and you sell the facilities, and you sell the history and you sell the coaching staff. And outside of Donnie, that’s not a great sell to a kid who wants to be a multiple AA. They dont know who these other guys are, nor should they. And they certainly don’t care that they are “nice guys”. They are looking for people that are going to help them develop and get better. Molinaro was that guy, ashnault was that guy. We need to bring in another 1 or 2 of those, on staff.
 
This would seem to be the most important comment Goodale made

"We need to be challenged in our own room. At the beginning of the year Dean and Shawver challenged each other and were really good for each other. That needs to happen at 10 weights. That’s kind of what I’m talking about.”

He needs to improved the quality of depth across nearly all weight classes. I know it's not easy to do but that is the obvious issue.
"That’s kind of what I’m talking about"
Great, but tell us how you're going to get it done. We can all talk about it.
 
Si

With all due respect to the current assistant coaches (Donnie not included). You need decorated AAs in the room working out to help attract that top talent. I know people are going to come at me with pitchforks, but its reality. You sit down in front of a blue chip recruit and you sell the facilities, and you sell the history and you sell the coaching staff. And outside of Donnie, that’s not a great sell to a kid who wants to be a multiple AA. They dont know who these other guys are, nor should they. And they certainly don’t care that they are “nice guys”. They are looking for people that are going to help them develop and get better. Molinaro was that guy, ashnault was that guy. We need to bring in another 1 or 2 of those, on staff.
Yes, but probably more than one or two. You make a good point about what you can say to attract a kid. I've asked that before... why would the top kids come to Rutgers? There has to be a good reason for a kid that is serious about his wrestling career. Ashnault came to help build the program. Most kids care more about their own interests, and they're not buying it. If Rutgers ever gets serious about building a program, they have to do things differently. I don't see any evidence of doing anything differently, just the recognition of some of the things we need without knowing how to get them done. But plenty of excuses: money, weather, campus, yada yada. It won't be easy, and there is recent evidence that coaching candidates won't take the jobs when offered. That's troubling.

How many NJ kids were in the AA rounds? If we had only landed half of them...
 
He needs to improved the quality of depth across nearly all weight classes. I know it's not easy to do but that is the obvious issue.
So we need better depth? I think we need better starter top end talent. A better depth guy wasn't or isn't going to make Clark, Shawver, White, Kanniard, anyone at 165, Janzer or Boone a blood round or AA guy. If Goodale's solution is to find better depth, we'll be looking at 11th B1G's/ 35th nationally a lot more.
 
Man, Feldcamp from Clarion (184) had a great tourny. Soldano mopped the floor on him early in the season.
 
Yes, but probably more than one or two. You make a good point about what you can say to attract a kid. I've asked that before... why would the top kids come to Rutgers? There has to be a good reason for a kid that is serious about his wrestling career. Ashnault came to help build the program. Most kids care more about their own interests, and they're not buying it. If Rutgers ever gets serious about building a program, they have to do things differently. I don't see any evidence of doing anything differently, just the recognition of some of the things we need without knowing how to get them done. But plenty of excuses: money, weather, campus, yada yada. It won't be easy, and there is recent evidence that coaching candidates won't take the jobs when offered. That's troubling.

How many NJ kids were in the AA rounds? If we had only landed half of them...
I find it more disturbing that coaches have turned down the opportunity to come here than anything else. The old excuses (facilities, scholarship count, attendance, support) have all been rectified. Only thing missing is top tier training partners and an additional stud coach with wrestling credentials.

I think bringing Buxton in will help from a technical standpoint and I believe he will pay off in spades down the road. But need a young gun with name recognition to help with recruiting. What is keeping coaches offered from accepting the position?
 
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So we need better depth? I think we need better starter top end talent. A better depth guy wasn't or isn't going to make Clark, Shawver, White, Kanniard, anyone at 165, Janzer or Boone a blood round or AA guy. If Goodale's solution is to find better depth, we'll be looking at 11th B1G's/ 35th nationally a lot more.
Yeah fair point. I guess my thought is the more talent (depth) you have at each weight class the better the starter will be.

You are right that at some weights we don’t have a legitimate conference competitive starter no less depth.
 
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Yeah fair point. I guess my thought is the more talent (depth) you have at each weight class the better the starter will be.

You are right that at some weights we don’t have a legitimate conference competitive starter no less depth.
I think there are a few decent to good starters, but the depth comment from Goodale didn't sit well with me. To me Peterson is top end talent and a kid from the get go with future AA written all over him. Did Shawver help a little, sure, is he the difference maker, no way. Young or not he needs to infuse some more starting talent from the transfer portal. The recruiting misses have put this team into a hole. Living on "hope" that they drastically improve is not the way you want to go into next year.
 
I think there are a few decent to good starters, but the depth comment from Goodale didn't sit well with me. To me Peterson is top end talent and a kid from the get go with future AA written all over him. Did Shawver help a little, sure, is he the difference maker, no way. Young or not he needs to infuse some more starting talent from the transfer portal. The recruiting misses have put this team into a hole. Living on "hope" that they drastically improve is not the way you want to go into next year.
I think you need both. I pointed out earlier in the year that our best wrestlers were at weights where there were top flight backups/redshirts. Peterson and Shawver had each other. Alvarez had Olivieri. Soldano had Poz. Granted all those guys aside from Shawver were high level recruits as well.

We absolutely need top end talent. We seem to get 1 or maybe 2 every year. We need to be grabbing 5. If we do that, the depth problem shakes itself out.

I think Goodale meant that he doesn’t want to be in a situation like the other weights where you don’t have a hammer, but you also don’t have any better options. For example, if Boone wasn’t up to speed this year, what was option #2? We saw that and it was ugly.

We don’t have to have 10 hammers in the lineup with 10 hammers backing up. Penn St doesn’t even have that. But we do we need to go into big 10 duals with at least 7 guys who can hang with anyone. We can’t walk into a match against Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana where our best case scenario is a 5-5 split with bonus advantage.
 
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If what was reported is true, I still have no idea how White beat Mike Van Brill in anything on the mat.
White wrestles 149. MVB wrestled 141. Even if MVB was older and the better wrestler, it just shows how big of a jump the weight classes are.
 
White wrestles 149. MVB wrestled 141. Even if MVB was older and the better wrestler, it just shows how big of a jump the weight classes are.
MVB wrestled 149 his senior year.
 
Hope the program doesn’t fold but if it does you have to think we’d be among the favorites to land Santaniello unless he wants to go to Pitt with his brother.

I would not complain about John Smith getting canned though. I don’t know why that’s even a possibility but I will crack up if it happens.
 
I think you need both. I pointed out earlier in the year that our best wrestlers were at weights where there were top flight backups/redshirts. Peterson and Shawver had each other. Alvarez had Olivieri. Soldano had Poz. Granted all those guys aside from Shawver were high level recruits as well.

We absolutely need top end talent. We seem to get 1 or maybe 2 every year. We need to be grabbing 5. If we do that, the depth problem shakes itself out.

I think Goodale meant that he doesn’t want to be in a situation like the other weights where you don’t have a hammer, but you also don’t have any better options. For example, if Boone wasn’t up to speed this year, what was option #2? We saw that and it was ugly.

We don’t have to have 10 hammers in the lineup with 10 hammers backing up. Penn St doesn’t even have that. But we do we need to go into big 10 duals with at least 7 guys who can hang with anyone. We can’t walk into a match against Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana where our best case scenario is a 5-5 split with bonus advantage.
What we need is more top end “star” talent if we want to score points at nationals.. depth is great if you want to win duals and have backups for backups.. but you don’t want so much depth where it creates log jams for quality starters that’s called roster management..

For example, look how much depth and talent we had at the lower weights this year.. but how many actual points did it yield at nationals this season??? Then we had to have Shawver lose a eligibility season and worry if he would end up transferring out.. Olivieri burnt and a RS and someone else did transfer out.. all for how many pts at nationals… what ever happened to Ramos and that florida kid we got too did they quit??? This is just too much depth in one area especially if they are all similar lvl and timeline imo.. Cael is underrated in his ability to roster management.. we just got a bunch of “talent” all similar talent/weight n lvl n rolled a Yahtzee dice of who wins can stay n losers can leave or quit while neglecting some other weights.

We don’t have 10 hammers in the lineup like Penn st.. but say if we start w/ 5 hammers we want them spread out over 10 weights vs having our 5 hammers share 3 weights w/ other 2 backing up.. roster management is underrated and top end talent over depth if we wanna score more pts imo..
 
Shane Griffith is debating using his 5th year of eligibility so we need be to throwing everything at him to get him to come home, wrestle his last year in NJ and get him a job on Wall Street or whatever he wants to do.

Would be an answer to our prayers at 165 at least for 1 year.
 
7 All Americans were from NJ. Unfortunately, none were on Rutgers. Team went from # 9 in country in 2019 and to # 34.

During season, coach reminded us it is all about March.

Do you believe changes are needed or should we stay the course. If changes needed, what should they be?
 
Shane Griffith is debating using his 5th year of eligibility so we need be to throwing everything at him to get him to come home, wrestle his last year in NJ and get him a job on Wall Street or whatever he wants to do.

Would be an answer to our prayers at 165 at least for 1 year.
Why would he come here, what does our wrestling room have to offer him? I think some of you guys are fooling yourselves if you think this is an easy fix.
 
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Shane Griffith is debating using his 5th year of eligibility so we need be to throwing everything at him to get him to come home, wrestle his last year in NJ and get him a job on Wall Street or whatever he wants to do.

Would be an answer to our prayers at 165 at least for 1 year.
Ummm Stanford network is a helluva lot deeper than Rutgers. Don’t think he will be worried about job opportunities.
 
Btw Rider and Princeton finished ahead of us. SMH. We talk about packing the rack. Duals don’t finish top at At Ncaas.

Plus our first time 4x NJ champ had two natty champs and finished 3rd. Mike Grey.
 
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Despite Rutgers poor team score, that was the most entertaining tournament in years. So many upsets, AAs not placing, the Lee loss, Vito destroying Fix/RBY, Yanni 4x, two national champs facing each other for the 3rd time in a month, Penn State finally losing in 3 finals, Paris winning. Awesome event!
 
7 All Americans were from NJ. Unfortunately, none were on Rutgers. Team went from # 9 in country in 2019 and to # 34.

During season, coach reminded us it is all about March.

Do you believe changes are needed or should we stay the course. If changes needed, what should they be?
Interesting question that hasn’t been discussed here
 
Despite Rutgers poor team score, that was the most entertaining tournament in years. So many upsets, AAs not placing, the Lee loss, Vito destroying Fix/RBY, Yanni 4x, two national champs facing each other for the 3rd time in a month, Penn State finally losing in 3 finals, Paris winning. Awesome event!
This was my first time at the Finals. It was a great event.
 
If what was reported is true, I still have no idea how White beat Mike Van Brill in anything on the mat.
It was true. That's why the coaches don't use wrestle offs to decide who starts. Wrestle offs are used if the team has a dual meet to start the season. Normally the staff will decide who starts using tournaments/common opponents.
 
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It was true. That's why the coaches don't use wrestle offs to decide who starts. Wrestle offs are used if the team has a dual meet to start the season. Normally the staff will decide who starts using tournaments/common opponents.
Yep, and I’m not even sure if wrestleoffs should be used for an opening dual either. Wrestleoffs shouldn’t go beyond youth level where you have cut and dry reasons for why each kid is on the A B or C team.

If Spencer Lee and Sebastian Rivera were teammates, Lee wouldn’t have been a starter 125 for most of his career.
 
Yep, and I’m not even sure if wrestleoffs should be used for an opening dual either. Wrestleoffs shouldn’t go beyond youth level where you have cut and dry reasons for why each kid is on the A B or C team.

If Spencer Lee and Sebastian Rivera were teammates, Lee wouldn’t have been a starter 125 for most of his career.
A starter gotta be decided for opening dual somehow.. a wrestle off for first dual until common opponents/tourney results seems pretty fair… what do u suggest they do for first dual flip a coin instead ?
 
A starter gotta be decided for opening dual somehow.. a wrestle off for first dual until common opponents/tourney results seems pretty fair… what do u suggest they do for first dual flip a coin instead ?
In football, you don’t pick a starting quarterback based on how they perform directly against one another. You don’t pick a starting point guard in basketball from 1 on 1 either. You evaluate months worth of how they look against everybody available, not just each other.

Wrestleoffs are fine as data points. But as a whole you have to evaluate the entire offseason in the practice room.

I’ll use Peterson/Shawver as a hypothetical example just because they’re of similar abilities at the same weight. Let’s say Peterson is consistently beating Heilman and Britton in the practice room and hanging in tight with Olivieri, while Shawver is getting mauled by those guys. Then Shawver beats Peterson in a wrestleoff 5-4. Who has the better body of work? You can have common “opponents” within the practice room.
 
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In football, you don’t pick a starting quarterback based on how they perform directly against one another. You don’t pick a starting point guard in basketball from 1 on 1 either. You evaluate months worth of how they look against everybody available, not just each other.

Wrestleoffs are fine as data points. But as a whole you have to evaluate the entire offseason in the practice room.

I’ll use Peterson/Shawver as a hypothetical example just because they’re of similar abilities at the same weight. Let’s say Peterson is consistently beating Heilman and Britton in the practice room and hanging in tight with Olivieri, while Shawver is getting mauled by those guys. Then Shawver beats Peterson in a wrestleoff 5-4. Who has the better body of work? You can have common “opponents” within the practice room.
Can’t really compare team games, football and bball to 1v1 combat sport imo..

The problem with common room “opponents” can come back to familiarity and can be subjective depending on which day.. still think a wrestle off for first dual starter is most fair and objective way until more data points/common opponents/tourney results are collected to determine season/postseason starter..
 
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