We've completed another week of rad wrestling from the 2024-25 NCAA D1 season, and we're here to recap it for you!

Box Scores | Rankings | Last Week's Roundup

It was a fairly light week of competition as many teams were recovering from the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational (which ruled). With limited results to examine, I figure now's as good a time as any for a brief digression, in which I will answer the question: "Do dual meets matter?"

Regular readers of this blog will know I absolutely believe duals matter. Dual meets are, in my humble opinion, the lifeblood of the sport. They are the engine that powers the collegiate season. Without duals, there would be no season, no season, no fans, etc. 

Duals also matter to the sport's stakeholders. Wrestling is an individual sport, but it takes more than competitors and coaches for the sport to thrive. To maintain the level of funding that many D1 programs enjoy you need buy-in from school administrators, alumni, donors and the community at-large. You need to demonstrate to these stakeholders that your program has value. And the best way to generate enthusiasm from stakeholders is with raucous college rivalries, which are best expressed in head-to-head team competitions. 

When people say "duals matter", this is what they mean. 

However, in another more specific way, duals, in fact, do not matter. 

And that take is not driven by opinions, but rooted in the rule book. The NCAA team championship is in no way whatsoever affected by a school's dual record. Athletes qualify for and are seeded at the NCAA Championship tournament based on their individual record within the weight class. How their team did in the competitions they participated in while they amassed their individual records is entirely inconsequential. 

A team can lose every dual meet on their schedule and still qualify all ten wrestlers for the NCAA tournament. You can win a team title with a 0-20 dual meet record. 

Now, performances in dual meets and tournaments is correlated; teams with bad dual meet records usually have bad NCAA tournaments, however, it's still a fact that neither directly affects the other. 

And that is what people mean when they correctly state that dual meets don't matter. And that's why the answer to the original question depends on the context of the conversation. 

Sorry to anyone looking for a simple answer!

Now the next question: because duals are so important to the wrestling stakeholders, should the rules change to make dual meet performance a factor in determining the final standings in the team championship race? 

I'll leave that discussion for a later blog. Until then, we've got some noteworthy happenings from last week to roundup! 

The Dual of the Century, of the Week

Iowa State Takes The Bison Back To School

Sunday afternoon's dual between Iowa State and North Dakota State took place in Humbolt High School, located in Cyclone head coach Kevin Dresser's humble hometown of Humbolt, Iowa. When Dresser wrestled for the Humbolt Wildcats, he cut such an imposing figure he was known as the Humbolt Homunculus (I made that last sentence up but I think it would still be a good nickname). 

This is the fourth year in a row that the Clones have wrestled in Humbolt High, and after today they are on a three-dual winning streak. 

Always a good time, Humboldt! 😎

🌪️🚨🌪️ pic.twitter.com/V0zJKC5iIt

— Iowa State Wrestling (@CycloneWR) December 15, 2024

Below is the box score. 

Iowa State 27, North Dakota State 12

125: Tristan Daugherty (NDSU) over Ethan Perryman (ISU), D 6-2

133: Osmany Diversent (ISU) over Kyle Burwick (NDSU), D 7-3

141: #25 Jacob Frost (ISU) over Kellyn March (NDSU), TF 17-2 (6:46)

149:  #26 Gavin Drexler (NDSU) over Carter Fousek (ISU), D 4-1 SV-1

157: Cody Chittum (ISU) over Gabriel Schumm (NDSU), F 4:50

165: Boeden Greenley (NDSU) over Manny Rojas (ISU), D 5-4

174: Aiden Riggins (ISU) over Devin Wasley (NDSU), MD 12-2

184: Nando Villaescusa (ISU) over Aidan Brenot (NDSU), D 9-6

197: Tayshaun Glover (NDSU) over #15 Christian Carroll (ISU), D 8-5

285: Daniel Herrera (ISU) over Drew Blackburn-Forst (NDSU), F 3:59

You can watch replays of the dual by clicking here. 

• Cody Chittum notably made an appearance for Iowa State, which means the true sophomore won't be redshirting this season. 
  • Chittum was in a hole early in the match but hit a splendid cement mixer to earn the win via pinfall.

Cody Chittum was trailing 6-3 headed into the third period, but he ended the match with a deadly cement mixer (or gator roll, or whatever you call it)! #ncaawrestling pic.twitter.com/Au7kPspQ4V

— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) December 15, 2024

• The upset of the dual occurred at 197, where NDSU's Tayshaun Glover bumped up from 184 and knocked off #15 Christian Carroll 8-5. 
  • Glover is a true freshman and could still redshirt. Great under-the-radar recruit with a very high ceiling for the Bison's first-year head coach Obe Blanc!

North Dakota State’s Tayshaun Glover secured 2 takedowns on his way to a victory over #15 Christian Carroll #ncaawrestling pic.twitter.com/NBUSLW6kVL

— FloWrestling (@FloWrestling) December 15, 2024

• Cyclone fans also saw the dual meet debut of Osmany Diversent, who makes his way to Ames by way of Cuba. Diversent won 7-3 over a tough Kyle Burwick. 
• Injuries have not been kind to Iowa State this season: 
  • Iowa State will be without the services of Casey Swiderski and Connor Euton this season. 
  • Anthony Echemendia will likely miss the next month of competition.
  • Yonger Bastida is out of the lineup and it's unclear if he will return this season. 
  • Kysen Terukina is expected back at some point but he has not yet wrestled this season. 
• Several former Bison followed former head coach Roger Kish from North Dakota State to Oklahoma, but Obe Blanc has 11 freshmen currently redshirting and will be well-positioned to jump levels with the Bison in the upcoming seasons. 
• Not wrestling-related, but another reason I chose to highlight this dual is because it was a late addition to the FloWrestling schedule and I know a lot of people worked very hard to put the best production together possible on short notice. And many thanks to the great Jim Gibbons and Shane Sparks for their excellent work on the mics!

Other Things Happened

BEDLAM

College rivalries are the best, and college rivalries with unique names and over a century of history are even bestest. 

Oklahoma State won the 189th meeting against their instate blueblood rival (they often wrestle twice a year, although this season just once). The all-time series now stands at 152-27-10 in OSU's favor as David Taylor begins his Bedlam career with a win. The Cowboys have now won 20 straight Bedlam duals. 

No slowing down.#GoPokes pic.twitter.com/55Jdgv45Jk

— OSU Cowboy Wrestling (@CowboyWrestling) December 14, 2024

The highlight for the Orange and Black was #22 Reece Witcraft pinning #16 Cleveland Belton while down 8-2 in the 3rd period. 

Rutgers Dominate The Kent State Duals

The Golden Flashes hosted three other programs (Rutgers, Buffalo & Gardner-Webb) and held a bunch of duals on their campus in Kent, Ohio. Not everyone dualed each other but Rutgers was the only program to emerge from the weekend undefeated after they beat Garnder-Webb 32-6 and the hosts 42-3. G-W did notch two victories themselves over Buffalo and Kent State. 

Two Mid-Major Upsets: Cal B over Dub Vee and CSU-B over Sparty

California Baptist defeated West Virginia 18-15 and CSU-Bakersfield defeated Michigan State 21-14 to give two California mid-majors wins over two Power 5 programs. 

The Lancers got big wins at 133 and 141, where Richard Murillo pinned Jett Strickenberger in sudden victory and Eli Griffin upset #14 Jordan Titus 5-0. The Mountaineers are still missing last year's fourth placer Ty Watters at 149 who is recovering from an injury. 

AJ Ferrari was back in action after missing the CKLV. He gave the Roadrunners a boost when he defeated Michigan State's only ranked wrestler, #25 Remy Cotton, 13-4. 

PSU Blanks Wyoming In The BJC

The Cowboys were without their two highest-ranked wrestlers, #7 Jore Volk at 125 and #13 Joey Novak, who are both healing up from injuries. Penn State took full advantage and ran up the score on the visitors, to the delight of 7,300 fans who attended the dual in the main sports arena on campus in State College. 

✅ Beau Bartlett
✅ Shayne Van Ness
✅ Levi Haines
✅ Carter Starocci
✅ Josh Barr

Relive all 5️⃣ of No. 1 @pennstateWREST's pins in its 54-0 shutout win over Wyoming 👇#B1GWrestling pic.twitter.com/ojl5KyUh5R

— Big Ten Wrestling (@B1GWrestling) December 16, 2024

JD Rader Is Humbled By The Panthertrain

Northern Iowa beat Nebraska-Kearney 35-8 which isn't all that noteworthy beyond the fact that DII UNK put up a solid performance against a top 10 D1 opponent in UNI. However, our very own JD Rader is a Loper and I wanted to highlight this dual because it's fun to give your friends a hard time about their favorite sports teams. And it's a slow week so I figure we have room in the blog for guys to be dudes. 

Also Parker Keckeisen is a powerful wizard. 

And In Tournament News

There were no tournaments this week. Like, none. 

Pretty rare occurrence for any week in the fall semester, but it happened, and so I've no tournament news to report. 

Heavy Metal Matness

Inspired by an FRL question, I made the topic of picking D1 programs and explaining what heavy metal bands they would be a feature of the roundup. I chose to do so because I like both wrestling and heavy metal music. I will continue to do so until I get bored of the idea or a deadline crunch forces me to jettison any superfluous material from this blog.

Today I will compare the Minnesota Golden Gophers to Snot.

Of all the bands to mentioned in this blog so far, Snot is likely the least popular. They only produced one studio album in 1997, however, it was a perfect album. 

Their music falls somewhere in between nu-metal and funk-rock (so where Korn meets the Red Hot Chili Peppers), and they came rumbling out of Southern California in the late 90s. As performers, Snot fully cooked my circuits when I road the second stage railing for their set at Ozzfest 1998 as a clay-brained teenager.  

Sadly, Snot's gifted frontman Lynn Strait died in a car accident in December of 1998, and the band broke up shortly thereafter. 

But they still had that one incredible album. Similarly, Minnesota had that one incredible season in 2001 where they won a national championship on the strength of 10 All-Americans but no national champs. 

Really the band and the program don't have much to do with each other but that Gopher squad was awesome and it gave me reason to mention them along with one of my favorite bands so why not. 

Listen to Snot and watch the Minnesota Golden Gophers in my opinion. Incidentally, Snot has reformed and just announced a few shows for 2025, with a new lead singer TBD, which is excellent. 

What Would YOU Like To See In This Blog? 

It wouldn’t exist with you so I implore you to provide feedback! 

Send all suggestions, requests, commendations and condemnations to me at [andrew.spey@flosports.tv]. I’m also usually available on Twitter (@speywrestle). News that you'd like to see in this blog is the most appreciated feedback, but proofreading and spell-checking assistance is also welcome! Pobody's nerfect, least of all your humble blogger! 

Thanks for taking time out of your holiday season to read the Roundup! If I were Santa I'd be making note of your behavior and marking you down on my 'nice' list!