“Something just didn’t feel right on my visit.” 

That’s the first inkling that Cadet world medalist and recent Oklahoma State signee Travis Wittlake had that maybe he didn’t make the right decision in verbally committing to Penn State. The top-ranked 182-pounder in the country first pledged to the Nittany Lions during his junior year alongside Roman Bravo-Young, who has since signed with PSU, via Skype. At that point, Wittlake had taken an unofficial visit to Penn State, but it was the only campus he had seen in his recruitment.

About a year later, the Oregon native realized that something just didn’t add up. Before going on his official visit to PSU, he took one other trip — to Oklahoma State.

“When I got back from Stillwater (OK) I was thinking, ‘Wow, I really like that.’ And then [PSU coach Cael Sanderson] came to visit me in my hometown and just being around him took away that doubt. I was 100 percent Penn State.”

From Visit to Decommitment

However, Wittlake started to feel doubts again when he went on his official visit to Penn State.

“I got a little home sick,” Wittlake said. “It was just a feeling and not a bad feeling, but it was just different, a different place and a different atmosphere than what I was used to. Then I came home and me and my dad had many, many talks about it and laid out the pros and cons of both school and I still really didn’t even know after that.”

Time passed and he was still up in the air about if he was going to go through with his initial decision or make a change. But besides the feeling he had on his visit, what else changed for him? In a lot of these cases, the speculation has come down to scholarship money or the size of the offer. In Wittlake’s case, that wasn’t the issue.

“After I made my verbal my offer actually went up a little bit,” Wittlake said. “So that wasn’t the issue. All the coaches at Penn State are straight up about everything so there was really nothing like that that happened at all."

The Switch

Ultimately, Wittlake switched his commitment and signed his National Letter of Intent to Oklahoma State. After weighing his options, he felt that heading to Stillwater was just a better decision for him.

"It just fits me,” he said about the atmosphere at Oklahoma State. “They like to hunt and fish, and I just felt like I fit in better there. When I thought about the two schools I took wrestling and the coaches out of it because no matter what I’d be getting a great coach and a great team, it came down to how I felt just being there and I felt more at home in Stillwater."

The Pressure of the Recruiting Process

Wittlake is content in his decision, but he said there are some aspects of his recruitment that he wishes he would have handled better.

“It’s tough going through the recruiting process,” he said. “At first it was super cool on September 1 my junior year when all these coaches called. I had over 25 different schools that were calling and then it got to the point where it was every day and I couldn’t get off the phone. It got really overwhelming.”

It was that pressure, along with his longtime fandom of Sanderson, that may have been a catalyst for Wittlake’s early commitment.

“I don’t like to disappoint people, so when I’m talking to these coaches I didn’t want to tell them, ‘No,’” he said. “I’m a straightforward guy, but it’s tough telling these coaches, ‘No.’ And I didn’t really feel like I had a ton of control either. I knew it was my decision, but that pressure to commit does get to you. And when I’m getting these calls, Penn State was the only place I’d been to and had always been a fan.”

Wittlake's early commitment took the number of schools calling him from 25-plus down to just a few and helped to relieve the pressure of constant calls and texts, but it was certainly not the reason his initially chose the Nittany Lions.

“It was a dream to wrestle for Cael Sanderson, and I liked the school so at that point it was kind of a no-brainer,” he said. “And even though I was a little overwhelmed with all the calls, I wasn’t committing to get rid of the pressure, but I definitely felt it at that point.”

In the end, Wittlake learned a lot about the process, but he is glad it has finally come to a close. 

“When it starts out, it’s great,” he said. “Getting to talk to all these legends of the sport that you’re talking to almost every day is a dream come true, but then you start to feel the pressure as the calls and texts keep coming which makes it nerve-wracking and overwhelming.”

He went on to say:

“I wish that I would have been more up front with coaches and told them how I felt, but as a 16-year-old kid talking to these big-named guys you don’t really know what to say and it’s tough to say you’re not interested. So for the guys that are about to go through it, make sure you take your visits. It’s something that I wish I would have done. But take your visits and wait to make your decision, especially when you’re on campus because when they get you on campus, they really want you to commit and it’s hard in person to tell somebody no. So wait it out, look at other schools, and be straightforward with people.”

Watch Travis Wittlake against Aaron Brooks.