I wouldn't redshirt him. Everyone knows Meeks is going to be a great one. Don't wait. At this point, Meeks could never beat Ramos and probably next year too. I want to see him wrestle tomorrow.Looks like 9AM for sure, here's the press release.
Cyclones To Open Season At Harold Nichols Open - Iowa State University Athletics Official Web Site - [url]www.CYCLONES.com - The home of Iowa State Cyclone Sports[/URL]
One thing that caught my eye is that both Meeks and Terukina are wrestling unnattached. I wonder if that's an indication that they won't make a call on Meek's redshirt before Midlands. It might be a good idea to do so - against Old Dominion and North Dakota State we shouldn't need him, and against Iowa he wouldn't make a difference even if he managed to beat Ramos.
In that case I am hoping for Meeks to impress. Not that he couldn't use a RS, but if this team is going to turn around, he needs to show more this year than Shayden. No offense to the kid, but he was massacred last year, and will probably never be the type of wrestler to compete for a title, or even AA. Meeks has to do those things, or this program will only fall further.Neither Shayden nor John has used their redshirt and I would guess that the one that fares better tomorrow will start against Old Dominion and the other will redshirt.
I am honestly upset at the number of ranked wrestlers we have preseason. There is no way we should have as few as we do. I'm a Jackson supporter, but this is getting a bit ridiculous.
The only weight where we have a returning starter that isn't ranked it 157, maybe 149 if you count Mayfield. Preseason rankings are just blindly thrown darts and I guarantee our new guys will start showing up in the rankings soon. We find out starting today, and will know for sure after Midlands, if our guys have improved as much as we hope they have.
Personally I think last year was rock bottom and we start the climb back up this year. Spangler and McCauley not being in the lineup means this year won't be what we were hoping for, but the improvement is there. We actually have some depth now and the hiring of Nickerson addressed a big issue from last year. We'll be a much better dual team and should qualify most of the team for NCAAs in March and should have a few guys go fairly deep. And if that's not the case... then I'll agree KJ has to go. But I'm holding out to see what happens this year before I make that call.
If they do fire KJ after this year whoever comes in will be in an insanely better position than KJ was when he got here. We have a young team that is improving with lots of depth and a few years to grow. When Cael bolted he left a great senior class and literally nothing else behind it.