Recruits & Transfers
- Thread starter cywr89
- Start date
Top uncommitted high schoolers (according to Flo's Pound for Pound rankings) are Jax Forrest (2026), Luke Lilledahl (2024), Koy Hopke (2024), Angelo Ferrari (2024), Cody Merrill (2024), Ben Davino (2024), and PJ Duke (2025). Out of that group, I would say program changers would be Jax Forrest (but hes a few years out), LL, Angelo Ferrari, and Davino.
Those two heavyweights are 2024 though, which wouldn't impact McDermott since he only has one year left. If it's the Harvard heavy, I wouldnt call him "program changing"
Hope they're flipping a committed kid, because Lilledahl makes the most sense of the uncommitted kids.
Yeah, the amount of talent they get is ridiculous. The log jam they will have from 165-197 will be interesting with Haines, Facundo, Barr, the Mirasola twins, Zack Ryder, Joe Sealy, etc. That is a lot of top guys and an extremely talented wrestler will end up on the bench that could start at almost any other school
I'd imagine it's almost certain that one of the Miralsolas will be at heavyweight, but yeah the absolute overload of talent they'll have is insanse. They'll basically go two deep with blue chippers at most weights and then have the leg up on everyone if they need to fill a spot via portal.
This has been a thing in the past as well though and history has proven that it doesn’t pan out for them. They were supposed to be loaded with talent from 125-149 a couple years ago and had no place to put them all (Teske, RBY, busiello, Howard, some others I can’t remember). Between guys on their roster and guys coming in, it was supposed to be a massive log jam. With the transfer portal you will see guys leaving. Also, if you look at their roster they aren’t 2 deep now at hardly any weight where you can point to a stud backup.
I think the first step we need to take, is qualify all 10 weights.
Go from there. Heck, Iowa won it all in 2021. PSU can be beaten.
Go from there. Heck, Iowa won it all in 2021. PSU can be beaten.
I’ll disagree here. Penn state doesn’t qualify 10 guys and they know it doesn’t take 10 to win it. The way ncaa championship scoring is formulated you need 3-5 really, really, really good guys to be able to win it. Next, you will need another 2 to 3 guys who can score some points and probably sneak on the podium. It really takes about 8 guys, maybe 9, but 3-5 of them have to be scoring 15-23 points. It will be the only way to compete with penn state.
The top performers matter more than the overall depth. Arizona state qualified just 5 guys and finished 7th… 5. But they had a 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th. You can be a trophy team with 5 or 6 really tough kids.
That makes total sense. So what you are saying is to "concentrate resources" so to say, to get hammers at more than one weight but not spread to thin that you get average across the board.
I gotcha.
There was a year in the Bobby Douglas era where ISU only qualified 5 guys and finished 2nd (albeit a fairly distant 2nd) -- because those 5 went 1-2-2-4-5.
