Penn State wrestling won their 12th national championship this weekend. They have won 11 of the last 13, and this was their third in a row. It is just an impressive display of dominance. They wrapped up the team title on Friday, fairly early. They ended up setting the all-time record for team points, and beat the second place team, Cornell, by 100 points. The Nittany Lions finished with eight All-Americans, four champions, and even more impressive: Carter Starocci and Aaron Brooks became 4x National Champions, a feat that has only been achieved by five other wrestlers (Pat Smith–Oklahoma State, Kyle Dake–Cornell, Logan Stieber–Ohio State, Yianni Diakomihalis–Cornell, and of course Cael Sanderson–Iowa State).
I need to talk about the dominance of Penn State wrestling since Cael has taken over as the head coach. Since 2011, the Nittany Lions have 38 individual champions, Cornell is second with 14. It is not just the absurd number of champions that make them dominant, it is the way they win. They rack up bonus points in the majority of their matches, hence why they were able to break Iowa’s record of 170 points in the 2017 tournament.
For the non-wrestling fan it is hard to understand how dominant they have been through the years. The dynasty discussion usually ends up comparing them to Alabama, but that is not really an apt comparison. What the Nittany Lions are doing would be akin to the Crimson Tide winning a college football playoff (with 12 teams) every year for a decade, and winning every game by 30-40 points. Or maybe better yet, imagine the 2019 LSU Tigers, a team that dominant, but they do it for five years. Just absolutely destroying opponents.
There was a funny moment during the tournament when one of the ESPN commentators (I believe it was Daniel Cormier) mentioned how close the team race was because if some kid won this match, his team would jump from tenth to fourth. Then he realized what he said, and was like “there is tons of parity in college wrestling, except for Penn State, they are just at a different level.” He is correct, the sport is probably in the best shape it has been in decades. If I remember correctly, wrestling is the fastest growing high school sport, which is crazy considering twenty years ago, schools were cutting programs left & right. You would hear about colleges dropping wrestling, and now they are adding them back, as well as bringing in women’s wrestling.
The transfer portal and NIL money affect the sport as well. Yes, it is easy for Sanderson to recruit the best. But he seems to be particular in the type of wrestlers he targets. Not just in style, but also in mentality. The transfer portal makes it difficult for small schools to build long-term successful teams, but it should also mean that the bigger programs can reload quickly and create more super-teams, and yet they have not been able to knock Penn State off the top spot.
And the future continues to look bright for Penn State. If you look at the top twenty recruits in the country, seven of them are committed to PSU. They also have plenty of firepower coming back next year, including a few guys that were injured or redshirted. Life is good in Happy Valley!
