December 3, 2025 • 45 mins
The MatStats boys analyze the participation numbers of Men’s NCAA Wrestling from 1981-82 to 2024-25. How the new roster cap limits on D1 will affect the numbers and the possibilities to help augment the losses from the roster cap limits.
Slideshow for Episode 49: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/slideshow49.pdf NCAA Stats & Participation Report: Link
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
Slideshow for Episode 49: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/slideshow49.pdf NCAA Stats & Participation Report: Link
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a
batting average, a win percentage, correlations, and standard deviation. But
numbers aren't just for nerds. In life, decisions need data.
In wrestling decisions, projections and hypotheticals also need data. Here
(00:24):
on Matt's Stats we take historical data, theories, and statistics
and apply it to the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerd balls, Glenn Gormley,
Kevin Hazard, and Jason Bryant.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's that time of day, it's that time of month,
it's the same Matt time, it's the same Matt channel.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
As our co host Glenn Gormley.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Says at the end of every episode, now we're going
to say at the beginning of every episode, it's another
episode of the Matt Stats Show, episode forty nine. Along
with Kevin Hazard and Glenn Gormley, I'm Jason Bryant, where
we dive in the stats beneath the sport of wrestling,
underneath the rest light, if you will, or whichever Matt
surface you prefer. It's one of those things that we
(01:08):
dive in. We get to the meat and potatoes of
the matter. How the sausage is made. As Glenn likes
to call it, it's the moneyball of wrestling. Been a
while college wrestling seasons here. We were talking before the
show as Glenn dealt with some old issues with his
computer there. We got through it, we figured it out.
But we had a good kickoff of the season. We're
(01:28):
coming off of Iowa. Ioway stayed on ESPN, we had
the National Duels Invitational. We've got Vegas coming up.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Is the time.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We record this in early December, so it's you know,
I always joke when we're in March, I'm walking around
singing Christmas songs. Well, it is the Christmas season and
it is the.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Most wonderful time of the year.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
And if you cut out on the show, I understand why. Gentlemen,
we start with you, mister Gormley. How have you been
with old Matt's stattery and the SEC football type of
things that are quite a bit in the news lately.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Yes, that guy, it's now Baton Rouge has been the
drama queen that he is.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
That's that's basically you know what you just summed up
what Sports Center could have been for the last month
with just that statement. So we can end the show
right here, folks, Thanks for coming to mat No no anyway. Yeah,
so yeah, mister Kiffin just showed me the money. Show
me the money, Show me the money. Did he name
his dog Oxford after naming his kid Knox? Did he
(02:31):
not make that same mistake with the with with any
other people that he added to the families?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
But I was wondering, Yeah, who knows that the guy?
I'm not a fan of his.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Kevin Hazard your take.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
I don't. I'm also not a fan, but I do
wonder whether they told him they weren't going to let
him coach in the playoffs. I you know, who knows?
It's that's such a cutthroat kind of a thing we've
made on the show. Was going to to you know,
(03:06):
to California. But but he's not a good nice person,
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, we've we've broached the issue of the NCAAA calendar
before and a lot of the things I'm seeing on socials,
which is basically where news kind of emits itself from now,
whether it be on ex Blue Sky, Facebook, whatever. I
don't do the TikTok or the snapchats. I just hate
nobody got time for that. Uh, the The thing is
it's like, well, oh, it's the NCAA calendar, and then
(03:33):
you're looking at, well, coach. You know, they want to
put guardrails on the athletes announcing they're leaving, but they
don't do it on coaches. I get that, but the
same what what I don't understand the calendar, Like a
coach can get fired at any point. You're not going
to tell these independent outlets or organizations businesses is what
they are when they can and can't fire their personnel.
So that's one thing is like, no, you can. You're
(03:53):
not allowed to fire a coach midway through the season,
Okay not yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really gonna work. So
like if Penn State doesn't want to fire James Franklin, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
You're gonna let them. They're gonna lame duck through that season.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
If they're gonna lame duck anyway, But like, uh, you know,
then we got the Brian Kelly payouts, the James Franklin
buyouts that are just they're just nuts, just so much
money going through a sport.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
They're really, where's the ROI on that? That's what I
want to know.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Meanwhile, we've got we got some positivity on the wrestling
side with the National Bulls invitation. Of course pay Com
sponsoring that event down untilso fantastic event. Teams came away
with some big checks and some bonus checks too. The
first day, guys, they did a ten thousand dollars per
round fastest average takedown. Now, for stats nerds, it takes
(04:41):
the first five fastest takedowns and average the time. So
the impetus there was to get action going early. You
didn't want zero zero first period. You're all right, let's
go out there. Each guy goes out and gets a takedown,
so it's like the first takedown of the match. So
you had to get five. So you couldn't be, you know,
lose match nine matches to one and have a thirteen
(05:02):
second takedown and take home ten grant. You had to
have at least five and the average amount. And once
a team hit five, we put it up on the
video board there at the Bok Center in Tulsa, and
you know, Iowa State took home two extra checks, Illinois
took home one, Virginia Tech took home one in addition
to what they got for the prize money for making
Day two. And you know, pretty cool concept and teams
were starting to get behind it too. It's, you know,
(05:24):
something new. We weren't sure how it was gonna work.
You know, it's spaghetti you throw to the wall. See
it works. I think that's one that's gonna stick with
that event. And I'll say this, yes, I was paid
to be there as one of the public address announcers.
I was there with Al Hayzlip working on the microphone there.
And the one thing I found about it is that
this you know, I'm a duel meet guy, have been
since the Virginia Duels when I first attended nineteen ninety five.
(05:47):
There is no reason this event cannot be a destination event,
or if it's something close like Frank Popolosio's Collegiate Duels
that are in Nashville, that can be a destination event.
The Virginia Duels, of course, I want that to be
a destination event. Because we've had forty eight high schools,
a large small college or American College division. There's no
reason we can only have one or two destination events
(06:10):
because I believe we have more than the same eighteen
thousand wrestling fans. So just because you can't get tickets
to Nationals doesn't mean you can't go to something else
like Vegas. Vegas is gonna be a great wrestling event
this coming weekend, not super well attended despite having you know,
I think I looked at one of the flow rankings
this week at just one way class, they had fourteen
rank guys, Like that's half the field. So you know,
(06:33):
if you've got a tournament with half the field is ranked,
why would you not consider going to that? Because you know,
everybody clamors for Vegas. I'll put in Vegas tickets are cheap.
Show up only two tournament, two one and a half
tournaments draw fans. So I like to think that, you know,
Tulsa being what it is with it, you know, travel
is gonna be what it is. I thought they did
a great job. I definitely think Tulsa was much more
(06:54):
event friendly, if if that's that's a way to say it,
than they did when they hosted Thentionals in twenty twenty three.
It felt like the area around the arena while there
weren't you know, there was three times more fans at
the are you know, two and a half times more
fans at the NCAA's a couple of years ago, but
like the arena area around it was was equipped.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
There wasn't as much construction.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Uh you know, I got to see a little bit
more of Tulsa, like you know on those little scooters,
which which Mark McLoughlin say, keep him in business. You
never find yourself any more irresponsible as an adult is
when you're riding around on a Lime scooter. So I
thought Tulsa did did a great job. And you know
Matt Serber with his tournament staff did a great job.
(07:36):
Detric Bombgartner at just just does a Bomberger believe does
a great job of the production stuff. So I you know,
I thought from behind the behind the scenes, under the
hood type of situation, it was great. So to the
point is like that can be a destination event, Like
what's wrong? I mean it was warm. I mean it's
it's you know, early mid November didn't have the ice
storms or anything like that that can sometimes torment to Oklahoma.
(07:58):
But as I say that, as I have you know,
six inches of snow that came down and I was
digging out under eighteen or something.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
So I was a fan of the event.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
We can talk more about those types of statistical things
later on. I realize I'm getting off topic before we
even start our episode, but gentlemen, the dual meat has
always been a contentious part of wrestling, and whether you know,
I'm not going to boil this into a discussion about
should or shouldn't we but you know, it's the dual
meet that introduced a lot of people to the sport,
that introduced me to the sport. It was one of
(08:28):
those things you can sit down, you can follow a
team a lot easier in a lot of ways, and
the dual meat advancement concept is fun for fans. You know,
when you're wrestling, you know, you don't sit there and
have a twenty five pounder and then wait two hours
for your heavyweight to wrestle, and then you know it's
you're dialed in a mat. You can leave between sessions,
come back. It was just generally dual meat events and
tournaments are really very fan friendly.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
I agree, and you talk about the national duels, But
then you had the Iowa Iowa State on ESPN probably
pulled I think it probably pulled good numbers and four upsets.
You know, the rankings kind of went out the window.
I mean a lot of the higher ranked guys won,
(09:13):
but a lot of the lower guys ranked wins on
both sides.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well Yall said, and then speaking of upsets, South Dakota
State South Dakota State over Minnesota with like, I think
Cota five upsets yikes. This week in the NWCA coaches
pulled South Dakota State ranked number eight in the nation,
its highest as a Division IE school. They've been a
D one school in wrestling for about looks.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Like coming up.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I think this is the twenty twenty first year because
Northern Colorado and North Kota State, South Coosta State all
reclassified in that same t I think it was four
oh five. I think they were in that rank three
h four or four oh five in that range.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
That's where we're at.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But anyway, we've got a dive into divisional stuff. As
we kind of segue that, Glenn, we're gonna head on
up and we want you to to handle your inner
Steve Perry, You're inner, Joel Walsh and whoever the new
guy is, who's been in journey for about twenty years
at this point. So we don't want you to stop believing.
(10:11):
Don't stop believing. One of the great crowd in top
of all time that has been your This is probably
one of the musical themes that I actually can get behind, Glenn.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So, uh well, these plans you can get behind it. Okay,
Cuz yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
This episode, guys, nice instruction there, Jason. This episode, we're
gonna deal with the participation numbers of men's NCAA wrestling
from nineteen eighty one, eighty two to current and even
a little bit before then. We're gonna deal with how
the roster cap limits on Division one will affect these numbers. So,
(10:49):
as you can see on slide too, it's kind of
like our table contents if you ever look at it.
And as Jason always says, if you're driving and listen
to the show, don't look at the numbers. Okay. Matt
Stats was here to create a library of statistical analysis
for the NWCA. You hear that every show nothing's changed. Okay.
(11:11):
The opinions expressed on this show did not necessarily reflect
any policies or opinions of the NWCA norder. Gorbley, Bryant
Howzard always agreed with each other.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Okay, Dot's applied for every show.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yep. Matt Stats is based on numbers and stats and
analyzation and starts with facts and not opinions. Okay, next
we now have if you are under sixty, there are
which me and Kevin or not. But if you are
under sixty like Jason is, there are more NCAA men's
(11:48):
teams today than the worthy year you graduated college. The
last year we had more than two hundred and ninety
was eighty six eighty seven.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Can I can I say something real quick there about
the I know the the Slippery Rock folks are so
glad that you know part of that two ninety Welcome
back Slippery Rock. I mean three national champions Stan Zizik Roder, Irwin,
Jack Spates, you know, two of the biggest names in
in uh you know, wrestling now have their college team back.
(12:24):
So welcome back guys.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And and you know there's there's a Virginia tie to
that because Freddie Powell coached at Slippery Rock for decades
and he's an old Gramby guy, you know, teammates with
Gray Simons and their like, lived in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
So also a key.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Proponent of those early episodes of the Gray Simons podcast
that's still yet to be completed. On my end for
the Hall of Fame, but yes, the Rock is back,
you know, because that was there were there were definitely
puns of plenty with the newsletter there. Finally wrestling has
come back to the Rock, kind of playing off of
the The wa the Rock, Dwayne the Rock Johnson's finally
(13:02):
the Rock has come back to insert city name here,
So had some fun with that. But the Rock is back.
Peace Act Division two. But it's back.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's good to have a team.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Two more all Americans from Virginia there, but Mike Waller
and Steve Perdue both you know stalwart Virginia Boys.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And Perdue he's an Oscar Smith guy, right, and Terry's brother.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yep. I'm going to give you a few updates on
what nat Stat's talked about in the three part series.
In a clear day, you can see college athletics. Okay,
we talked about we talked about the possibility of private equity,
and it looks like that's a real possibility in the
Big Ten. Michigan and USC are not too excited about that.
(13:47):
Will they leave the conference? Who knows what's going to happen. Okay,
power for football coaches being fired with huge buyouts. This
will be seen in the school's bottom line. Penn State,
who has the best wrestling team you know for the
past many years, has been looking for a coach for
more than seven weeks. Now. This cannot help Penn State.
(14:10):
This cannot help wrestling. There's six SEC schools that will
have ANUE football coach next year. It's how do you
like football playoff expansion? Now?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
People the problem with college Why I okay side tangent
about college football because I know Glenn loves when I
go on my tangents. This is one that makes as
a sports fan who got into wrestling again, I say
sports fan. I was a junkie until I discovered wrestling
until when I was fifteen, then became kind of a
wrestling guy. And so that's over thirty years. So I
(14:42):
had a background and worked in sports departments. I worked
in college sports more than just wrestling since I was
a teenager. That being said, I watched the FCS playoffs
this weekend. I watched the Division two playoffs. I watched
four simultaneous streams of Division three playoff football with snow
covering the field. It was it was magical. It's what
(15:06):
I love about college sports is the playoffs. Why can
the largest and smartest segment of college football not figure
out what the nai with the junior colleges with Division two,
Division three and the subdivision or FCS Football Championship sub
Division can figure out. It's simple, Oh lost class time.
(15:28):
They're losing class time. Oh the bulls, the balls are
made up concept. Okay, shut up with the bulls. You're
it's better for college sports if you do what Division two,
Division three and the FCS are doing with your playoff system.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
This college football playoff, it's career.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's just paying people that don't need to be paid
to make decisions that have already been made in other divisions.
The blueprint is there. Follow the blueprint people, and if rant.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Okay, thank you for that. Van Jason always nice.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Early in the morning.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
You have a rant from Jason Brow.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We are recording this early. This is we typically record
in the afternoon. This is I mean it's I just
shoveled my driveway. Uh, put my youngest kid on the bus,
shovel the driveway, came in, helped Glenn with old issues,
and then we recorded the show.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So yeah, it's a fire. Now I'm only on my
first coupany.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I'm gonna make oud a coffee in the next two
minutes anyway, Sorry, Glenn, we are twenty minutes in.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
We haven't even gotten to slide seven.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Yeah, okay, and yeah we're gonna skip the ya Okay.
So guys, I want to give a shout out to
Kelly Palace. She gets a shout out several times a
year now. She ran New York City at three thirty
six at eight to fourteen pace. I mean, it's pretty impressive.
She's the only one. Clearly she won't to will you
marry Russeller since she's a female, But she's the only
(16:43):
one in our family of wrestlers that's doing anything okay athletically? Okay?
Speaker 5 (16:50):
All right, So we were talking about we've gone off
on a couple of I think good tangents. Now we're
gonna talk.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
They're relevant, Kevin, They're relevant.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
So what are we going to talk about this this month?
And why is it titled Don't Stop Believing?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Okay? Is it is about the participation numbers in men's
NCAA wrestling. Okay. The reason it's called Don't Stop Believing
is because I've been one that's been saying for years
of participation, I'm just going to grow in to go
to set records. But now with this roster cap, it
is really throwing a screwball at us. So I don't
(17:31):
want people to stop believing that we can still grow
this sport.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
All right, so we've got roster caps. But now this
is the time of the year that we get cited
about sports sponsorships participation report. How about let's tell the
viewers the good news that you just relate to the
Mats stats team and to the nwca.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Yes, in twenty four to twenty five, in other words,
the past season, there was nine thousand and fifty six
men's NCAA wrestlers. This is the most at any time
since eighty one eighty two, and before then we didn't
have reliable numbers being taken. There was one time when
there was more than that. Okay, now, just so you
(18:20):
guys know where I got this from. The NCAA puts
out a Participation of Rates report every year, and I
live for that to come out in September October when
it comes out, and they do say in this okay,
between fifty six and fifty seven and eighty one eighty
two participate patient rates were collected in five years intervals.
(18:43):
And that is not the same data that's collected from
eighty two to the present. There are some of these
people are in recreational programs. Therefore, these data are not
directly comparable to other data. So you really have to
draw a line in the sand and say anything before
eighty one eighty two, we don't really know completely about it. Okay. Now,
(19:11):
I have been saying that this is the Camelot Days
of wrestling, and I believe it really is. It is
possible that there is at least one year prior to
eighty one eighty two we had more wrestlers, but we
don't know how many would recreational programs, so it's really
hard to say. So people that are older than me.
(19:31):
In other words, Kevin Hazard, Okay, if they mentioned these numbers,
they're saying, Okay, you don't know where they're coming from.
So we really should be happy with what's going on now. Okay,
we don't know with one hundred percent certainty that last
year was the most ever, but we don't know. It's not. Okay,
(19:54):
as far as Division one is concerned, the top five
participation years of Division one, we're way back in the eighties. Okay.
Division one is an arbitrary line guys, for wrestling talent.
(20:18):
There's some old time skeptics, people my age and stuff
that point to the staff that the glory years of
NCAA wrestling was back in the good old days. Okay,
this is not a function of there being better quality
wrestling back then. It's a function that there are more
Division two teams and less Division one teams. Now, okay,
(20:43):
many people that wrestle Division one, me included in the
eighties would be Division two wrestlers today. That doesn't make
me any better any worse of a wrestler. It's just
the way the Division one doesn't have as many teams
as it used to be. When you go to Division two,
(21:04):
the five largest years for participation numbers are the five
most recent years, so you can start to see what
I'm saying. Guys, there's more Division two teams with Division
three four. The top four years are the four most
recent years, so you understand what's going on here.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Nextllly Okay, so looking at those those stats, our growth
is coming from D two and D three. That's really
you know, highest number of wrestlers. Great news twenty four
to twenty five. How about can we now look at
those numbers in graph form.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Certainly Kevin. I call this the Hozard graphs because Kevin
was the one that talked to me the having more
graphs on the show for the average person to digest
it better. And of course, don't look at this if
you're driving. Okay. So the first slide there and I
try to put them on different colors depending on the division.
This dark blue, whatever color you want to call that
(22:14):
is the number of men's D one wrestlers. You can
see it jump up a little bit from eighty two
and then go down and the next draft will be
Division two. And you can see that really coming up
recently this century. Division three has grown this century also.
And then slide twenty four in the dark red shows
(22:36):
the total of all NCAA wrestlers, Okay, and you can
see it peaking in the most recent year.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, Glenn, that last line's that's the one that eclips
nine thousand. We don't see anything before that in the
last forty years.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Correct correct.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Facts, facts, facts, not opinions. Facts.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
D three has the most wrestlers and roster sizes. When
did D three come to the division with the most
NCAA male wrestlers? And if there are fewer men's teams, Now,
why do we have more wrestlers?
Speaker 4 (23:18):
Okay? To answer your first question, first, Kevin, Mike Morier
and the NWSV done a wonderful job in adding teams. Okay,
But the vast majority of predominantly all these teams are
Division two, Division three, NAIA and women. Okay. So since
(23:39):
two thy thirteen, D three is the division with the
most men's wrestlers. And you can see that on the
chart there the blue line once again, it's D one,
Green is D three and the oranges D two. Okay,
so D three eclipsed that and has been the most
now for the last thirteen years. All right. The size
(24:06):
of the rosters as it's really changed this The men's
D one rosters are last year. These numbers are taken
out thirty five point four to two, and you can
see where it's grown from eighty one eighty two, but
not vastly or anything. It's been a slow gradual growth. Okay.
(24:27):
Division two, you can see that. Of course, there's some
spikes and ups and downs, but you can see it's
generally going up. Division three. Okay, the roster size is
really grown. Okay, and then all in all, you can
see the purple is all the divisions. Okay, you can
see it growing. Now there are some small anomal good Kevin.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Well, there are anomalies in the past roster sizes. Do
we know why we have these anomalies? And there are
any of the past anomalies reason for concern in the future.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Okay. There's five spikes or drops in the roster sizes
across the three divisions since eighty one eighty two. There's
a D one spike from eighty two to eighty three.
In the roster sizes, there's a D three spike eighty
six eighty seven, then it drops again, a D two
spike at eighty two in two thousand and two to three,
(25:29):
and then it drops in four, and a D one
drop from twenty two to twenty three, and then back
up in twenty four. Then there is an NCAA drop
in twenty one, then back up at twenty two. The
top four of these guys, we don't know what the
real reason is. And you certainly can't go back to
(25:50):
eighty one eighty two and ask anybody that worked for
the NCAA that kept these numbers, or somebody like Neil
was wrestling then and coaching those days. I don't know
why this happened. I don't think there's anything we can
learn from him. I'll use an example of Kelly Palell.
She ran the three thirty six marathon at an eight
fourteen pace. Not all twenty six point two miles were
(26:13):
an eight fourteen pace. Of course, we know sometimes if
there's upper down in hills, that would be a reason,
like going over you know, the Verrizona with the biggest
hill in the thing, would be a reason the first
mile would be slow. So, guys, the way numbers works,
you have fluctuations, Okay, Like, for example, one of the
(26:34):
biggest fluctuations I always give in spices and stuff like
that in streaks is if you run Joe DiMaggio on
a computer a thousand years, he will never hit in
fifty six straight games, but he's sure as hell did
it nineteen forty one. Okay, these things happen. There's really
no reason for us to draw anything from it. The
(26:55):
last anomaly is from the COVID situation. You can see
why that happened. It makes sense. Sorry that COVID ever happened,
but it's long gone, so that's gone. Okay, all right.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
The wisdom to know the difference is that when now
we're talking about the serenity prayer, God grant me the
serendy to accept the things I cannot change, courage to
change the things that I can, and the wisdom to
know the difference. Exactly about giving us an example of
accepting these things we can't change.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
And to be clear, this is the serenity prayer, not
the George Costanza serenity now, completely different scenario, completely different.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Okay, okay, guys. A perfect example of this is ain't
CAA Men's D one wrestling caps are real? We cannot
change this, guys. Okay. As we learned in episode forty six,
in August twenty seventh of this year, on a clear
day you can see college athletics there are now a
(28:01):
roster cap in men's NCAA wrestling of thirty wrestlers for
any school that opted into the house settlement. And Gormes's opinion,
this is buffoonery and we're hurt college athletics. And I
can say this that I don't know if anybody in
college wrestling that disagrees with me saying the hell with
(28:24):
this roster cap idea?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Okay, well, Glenn, there's also situations where even before the
House settlement, we've got schools that have put in roster
cap and they've been doing they've been doing roster management
as a gender equity whatever you want to call it, buffoonery.
You know, there's there's Division I schools that I'm not
going to name who they are since that this may
have changed since the last time I heard that, are
(28:49):
that are looking at roster caps of.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Twenty two twenty three wrestlers.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Whereas and I'm gonna you know, I don't borrow a
lot of Mike moyerisms on a daily basis. I keep
my hips low, my elbows in. You know, it's eighty
degrees and shape. I don't use those unless he's on
the phone with me. But I will say this, he
does make a good point. With wrestling, we are not
a sport that you look at a roster and be like, okay,
and hockey.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
We're in college.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
H You can take somebody who used to be a
defenceman and put them on a wing football. You can
take a wide out and make them, you know, a
tight end. You can take an offensive lineman make make
them a defensive lineman. You can change positions in personnel,
a safety to a cornerback, those type of things. You
cannot take your seventy four pounder or make them a
thirty three pounder unless you have a chainsaw. It's just
(29:35):
it's not functional for certain sports. And I really wish
the oversight. And again, we've got ninety one championship sports
to look at, so you do have to apply some
type of blanket system to make things in that regard.
But setting a roster cap under thirty first of all,
by some of these schools is irresponsible and it shows
(29:55):
you don't care about the student athletes you bring in. Yes,
I'm going to say that I don't think you care
about the particular sport if you're limiting a wrestling program
to say twenty two athletes, because you know what that means.
If two guys get hurt, you are less than a
backup per weight. And this is a combat sport. Okay,
you're gonna have guys get hurt. It's just it's part
(30:16):
of what happens. I mean, college football rosters are over
one hundred. You play eleven on a play, that's ten
times the amount you need for a single play. So
again it's we're not football we got to stop comparing it.
But at the same point, a roster cap under thirty,
it's that's you know, you could probably get away with
twenty seven to twenty eight maybe, but if you got
(30:39):
I mean, if you got a string of guys that
are that are hurt, and then with the portal, you know,
that's that's flexibility there too. So I really have a
problem with the roster cap that if it's under thirty,
anywhere that has that's independent of the house settlement though.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Okay, thank you Jason. Now, just to refresh everyone's memory,
the D one roster size layers was thirty five point
four to two almost thirty five and a half and
the cap is thirty. And to refers to people's memory
or if you haven't seen the previous shows on the
three part series, on a clear day, you can see
college athletics. I have no clue where they got the
(31:14):
number thirty from. I think some lawyer bamboozled judge Wilkin Dart. Yeah,
and through a darkness is an even round number, so yeah, don't.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Get hit it from here.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, yes, the roster cap is now sixteen.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yep, that's what I think. Okay, by the way, sorry.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Now, yeah, can we can we offset the loss in
D one numbers with growth of D two or D three? Yes,
we can, guys. But part of this is we have
to get to a lot of people. There's an impression
that all college wrestles are equal, but D one wrestlers
(32:01):
are more equal than others. Okay, So we need to
understand that the sport needs to grow in the hole,
not just a vision one. It's horrible that they're doing
this to the roster cops in D one, But if
these people move to D two with D three, they
(32:21):
still get to do it. Now, do they want to
transfer our schools? They have to move into a different
part of the country, you know, in state tuition might
be cheaper for them, all that stuff. There's definitely not
everyone just going to up and leave. Okay, but there's
nothing wrong with being a D two, D three Naia,
n CWA, man, woman, whatever, wrestler. The sport is big
(32:44):
on everything. Okay.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
I'd like to say something real quick there. You know,
my son Brian was a coach for decades and I
noticed over the past ten years of his coaching he
had more of his good kids going D two. You know,
they just they they went to where they could be,
(33:06):
where they could participate, and and I think the D
two is much better and D three is much better.
It's better run than it used to be. I'm agreeing
with you. I think it's a it's we have to
focus on wrestling as a whole, not just D one.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Correct, Kevin. Now, guys, the next slide, I'm going to
give you some bad news. We will see a decrease
in the number of men's NCAA D one wrestlers from
twenty four to twenty five to twenty five, twenty six.
There's no way around that. Guys, wrestlers will be cut
from D one teams. And it's going now. Some people
(33:44):
might still be grandfathered in for a couple of years
and stuff like that, so it might take a while
to do it. But I'm going to put this in
perspective for you. As you can see on slide forty,
if we use the fifty five schools that opted in
to the House settlement, and if you multiply that by
(34:05):
five point four to two. The reason I got that number,
subtract thirty five point five to two from thirty. Okay,
that's two hundred and ninety eight. That is over ten
percent of all men's D one wrestlers right now, right,
(34:25):
So what you're talking about here, guys, is we're talking
about somewhere between eight and ten, depending on that whether
you use the thirty five as a roster or the
thirty as a roster, you're talking about eight to ten
men's and CUAA D one teams being dropped essentially. Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Now, what we could do, hopefully, though, is take if
instead of I if they Now in a perfect world,
we're like, well, there's two hundred ninety eight that's with
a roster cap. That's ten more Division one teams we
could fill with yes.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Jation, yes, yes, thank you, But that would inquire that
would require logic, That.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Would require logic.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
And it's also harder to add D one teams as
D two teams now, guys, For some reason, and I'll
use the airplane example here. When we drop a team,
everyone hears about that. When we're cutting two hundred and
ninety eight, we don't really take so much to it.
Just like the plane crash is on the news every day, okay,
(35:31):
the car accidents are, and it's the same thing. We're
losing people here, Okay, so it is bad news if
we're losing two undred and ninety eight wrestlers. Okay. Now,
as far as Judge Claudia Wilkin, I don't know the
lady Okay, I don't know if she was just trying
(35:54):
to get out of it easily. She was bamboozled, but
she's not intelligent enough to realize what the roster cap
would do. But as far as I'm concerned, she's on
the same list in my mind as the athletic director
will Marry the dropped wrestling and that football coach at
now bat rouge. Okay, we're just causing trouble for sports.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Okay, back to Worths. I think we're stopping believing. Maybe
we shouldn't stop believing, but there are bad news for
participation numbers.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Is there any.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Way D two and D three can help with this,
help when this dam breaks? And how many NCAA member
schools are there? And can that help?
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Ah? Right, Kevin? Yes, So Jason mentioned this earlier about
adding ten more DT one teams or any teams. Yeah,
we need to look at D two, D three and
NAIA schools to add more teams, Okay, because that is
where the you know why do you fish there, that's
where the fish are. Okay, why do you rob banks
(37:01):
because that's where the money is. So it's the wisdom
to know the difference that we can help get more
teams with this.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Okay and Glenn, this is to bring up to since
since two thousands, since I've been tracking it, the yeah,
twenty five years, been trying four hundred and fifty active
new college programs. Now we've had some ad we've had
some schools close and drop it of Since since the
turn of the century, there's four hundred and fifty more
programs at it at the varsity level. And you know, uh,
(37:34):
that's that's junior college, that's ANAI, that's men, that's women.
So you know they're they're the growth is happening now
and again it ebbs and flows like I'm learning through
the history. Back in the seventies and eighties when I'm
digging through these these these ad and drops, like you know,
there was a rush where there were junior colleges left
and right that had wrestling, and then they just they consolidated,
they closed, they stopped it. They did it for two
(37:56):
years ago. Oh, this this is just not what we thought.
Personnel changes you know, sometimes it's a coach. Harold Nichols,
for example, back in the fifties brought rustling to Arkansas State.
Then when he got hired at Iowa State, that program
ceased to exist down in Arkansas until we had Little Rock,
you know, fifty years later. So you know, there's there's
You took point in those ebbs and flows, but we
always need to make sure no, we are providing opportunities.
(38:20):
There are opportunities. It's not just like everything's gone it's
never coming back. Just may not be as to Glenn's
point where we want them always to come back. We
you know, we want one hundred and fifty Division one
schools do. But are we better with that or you
know those are those are all philosophical questions. I'm not
going to sit there and you know say which one's better.
I've made a point in the past that a strong
nai A program, for example, with fifty guys in their
(38:43):
roster is better than a life support and Division one
team that gets one guy to the tournament every decade.
So all just all, well, we're Division one. Well now
you couldn't beat D three teams. So let's you know,
there's there's we've had programs we've lost like that, but
you know, to the point we've added four hundred and fifty.
The reason I said this, Mike called me about that
two days ago, and that was the number I looked
(39:04):
at since twenty Since twenty four and fifty new programs
are on board.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah, that's remarkable. And if you look at it, most
of these schools are adding our enrolment driven issues. And
if I'm president of school ad and want to start
a team, and I said, wait a minute, there's going
to be two hundred and ninety eight less wrestlers in
Division one. I'm a Division two guy or Division one guy.
I want to sport, start a sport to get thirty
(39:30):
men and thirty women at the school. Wrestling's right there
all right now, moving on, since not eighty one, eighty
two on all the years that we've known, Division three
has always had the most teams, guys. It's just the
way it is, okay. And Division two looks like it's
going to pass Division one, hopefully not with Division one
(39:53):
losing teams with Division two gaining teams here soon okay.
And you could see on the charter of forty six
a rebound in the number of teams where it went
down and now it's coming back up, which is nice
to see. As far as Kevin Hazard's question there, in
case Jason and I went on so long, people forgot
(40:15):
what his question was. It was the number of NC
DOUAA member schools. What that means is, for example, Notre
Dame is a member school at the NC double A
Merrival College down the road from me. Division III school
is a is a member school. They're both equal in
(40:36):
that thing. They're both one school, one school. Okay. A
member school means how many schools are in the NC
double A. It has grown from seven hundred and fifty
three and eighty one eighty two to one thousand and
eighty five last year. That's a forty four percent increase, okay,
So there's more fish out there to be to look
(40:59):
at to get to get teams. Okay. And as you
can see in the next slide, okay, seventy six percent
of this member growth is from Division two Division three schools.
So there's a reason that Mike Mooyer in the end
WCA is getting more D two and D three schools
add because first of all, there's more of them.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Okay, all right, why don't we do a show about this?
And it's sent great topic for our next show. Any way,
we can do one focusing on what we can do
to help grow the sport in different ways. Don't stop believing.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Thank you, Kevin. As a matter of fact, doctor Eddie
McLaughlin texted me a couple of weeks ago about a
suggestion for a show after we watched the duels in Tulsa.
So yes, we will do a show on this figuring
out how to help the sport despite the legal ramifications
(42:05):
of the House settlement to bring on roster cop limits
and it's a horrible thing for the sport. Guys. I
know I've been positively gung ho on almost every show recently,
but we have to fight this and we're not going
to overturn it legally. We got to figure out how
to get kids to be able to wrestle despite the
House settlement. All right, Kevin, let's hear about your kevnotes.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Okay, let's kind of review where we were number one.
We are already seeing the fallout from the House versus
NCAA settlement in football coaches firings, in the turmoil in
the Big ten that was on slide forty nine to seven.
There are now more wrestlers than in any previous year
that use reliable numbers Number three. Almost all the growth
(42:56):
of NCAA mail wrestlers has come from D two and
D three, and this trend will continue. D three has
had the most NCAA mail program since nineteen eighty two
and the most wrestlers since twenty thirteen. Number five, captain
D one wrestlers at thirty is going to have a
(43:17):
huge effect on the number of D one wrestlers. It's
going to be the equivalent of dropping eight to ten
D one teams number six. Our focus really needs to
winden to include D two and D three when we're
thinking about NCAA college wrestling. Number seven. We also need
(43:38):
to include women's teams, NAIA and NCWA teams when we
think about college wrestling, not just D one. Number eight,
and we saw some really nice charts, and those charts
showed the trends and the number of teams and wrestlers
between the different NCAA divisions. Nine. Looking at the trends,
(44:01):
it's evident that D one will surpass D one with
the number of wrestlers, and this will happen sooner due
to the roster caps in D one and in the
number of teams and number ten. Even with all the turmoil,
NCAA member schools said increased by forty four percent since
(44:22):
nineteen eighty two, from seven hundred and fifty eight to
one thousand and eighty five teams our schools.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Okay, thank you for that, Kevin and Jason. The next episode,
we'll explore not what wrestling could do for you, but
what you could do for wrestling, okay, And we're going
to try to figure out how match stats, musics and
numbers to try to educate the viewers and say what
(44:53):
we could do to help, specifically the roster captain that
we just talked about. So until next month, Save Matt Channel,
Save Matt Time on behalf of my co host Kevin
Hazard and Jason Bryant. I'm Blend Gormley signing off.
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a
batting average, a win percentage, correlations, and standard deviation. But
numbers aren't just for nerds. In life, decisions need data.
In wrestling decisions, projections and hypotheticals also need data. Here
(00:24):
on Matt's Stats we take historical data, theories, and statistics
and apply it to the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerd balls, Glenn Gormley,
Kevin Hazard, and Jason Bryant.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It's that time of day, it's that time of month,
it's the same Matt time, it's the same Matt channel.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
As our co host Glenn Gormley.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Says at the end of every episode, now we're going
to say at the beginning of every episode, it's another
episode of the Matt Stats Show, episode forty nine. Along
with Kevin Hazard and Glenn Gormley, I'm Jason Bryant, where
we dive in the stats beneath the sport of wrestling,
underneath the rest light, if you will, or whichever Matt
surface you prefer. It's one of those things that we
(01:08):
dive in. We get to the meat and potatoes of
the matter. How the sausage is made. As Glenn likes
to call it, it's the moneyball of wrestling. Been a
while college wrestling seasons here. We were talking before the
show as Glenn dealt with some old issues with his
computer there. We got through it, we figured it out.
But we had a good kickoff of the season. We're
(01:28):
coming off of Iowa. Ioway stayed on ESPN, we had
the National Duels Invitational. We've got Vegas coming up.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Is the time.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We record this in early December, so it's you know,
I always joke when we're in March, I'm walking around
singing Christmas songs. Well, it is the Christmas season and
it is the.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Most wonderful time of the year.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
And if you cut out on the show, I understand why. Gentlemen,
we start with you, mister Gormley. How have you been
with old Matt's stattery and the SEC football type of
things that are quite a bit in the news lately.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Yes, that guy, it's now Baton Rouge has been the
drama queen that he is.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
That's that's basically you know what you just summed up
what Sports Center could have been for the last month
with just that statement. So we can end the show
right here, folks, Thanks for coming to mat No no anyway. Yeah,
so yeah, mister Kiffin just showed me the money. Show
me the money, Show me the money. Did he name
his dog Oxford after naming his kid Knox? Did he
(02:31):
not make that same mistake with the with with any
other people that he added to the families?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
But I was wondering, Yeah, who knows that the guy?
I'm not a fan of his.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Kevin Hazard your take.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
I don't. I'm also not a fan, but I do
wonder whether they told him they weren't going to let
him coach in the playoffs. I you know, who knows?
It's that's such a cutthroat kind of a thing we've
made on the show. Was going to to you know,
(03:06):
to California. But but he's not a good nice person,
I don't think.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, we've we've broached the issue of the NCAAA calendar
before and a lot of the things I'm seeing on socials,
which is basically where news kind of emits itself from now,
whether it be on ex Blue Sky, Facebook, whatever. I
don't do the TikTok or the snapchats. I just hate
nobody got time for that. Uh, the The thing is
it's like, well, oh, it's the NCAA calendar, and then
(03:33):
you're looking at, well, coach. You know, they want to
put guardrails on the athletes announcing they're leaving, but they
don't do it on coaches. I get that, but the
same what what I don't understand the calendar, Like a
coach can get fired at any point. You're not going
to tell these independent outlets or organizations businesses is what
they are when they can and can't fire their personnel.
So that's one thing is like, no, you can. You're
(03:53):
not allowed to fire a coach midway through the season,
Okay not yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really gonna work. So
like if Penn State doesn't want to fire James Franklin, okay.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
You're gonna let them. They're gonna lame duck through that season.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
If they're gonna lame duck anyway, But like, uh, you know,
then we got the Brian Kelly payouts, the James Franklin
buyouts that are just they're just nuts, just so much
money going through a sport.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
They're really, where's the ROI on that? That's what I
want to know.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Meanwhile, we've got we got some positivity on the wrestling
side with the National Bulls invitation. Of course pay Com
sponsoring that event down untilso fantastic event. Teams came away
with some big checks and some bonus checks too. The
first day, guys, they did a ten thousand dollars per
round fastest average takedown. Now, for stats nerds, it takes
(04:41):
the first five fastest takedowns and average the time. So
the impetus there was to get action going early. You
didn't want zero zero first period. You're all right, let's
go out there. Each guy goes out and gets a takedown,
so it's like the first takedown of the match. So
you had to get five. So you couldn't be, you know,
lose match nine matches to one and have a thirteen
(05:02):
second takedown and take home ten grant. You had to
have at least five and the average amount. And once
a team hit five, we put it up on the
video board there at the Bok Center in Tulsa, and
you know, Iowa State took home two extra checks, Illinois
took home one, Virginia Tech took home one in addition
to what they got for the prize money for making
Day two. And you know, pretty cool concept and teams
were starting to get behind it too. It's, you know,
(05:24):
something new. We weren't sure how it was gonna work.
You know, it's spaghetti you throw to the wall. See
it works. I think that's one that's gonna stick with
that event. And I'll say this, yes, I was paid
to be there as one of the public address announcers.
I was there with Al Hayzlip working on the microphone there.
And the one thing I found about it is that
this you know, I'm a duel meet guy, have been
since the Virginia Duels when I first attended nineteen ninety five.
(05:47):
There is no reason this event cannot be a destination event,
or if it's something close like Frank Popolosio's Collegiate Duels
that are in Nashville, that can be a destination event.
The Virginia Duels, of course, I want that to be
a destination event. Because we've had forty eight high schools,
a large small college or American College division. There's no
reason we can only have one or two destination events
(06:10):
because I believe we have more than the same eighteen
thousand wrestling fans. So just because you can't get tickets
to Nationals doesn't mean you can't go to something else
like Vegas. Vegas is gonna be a great wrestling event
this coming weekend, not super well attended despite having you know,
I think I looked at one of the flow rankings
this week at just one way class, they had fourteen
rank guys, Like that's half the field. So you know,
(06:33):
if you've got a tournament with half the field is ranked,
why would you not consider going to that? Because you know,
everybody clamors for Vegas. I'll put in Vegas tickets are cheap.
Show up only two tournament, two one and a half
tournaments draw fans. So I like to think that, you know,
Tulsa being what it is with it, you know, travel
is gonna be what it is. I thought they did
a great job. I definitely think Tulsa was much more
(06:54):
event friendly, if if that's that's a way to say it,
than they did when they hosted Thentionals in twenty twenty three.
It felt like the area around the arena while there
weren't you know, there was three times more fans at
the are you know, two and a half times more
fans at the NCAA's a couple of years ago, but
like the arena area around it was was equipped.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
There wasn't as much construction.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Uh you know, I got to see a little bit
more of Tulsa, like you know on those little scooters,
which which Mark McLoughlin say, keep him in business. You
never find yourself any more irresponsible as an adult is
when you're riding around on a Lime scooter. So I
thought Tulsa did did a great job. And you know
Matt Serber with his tournament staff did a great job.
(07:36):
Detric Bombgartner at just just does a Bomberger believe does
a great job of the production stuff. So I you know,
I thought from behind the behind the scenes, under the
hood type of situation, it was great. So to the
point is like that can be a destination event, Like
what's wrong? I mean it was warm. I mean it's
it's you know, early mid November didn't have the ice
storms or anything like that that can sometimes torment to Oklahoma.
(07:58):
But as I say that, as I have you know,
six inches of snow that came down and I was
digging out under eighteen or something.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
So I was a fan of the event.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
We can talk more about those types of statistical things
later on. I realize I'm getting off topic before we
even start our episode, but gentlemen, the dual meat has
always been a contentious part of wrestling, and whether you know,
I'm not going to boil this into a discussion about
should or shouldn't we but you know, it's the dual
meet that introduced a lot of people to the sport,
that introduced me to the sport. It was one of
(08:28):
those things you can sit down, you can follow a
team a lot easier in a lot of ways, and
the dual meat advancement concept is fun for fans. You know,
when you're wrestling, you know, you don't sit there and
have a twenty five pounder and then wait two hours
for your heavyweight to wrestle, and then you know it's
you're dialed in a mat. You can leave between sessions,
come back. It was just generally dual meat events and
tournaments are really very fan friendly.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
I agree, and you talk about the national duels, But
then you had the Iowa Iowa State on ESPN probably
pulled I think it probably pulled good numbers and four upsets.
You know, the rankings kind of went out the window.
I mean a lot of the higher ranked guys won,
(09:13):
but a lot of the lower guys ranked wins on
both sides.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well Yall said, and then speaking of upsets, South Dakota
State South Dakota State over Minnesota with like, I think
Cota five upsets yikes. This week in the NWCA coaches
pulled South Dakota State ranked number eight in the nation,
its highest as a Division IE school. They've been a
D one school in wrestling for about looks.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Like coming up.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I think this is the twenty twenty first year because
Northern Colorado and North Kota State, South Coosta State all
reclassified in that same t I think it was four
oh five. I think they were in that rank three
h four or four oh five in that range.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
That's where we're at.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But anyway, we've got a dive into divisional stuff. As
we kind of segue that, Glenn, we're gonna head on
up and we want you to to handle your inner
Steve Perry, You're inner, Joel Walsh and whoever the new
guy is, who's been in journey for about twenty years
at this point. So we don't want you to stop believing.
(10:11):
Don't stop believing. One of the great crowd in top
of all time that has been your This is probably
one of the musical themes that I actually can get behind, Glenn.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So, uh well, these plans you can get behind it. Okay,
Cuz yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
This episode, guys, nice instruction there, Jason. This episode, we're
gonna deal with the participation numbers of men's NCAA wrestling
from nineteen eighty one, eighty two to current and even
a little bit before then. We're gonna deal with how
the roster cap limits on Division one will affect these numbers. So,
(10:49):
as you can see on slide too, it's kind of
like our table contents if you ever look at it.
And as Jason always says, if you're driving and listen
to the show, don't look at the numbers. Okay. Matt
Stats was here to create a library of statistical analysis
for the NWCA. You hear that every show nothing's changed. Okay.
(11:11):
The opinions expressed on this show did not necessarily reflect
any policies or opinions of the NWCA norder. Gorbley, Bryant
Howzard always agreed with each other.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Okay, Dot's applied for every show.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yep. Matt Stats is based on numbers and stats and
analyzation and starts with facts and not opinions. Okay, next
we now have if you are under sixty, there are
which me and Kevin or not. But if you are
under sixty like Jason is, there are more NCAA men's
(11:48):
teams today than the worthy year you graduated college. The
last year we had more than two hundred and ninety
was eighty six eighty seven.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Can I can I say something real quick there about
the I know the the Slippery Rock folks are so
glad that you know part of that two ninety Welcome
back Slippery Rock. I mean three national champions Stan Zizik Roder, Irwin,
Jack Spates, you know, two of the biggest names in
in uh you know, wrestling now have their college team back.
(12:24):
So welcome back guys.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And and you know there's there's a Virginia tie to
that because Freddie Powell coached at Slippery Rock for decades
and he's an old Gramby guy, you know, teammates with
Gray Simons and their like, lived in the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
So also a key.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Proponent of those early episodes of the Gray Simons podcast
that's still yet to be completed. On my end for
the Hall of Fame, but yes, the Rock is back,
you know, because that was there were there were definitely
puns of plenty with the newsletter there. Finally wrestling has
come back to the Rock, kind of playing off of
the The wa the Rock, Dwayne the Rock Johnson's finally
(13:02):
the Rock has come back to insert city name here,
So had some fun with that. But the Rock is back.
Peace Act Division two. But it's back.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
It's good to have a team.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
Two more all Americans from Virginia there, but Mike Waller
and Steve Perdue both you know stalwart Virginia Boys.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And Perdue he's an Oscar Smith guy, right, and Terry's brother.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yep. I'm going to give you a few updates on
what nat Stat's talked about in the three part series.
In a clear day, you can see college athletics. Okay,
we talked about we talked about the possibility of private equity,
and it looks like that's a real possibility in the
Big Ten. Michigan and USC are not too excited about that.
(13:47):
Will they leave the conference? Who knows what's going to happen. Okay,
power for football coaches being fired with huge buyouts. This
will be seen in the school's bottom line. Penn State,
who has the best wrestling team you know for the
past many years, has been looking for a coach for
more than seven weeks. Now. This cannot help Penn State.
(14:10):
This cannot help wrestling. There's six SEC schools that will
have ANUE football coach next year. It's how do you
like football playoff expansion? Now?
Speaker 2 (14:20):
People the problem with college Why I okay side tangent
about college football because I know Glenn loves when I
go on my tangents. This is one that makes as
a sports fan who got into wrestling again, I say
sports fan. I was a junkie until I discovered wrestling
until when I was fifteen, then became kind of a
wrestling guy. And so that's over thirty years. So I
(14:42):
had a background and worked in sports departments. I worked
in college sports more than just wrestling since I was
a teenager. That being said, I watched the FCS playoffs
this weekend. I watched the Division two playoffs. I watched
four simultaneous streams of Division three playoff football with snow
covering the field. It was it was magical. It's what
(15:06):
I love about college sports is the playoffs. Why can
the largest and smartest segment of college football not figure
out what the nai with the junior colleges with Division two,
Division three and the subdivision or FCS Football Championship sub
Division can figure out. It's simple, Oh lost class time.
(15:28):
They're losing class time. Oh the bulls, the balls are
made up concept. Okay, shut up with the bulls. You're
it's better for college sports if you do what Division two,
Division three and the FCS are doing with your playoff system.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
This college football playoff, it's career.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's just paying people that don't need to be paid
to make decisions that have already been made in other divisions.
The blueprint is there. Follow the blueprint people, and if rant.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Okay, thank you for that. Van Jason always nice.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Early in the morning.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
You have a rant from Jason Brow.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We are recording this early. This is we typically record
in the afternoon. This is I mean it's I just
shoveled my driveway. Uh, put my youngest kid on the bus,
shovel the driveway, came in, helped Glenn with old issues,
and then we recorded the show.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So yeah, it's a fire. Now I'm only on my
first coupany.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I'm gonna make oud a coffee in the next two
minutes anyway, Sorry, Glenn, we are twenty minutes in.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
We haven't even gotten to slide seven.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Yeah, okay, and yeah we're gonna skip the ya Okay.
So guys, I want to give a shout out to
Kelly Palace. She gets a shout out several times a
year now. She ran New York City at three thirty
six at eight to fourteen pace. I mean, it's pretty impressive.
She's the only one. Clearly she won't to will you
marry Russeller since she's a female, But she's the only
(16:43):
one in our family of wrestlers that's doing anything okay athletically? Okay?
Speaker 5 (16:50):
All right, So we were talking about we've gone off
on a couple of I think good tangents. Now we're
gonna talk.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
They're relevant, Kevin, They're relevant.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
So what are we going to talk about this this month?
And why is it titled Don't Stop Believing?
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Okay? Is it is about the participation numbers in men's
NCAA wrestling. Okay. The reason it's called Don't Stop Believing
is because I've been one that's been saying for years
of participation, I'm just going to grow in to go
to set records. But now with this roster cap, it
is really throwing a screwball at us. So I don't
(17:31):
want people to stop believing that we can still grow
this sport.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
All right, so we've got roster caps. But now this
is the time of the year that we get cited
about sports sponsorships participation report. How about let's tell the
viewers the good news that you just relate to the
Mats stats team and to the nwca.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Yes, in twenty four to twenty five, in other words,
the past season, there was nine thousand and fifty six
men's NCAA wrestlers. This is the most at any time
since eighty one eighty two, and before then we didn't
have reliable numbers being taken. There was one time when
there was more than that. Okay, now, just so you
(18:20):
guys know where I got this from. The NCAA puts
out a Participation of Rates report every year, and I
live for that to come out in September October when
it comes out, and they do say in this okay,
between fifty six and fifty seven and eighty one eighty
two participate patient rates were collected in five years intervals.
(18:43):
And that is not the same data that's collected from
eighty two to the present. There are some of these
people are in recreational programs. Therefore, these data are not
directly comparable to other data. So you really have to
draw a line in the sand and say anything before
eighty one eighty two, we don't really know completely about it. Okay. Now,
(19:11):
I have been saying that this is the Camelot Days
of wrestling, and I believe it really is. It is
possible that there is at least one year prior to
eighty one eighty two we had more wrestlers, but we
don't know how many would recreational programs, so it's really
hard to say. So people that are older than me.
(19:31):
In other words, Kevin Hazard, Okay, if they mentioned these numbers,
they're saying, Okay, you don't know where they're coming from.
So we really should be happy with what's going on now. Okay,
we don't know with one hundred percent certainty that last
year was the most ever, but we don't know. It's not. Okay,
(19:54):
as far as Division one is concerned, the top five
participation years of Division one, we're way back in the eighties. Okay.
Division one is an arbitrary line guys, for wrestling talent.
(20:18):
There's some old time skeptics, people my age and stuff
that point to the staff that the glory years of
NCAA wrestling was back in the good old days. Okay,
this is not a function of there being better quality
wrestling back then. It's a function that there are more
Division two teams and less Division one teams. Now, okay,
(20:43):
many people that wrestle Division one, me included in the
eighties would be Division two wrestlers today. That doesn't make
me any better any worse of a wrestler. It's just
the way the Division one doesn't have as many teams
as it used to be. When you go to Division two,
(21:04):
the five largest years for participation numbers are the five
most recent years, so you can start to see what
I'm saying. Guys, there's more Division two teams with Division
three four. The top four years are the four most
recent years, so you understand what's going on here.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Nextllly Okay, so looking at those those stats, our growth
is coming from D two and D three. That's really
you know, highest number of wrestlers. Great news twenty four
to twenty five. How about can we now look at
those numbers in graph form.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Certainly Kevin. I call this the Hozard graphs because Kevin
was the one that talked to me the having more
graphs on the show for the average person to digest
it better. And of course, don't look at this if
you're driving. Okay. So the first slide there and I
try to put them on different colors depending on the division.
This dark blue, whatever color you want to call that
(22:14):
is the number of men's D one wrestlers. You can
see it jump up a little bit from eighty two
and then go down and the next draft will be
Division two. And you can see that really coming up
recently this century. Division three has grown this century also.
And then slide twenty four in the dark red shows
(22:36):
the total of all NCAA wrestlers, Okay, and you can
see it peaking in the most recent year.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah, Glenn, that last line's that's the one that eclips
nine thousand. We don't see anything before that in the
last forty years.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Correct correct.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Facts, facts, facts, not opinions. Facts.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
D three has the most wrestlers and roster sizes. When
did D three come to the division with the most
NCAA male wrestlers? And if there are fewer men's teams, Now,
why do we have more wrestlers?
Speaker 4 (23:18):
Okay? To answer your first question, first, Kevin, Mike Morier
and the NWSV done a wonderful job in adding teams. Okay,
But the vast majority of predominantly all these teams are
Division two, Division three, NAIA and women. Okay. So since
(23:39):
two thy thirteen, D three is the division with the
most men's wrestlers. And you can see that on the
chart there the blue line once again, it's D one,
Green is D three and the oranges D two. Okay,
so D three eclipsed that and has been the most
now for the last thirteen years. All right. The size
(24:06):
of the rosters as it's really changed this The men's
D one rosters are last year. These numbers are taken
out thirty five point four to two, and you can
see where it's grown from eighty one eighty two, but
not vastly or anything. It's been a slow gradual growth. Okay.
(24:27):
Division two, you can see that. Of course, there's some
spikes and ups and downs, but you can see it's
generally going up. Division three. Okay, the roster size is
really grown. Okay, and then all in all, you can
see the purple is all the divisions. Okay, you can
see it growing. Now there are some small anomal good Kevin.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Well, there are anomalies in the past roster sizes. Do
we know why we have these anomalies? And there are
any of the past anomalies reason for concern in the future.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Okay. There's five spikes or drops in the roster sizes
across the three divisions since eighty one eighty two. There's
a D one spike from eighty two to eighty three.
In the roster sizes, there's a D three spike eighty
six eighty seven, then it drops again, a D two
spike at eighty two in two thousand and two to three,
(25:29):
and then it drops in four, and a D one
drop from twenty two to twenty three, and then back
up in twenty four. Then there is an NCAA drop
in twenty one, then back up at twenty two. The
top four of these guys, we don't know what the
real reason is. And you certainly can't go back to
(25:50):
eighty one eighty two and ask anybody that worked for
the NCAA that kept these numbers, or somebody like Neil
was wrestling then and coaching those days. I don't know
why this happened. I don't think there's anything we can
learn from him. I'll use an example of Kelly Palell.
She ran the three thirty six marathon at an eight
fourteen pace. Not all twenty six point two miles were
(26:13):
an eight fourteen pace. Of course, we know sometimes if
there's upper down in hills, that would be a reason,
like going over you know, the Verrizona with the biggest
hill in the thing, would be a reason the first
mile would be slow. So, guys, the way numbers works,
you have fluctuations, Okay, Like, for example, one of the
(26:34):
biggest fluctuations I always give in spices and stuff like
that in streaks is if you run Joe DiMaggio on
a computer a thousand years, he will never hit in
fifty six straight games, but he's sure as hell did
it nineteen forty one. Okay, these things happen. There's really
no reason for us to draw anything from it. The
(26:55):
last anomaly is from the COVID situation. You can see
why that happened. It makes sense. Sorry that COVID ever happened,
but it's long gone, so that's gone. Okay, all right.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
The wisdom to know the difference is that when now
we're talking about the serenity prayer, God grant me the
serendy to accept the things I cannot change, courage to
change the things that I can, and the wisdom to
know the difference. Exactly about giving us an example of
accepting these things we can't change.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
And to be clear, this is the serenity prayer, not
the George Costanza serenity now, completely different scenario, completely different.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Okay, okay, guys. A perfect example of this is ain't
CAA Men's D one wrestling caps are real? We cannot
change this, guys. Okay. As we learned in episode forty six,
in August twenty seventh of this year, on a clear
day you can see college athletics there are now a
(28:01):
roster cap in men's NCAA wrestling of thirty wrestlers for
any school that opted into the house settlement. And Gormes's opinion,
this is buffoonery and we're hurt college athletics. And I
can say this that I don't know if anybody in
college wrestling that disagrees with me saying the hell with
(28:24):
this roster cap idea?
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Okay, well, Glenn, there's also situations where even before the
House settlement, we've got schools that have put in roster
cap and they've been doing they've been doing roster management
as a gender equity whatever you want to call it, buffoonery.
You know, there's there's Division I schools that I'm not
going to name who they are since that this may
have changed since the last time I heard that, are
(28:49):
that are looking at roster caps of.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Twenty two twenty three wrestlers.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Whereas and I'm gonna you know, I don't borrow a
lot of Mike moyerisms on a daily basis. I keep
my hips low, my elbows in. You know, it's eighty
degrees and shape. I don't use those unless he's on
the phone with me. But I will say this, he
does make a good point. With wrestling, we are not
a sport that you look at a roster and be like, okay,
and hockey.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
We're in college.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
H You can take somebody who used to be a
defenceman and put them on a wing football. You can
take a wide out and make them, you know, a
tight end. You can take an offensive lineman make make
them a defensive lineman. You can change positions in personnel,
a safety to a cornerback, those type of things. You
cannot take your seventy four pounder or make them a
thirty three pounder unless you have a chainsaw. It's just
(29:35):
it's not functional for certain sports. And I really wish
the oversight. And again, we've got ninety one championship sports
to look at, so you do have to apply some
type of blanket system to make things in that regard.
But setting a roster cap under thirty first of all,
by some of these schools is irresponsible and it shows
(29:55):
you don't care about the student athletes you bring in. Yes,
I'm going to say that I don't think you care
about the particular sport if you're limiting a wrestling program
to say twenty two athletes, because you know what that means.
If two guys get hurt, you are less than a
backup per weight. And this is a combat sport. Okay,
you're gonna have guys get hurt. It's just it's part
(30:16):
of what happens. I mean, college football rosters are over
one hundred. You play eleven on a play, that's ten
times the amount you need for a single play. So
again it's we're not football we got to stop comparing it.
But at the same point, a roster cap under thirty,
it's that's you know, you could probably get away with
twenty seven to twenty eight maybe, but if you got
(30:39):
I mean, if you got a string of guys that
are that are hurt, and then with the portal, you know,
that's that's flexibility there too. So I really have a
problem with the roster cap that if it's under thirty,
anywhere that has that's independent of the house settlement though.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Okay, thank you Jason. Now, just to refresh everyone's memory,
the D one roster size layers was thirty five point
four to two almost thirty five and a half and
the cap is thirty. And to refers to people's memory
or if you haven't seen the previous shows on the
three part series, on a clear day, you can see
college athletics. I have no clue where they got the
(31:14):
number thirty from. I think some lawyer bamboozled judge Wilkin Dart. Yeah,
and through a darkness is an even round number, so yeah, don't.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Get hit it from here.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, yes, the roster cap is now sixteen.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yep, that's what I think. Okay, by the way, sorry.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Now, yeah, can we can we offset the loss in
D one numbers with growth of D two or D three? Yes,
we can, guys. But part of this is we have
to get to a lot of people. There's an impression
that all college wrestles are equal, but D one wrestlers
(32:01):
are more equal than others. Okay, So we need to
understand that the sport needs to grow in the hole,
not just a vision one. It's horrible that they're doing
this to the roster cops in D one, But if
these people move to D two with D three, they
(32:21):
still get to do it. Now, do they want to
transfer our schools? They have to move into a different
part of the country, you know, in state tuition might
be cheaper for them, all that stuff. There's definitely not
everyone just going to up and leave. Okay, but there's
nothing wrong with being a D two, D three Naia,
n CWA, man, woman, whatever, wrestler. The sport is big
(32:44):
on everything. Okay.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
I'd like to say something real quick there. You know,
my son Brian was a coach for decades and I
noticed over the past ten years of his coaching he
had more of his good kids going D two. You know,
they just they they went to where they could be,
(33:06):
where they could participate, and and I think the D
two is much better and D three is much better.
It's better run than it used to be. I'm agreeing
with you. I think it's a it's we have to
focus on wrestling as a whole, not just D one.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Correct, Kevin. Now, guys, the next slide, I'm going to
give you some bad news. We will see a decrease
in the number of men's NCAA D one wrestlers from
twenty four to twenty five to twenty five, twenty six.
There's no way around that. Guys, wrestlers will be cut
from D one teams. And it's going now. Some people
(33:44):
might still be grandfathered in for a couple of years
and stuff like that, so it might take a while
to do it. But I'm going to put this in
perspective for you. As you can see on slide forty,
if we use the fifty five schools that opted in
to the House settlement, and if you multiply that by
(34:05):
five point four to two. The reason I got that number,
subtract thirty five point five to two from thirty. Okay,
that's two hundred and ninety eight. That is over ten
percent of all men's D one wrestlers right now, right,
(34:25):
So what you're talking about here, guys, is we're talking
about somewhere between eight and ten, depending on that whether
you use the thirty five as a roster or the
thirty as a roster, you're talking about eight to ten
men's and CUAA D one teams being dropped essentially. Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Now, what we could do, hopefully, though, is take if
instead of I if they Now in a perfect world,
we're like, well, there's two hundred ninety eight that's with
a roster cap. That's ten more Division one teams we
could fill with yes.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Jation, yes, yes, thank you, But that would inquire that
would require logic, That.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Would require logic.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
And it's also harder to add D one teams as
D two teams now, guys, For some reason, and I'll
use the airplane example here. When we drop a team,
everyone hears about that. When we're cutting two hundred and
ninety eight, we don't really take so much to it.
Just like the plane crash is on the news every day, okay,
(35:31):
the car accidents are, and it's the same thing. We're
losing people here, Okay, so it is bad news if
we're losing two undred and ninety eight wrestlers. Okay. Now,
as far as Judge Claudia Wilkin, I don't know the
lady Okay, I don't know if she was just trying
(35:54):
to get out of it easily. She was bamboozled, but
she's not intelligent enough to realize what the roster cap
would do. But as far as I'm concerned, she's on
the same list in my mind as the athletic director
will Marry the dropped wrestling and that football coach at
now bat rouge. Okay, we're just causing trouble for sports.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
Okay, back to Worths. I think we're stopping believing. Maybe
we shouldn't stop believing, but there are bad news for
participation numbers.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Is there any.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Way D two and D three can help with this,
help when this dam breaks? And how many NCAA member
schools are there? And can that help?
Speaker 4 (36:40):
Ah? Right, Kevin? Yes, So Jason mentioned this earlier about
adding ten more DT one teams or any teams. Yeah,
we need to look at D two, D three and
NAIA schools to add more teams, Okay, because that is
where the you know why do you fish there, that's
where the fish are. Okay, why do you rob banks
(37:01):
because that's where the money is. So it's the wisdom
to know the difference that we can help get more
teams with this.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Okay and Glenn, this is to bring up to since
since two thousands, since I've been tracking it, the yeah,
twenty five years, been trying four hundred and fifty active
new college programs. Now we've had some ad we've had
some schools close and drop it of Since since the
turn of the century, there's four hundred and fifty more
programs at it at the varsity level. And you know, uh,
(37:34):
that's that's junior college, that's ANAI, that's men, that's women.
So you know they're they're the growth is happening now
and again it ebbs and flows like I'm learning through
the history. Back in the seventies and eighties when I'm
digging through these these these ad and drops, like you know,
there was a rush where there were junior colleges left
and right that had wrestling, and then they just they consolidated,
they closed, they stopped it. They did it for two
(37:56):
years ago. Oh, this this is just not what we thought.
Personnel changes you know, sometimes it's a coach. Harold Nichols,
for example, back in the fifties brought rustling to Arkansas State.
Then when he got hired at Iowa State, that program
ceased to exist down in Arkansas until we had Little Rock,
you know, fifty years later. So you know, there's there's
You took point in those ebbs and flows, but we
always need to make sure no, we are providing opportunities.
(38:20):
There are opportunities. It's not just like everything's gone it's
never coming back. Just may not be as to Glenn's
point where we want them always to come back. We
you know, we want one hundred and fifty Division one
schools do. But are we better with that or you
know those are those are all philosophical questions. I'm not
going to sit there and you know say which one's better.
I've made a point in the past that a strong
nai A program, for example, with fifty guys in their
(38:43):
roster is better than a life support and Division one
team that gets one guy to the tournament every decade.
So all just all, well, we're Division one. Well now
you couldn't beat D three teams. So let's you know,
there's there's we've had programs we've lost like that, but
you know, to the point we've added four hundred and fifty.
The reason I said this, Mike called me about that
two days ago, and that was the number I looked
(39:04):
at since twenty Since twenty four and fifty new programs
are on board.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
Yeah, that's remarkable. And if you look at it, most
of these schools are adding our enrolment driven issues. And
if I'm president of school ad and want to start
a team, and I said, wait a minute, there's going
to be two hundred and ninety eight less wrestlers in
Division one. I'm a Division two guy or Division one guy.
I want to sport, start a sport to get thirty
(39:30):
men and thirty women at the school. Wrestling's right there
all right now, moving on, since not eighty one, eighty
two on all the years that we've known, Division three
has always had the most teams, guys. It's just the
way it is, okay. And Division two looks like it's
going to pass Division one, hopefully not with Division one
(39:53):
losing teams with Division two gaining teams here soon okay.
And you could see on the charter of forty six
a rebound in the number of teams where it went
down and now it's coming back up, which is nice
to see. As far as Kevin Hazard's question there, in
case Jason and I went on so long, people forgot
(40:15):
what his question was. It was the number of NC
DOUAA member schools. What that means is, for example, Notre
Dame is a member school at the NC double A
Merrival College down the road from me. Division III school
is a is a member school. They're both equal in
(40:36):
that thing. They're both one school, one school. Okay. A
member school means how many schools are in the NC
double A. It has grown from seven hundred and fifty
three and eighty one eighty two to one thousand and
eighty five last year. That's a forty four percent increase, okay,
So there's more fish out there to be to look
(40:59):
at to get to get teams. Okay. And as you
can see in the next slide, okay, seventy six percent
of this member growth is from Division two Division three schools.
So there's a reason that Mike Mooyer in the end
WCA is getting more D two and D three schools
add because first of all, there's more of them.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Okay, all right, why don't we do a show about this?
And it's sent great topic for our next show. Any way,
we can do one focusing on what we can do
to help grow the sport in different ways. Don't stop believing.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Thank you, Kevin. As a matter of fact, doctor Eddie
McLaughlin texted me a couple of weeks ago about a
suggestion for a show after we watched the duels in Tulsa.
So yes, we will do a show on this figuring
out how to help the sport despite the legal ramifications
(42:05):
of the House settlement to bring on roster cop limits
and it's a horrible thing for the sport. Guys. I
know I've been positively gung ho on almost every show recently,
but we have to fight this and we're not going
to overturn it legally. We got to figure out how
to get kids to be able to wrestle despite the
House settlement. All right, Kevin, let's hear about your kevnotes.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Okay, let's kind of review where we were number one.
We are already seeing the fallout from the House versus
NCAA settlement in football coaches firings, in the turmoil in
the Big ten that was on slide forty nine to seven.
There are now more wrestlers than in any previous year
that use reliable numbers Number three. Almost all the growth
(42:56):
of NCAA mail wrestlers has come from D two and
D three, and this trend will continue. D three has
had the most NCAA mail program since nineteen eighty two
and the most wrestlers since twenty thirteen. Number five, captain
D one wrestlers at thirty is going to have a
(43:17):
huge effect on the number of D one wrestlers. It's
going to be the equivalent of dropping eight to ten
D one teams number six. Our focus really needs to
winden to include D two and D three when we're
thinking about NCAA college wrestling. Number seven. We also need
(43:38):
to include women's teams, NAIA and NCWA teams when we
think about college wrestling, not just D one. Number eight,
and we saw some really nice charts, and those charts
showed the trends and the number of teams and wrestlers
between the different NCAA divisions. Nine. Looking at the trends,
(44:01):
it's evident that D one will surpass D one with
the number of wrestlers, and this will happen sooner due
to the roster caps in D one and in the
number of teams and number ten. Even with all the turmoil,
NCAA member schools said increased by forty four percent since
(44:22):
nineteen eighty two, from seven hundred and fifty eight to
one thousand and eighty five teams our schools.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Okay, thank you for that, Kevin and Jason. The next episode,
we'll explore not what wrestling could do for you, but
what you could do for wrestling, okay, And we're going
to try to figure out how match stats, musics and
numbers to try to educate the viewers and say what
(44:53):
we could do to help, specifically the roster captain that
we just talked about. So until next month, Save Matt Channel,
Save Matt Time on behalf of my co host Kevin
Hazard and Jason Bryant. I'm Blend Gormley signing off.
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