How does 2024 Penn State stack up as one of the best D1 wrestling teams of all-time? Mat Stats 32

The gang at MatStats uses data and stats to determine who had the best collegiate wrestling team since 1974.  The battle comes down to the old Iowa teams and the 2024 Penn State team.  If you want to have an educated opinion on the best team since 1974, MatStats provides a stats and analytics education for the viewers.
 
Slideshow to accompany this episode is here: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/slideshow32.pdf

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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

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a batting average,
a win percentage, correlations, andstandard deviation. But numbers aren't just for
nerds. In life, decisions needdata. In wrestling decisions, projections and
hypotheticals also need data. Here onMatt Stats we take historical data, theories,

(00:28):
and statistics and apply it to theworld's oldest and greatest sport. Now
to your trio of numerical nerd balls, Glenn Gormley, Kevin Hazard, and
Jason Bryant, and welcome back toanother episode of the Matt Stats Show.
Along with a Grand Pooba, KevinHazzard and the Sultan of stat Glenn Gormley.

(00:49):
I'm your host, Jason Bryant,fresh off my jet lag return from
Istanbul with a stopover in Amsterdam followingthe last Chance Olympic qualifier, and well
before we talked about our topic today, which is again who's the best team
in NCAA college drestling history, becausethat's always a topic, especially after this
year. But good day for themen's freestylers out there, got the last

(01:11):
two weeks qualified. The women didn'tneed to qualify anything because they got all
six through at the World Championships andthe Pan American qualifier. But Greco had
a rough day of it. CamalBay actually wrestled all the way back to
the Olympic playoff spot, lost tothe Hungarians, so Greco just taken three.
But overall good performance on the freestyleside, Greco. Of course,

(01:33):
we know that that's always going tobe a discussion topic for those who are
internationally seasoned, but for you guys, get a chance to check out Spencer
Lionzane Rutherford's impressive performances over the window. Yeah, very nice. I tell
you what. Rutherford was especially impressive, and then he came back and won

(01:53):
four in four hours. I mean, how what kind of conditioning and mental
minds that you have have to winfour matches against world class competition in four
hours. Yeah, that backside,it's not traditional because it was a huge
bracket, so he had a hehad a pigtail for our American nomenclature,
you know. He won two matches, then got beat then had to win

(02:15):
like four more on the backside becausehe had three the traditional three to take
the bronze. Then they still theystill labeled that as the bronze, and
then they had the Olympic playoff againfor the spot and then you know,
going through the Mongolian tumor ocher,he was, I mean, that's the
guy that beat him. And thenSujit the Indian is a young freaking monster.

(02:36):
That guy, that's the matchup thatscared me. He had a counter
takedown that Zane had his leg upin the air and then he how how
he didn't score on that was amazing. But then how Suji came around and
scored on that. It was likeit was a stand up switch. It
was like, what the heck justhappened? It was it was a beautiful
move. And ultimately Rutherford came aroundand and did end up winning that match

(02:57):
and then won the next one toqualify. So uh, a big one
for a full US team qualifies onthe men's and women's freestyle side. Again
Greco half the ways qualify and allthe upperweights. It's the three upperweights.
It's eighty seven to ninety seven andone hundred and thirty, so little guys
in Greco shut out this time forfor Paris coming up and that will be
the schedule is out on Nbcolympics dotCom. We can check that out.

(03:19):
But is Dan Bull second time I'vebeen, I had that song by They
Might Be Giants stuck in my headpretty much all weekend. I got to
power around with Sean Kenny from ESPNand he's done a lot of stuff.
Of course we've seen on the ACCnetwork in ESPN, and you know,
an Iowa native and loves him somewrestling. So we had a chance to
find our Irish pub like we dointernationally. Of course when you think Istanbull,
you think Irish pubs, and thenwalk around Amsterdam. As we both

(03:42):
had to flight in, I didan overnight in Amsterdam. I had never
actually left the airport before, soI got to count this as the thirtieth
country I've been to, so andI did some maths. So thirty countries
plus Puerto Rico wrestling has taken meto twenty eight of those, so the
only ones I haven't been to involvingwrestling Puerto Rico for a wedding, Aruba
for my honeymoon in South Africa withmy then girlfriend now wife of now fourteen

(04:08):
years. Is my second year myanniversary fell on an overseas trip. Last
year was Acapoco. This year wasjust Tample, neither of which my wife
has been on that trip, sowe got to work on that. But
she's in the still likes me stage, so when we go, if we
travel, she's like, I wantto hang out with you. I don't
want to go shopping or sit inthe stands. So we'll see where that
materializes as we get further along inour marriage. But that's where we're at

(04:29):
with the trips. So a littleslit. Slept in a little bit this
morning. My wife did fix onemore set of lunches for the girls,
but otherwise I'll be back to theparenting mode as we move forward here.
Well, good to have you back. Yeah. Anyway, So what we've
got today as we transition to ourslightly new fresh layout is we're going to

(04:50):
argue again based on stats. Glen, new boss, same as the old
boss. That's got it is what'sthis reference into? Because I've heard it
before, But what is the exactmusical tie in here? What we've got
on screen? Okay, it's aline from the one of the Who's famous

(05:10):
songs. Okay, And the reasonI picked it is because this is such
a tough argument. I spent alot of time researching this and analyzing the
data, and it took me awhile really to pick who I thought was
the best team, and the referencethat meet the new boss same as the
old boss is clearly Carol Sanderson's theboss now of the best team, and

(05:31):
he's really about the same as theold boss, Dan Gable of the IOWA
teams. They were both great astwrestlers, both greatest coaches. I mean,
you can make a strong argument they'rethe best two American wrestlers ever and
the best two coaches ever, Imean, which is pretty pretty nice thing.
So that's where that comes from.Okay, we'll start other normal stuff.

(05:51):
I feel like a number. Thisis the Stats show, of course,
so we make that Bob Seeker reference. Okay, and then of course
Danny's glass. And because the unofficialsponsor of the show, yes, eight
six seventy five three nine if youlose a wind shield called Danny's glass.
Yeah. What's funny is I wasdialing a number this morning. I was

(06:15):
I was looking up something for mydaughter's uh optalmologist, and I poked up
the phone. I went and lookedat the number, and I started dialing
seven five seven. I haven't livedin Virginia almost twenty years, and I
just I just instinctively it's like sevenfive. I was like, wait,
that's not I moved out of Virginiain like two thousand and five, Like
why is that still the thing.But anyway, that's where we're referencing it.

(06:35):
We don't even want to talk aboutwhen Kevin was was teaching at Warwick
High School when it was still eightoh four and that was pretty much like
the Hire State. So uh yeah, I think it was seven O three
and eight O four with a twoyeah seven. Now there's like, I
don't even know Grundy out there attask Roberts. He's got like a two
seven six number. Charlottes feel's likeeither four I think Charlotte fels four three

(06:57):
four. I'm not anyway, Yeah, year, I haven't almost haven't lived
in Virginia in twenty years, andI'm dialing seven five sevens here, so
some fives. You know Danny's glassdown there in the floods area. Yeah,
anyway, Okay, And of course, as we always say, the
opinions express of the show do notnecessarily reflect any opinions of the NWCA,
nor do Gormley Briant Hazard necessarily agreeon everything we say. Okay, Matt

(07:24):
Stats is a numbers show. Okay, it's not not opinions. Now,
we use stats here to come upwith an answer and who we think is
the best team ever. But it'snot just a random well I think this
because that's what I think. Okay, we did a lot of show on
this. Okay, it revolves aroundstats. Like we just said. Okay,

(07:47):
Now, the first slide we showevery show with numbers is how many
wrestling collegiate teams there are. Asof May thirteenth, which is two days
ago go, there are five hundredand four men and women's collegiate teams.
I mean, that is just greatto see the sport growing. And also

(08:09):
just of note, we've got theCalifornia Community College Women's League is thirteen teams.
Now not all of them are varsityteams, but we just had a
team announced they were moving from theirclub status to a varsity status as Sacramento
City College released that within the pastmonth. So again it's it's one of
the harder leagues to get information outof because again there's a bunch of a's

(08:31):
about one hundred and some junior collegesin the California system, and they've got
a small athletic office that runs it. So even trying to get some of
the schools on the same page withtheir their you know, I don't want
to say, well, yeah,their governing body would be the term to
use is sometimes even tricky for them. So we're still working on how many
of those varsity. I think itwas six. I think we're going to
be up to seven, and thenwe'll see how many of those thirteen are

(08:54):
moving to varsity. And also they'realso in their transition. This was the
last year they did folk style.They'll be going to full freestyle to align
with the other women's divisions and theNAI and NCAA moving forward. So that's
another bit of the news break.So these number are going to be changed.
And understand there's also there could besome big news coming with our home

(09:15):
states so to speak, in thecoming week. So we'll just kind of
tease that one out there a littlebit. But that's a good number again
for five oh four. Of course, again you see the disclaimer down there
at the bottom. We are stilllooking for exact numbers. Now. Again,
my summer projects each year is togo through the NCAAA Guides Amateur Wrestling
News and go year by year,and see how many published reports we have

(09:37):
because the NCAAA didn't do their statsuntil nineteen eighty two when they fully accepted
the banner of women's sports away fromthe AIAW. So we're still in a
gap going back to when we formulateddivisions the three divisional structures seventy three seventy
four, so we're still got almosta decade of stuff we're trying to find
the exact numbers on. So again, the most we've found from the NCAA

(09:58):
published was in seventy two, andagain that doesn't clearly define what schools were
counting. Could they have been freshmanteams? Could they have been JV teams?
Could they We didn't use the termclub really very much back then.
I guess I would say you twobecause I was still seven years before I
came around. So again, alwaysgot to add that semantical, respectful description

(10:20):
of what these numbers mean as well, because again we were here also to
document history as well as work withthe current status of stats. That's my
little spiel on the disclaimer, Thankyou very much, Jason. And as
far as other news is concerned,Okay, I got a couple of people
when I was talking about in KansasCity in March about what was going on

(10:43):
with the NCAA women's Okay, theprojected timeline looks like in the winner of
twenty twenty six, if all goeswell, the NCAA will have a women's
championship. I'm not promising that,but that's certainly the feedback I've gotten from
it, and I think that's greatnews. I mean, I wish it
was going to be next year,but let's take it when we get it,

(11:09):
Okay, All right, now,so we're going to talk about We
were all there, of course,Jason was on the mic, and we
watched Penn State have one of thebest NCAA tournaments ever. They won by
a hundred points. So I guesswe're going to talk this week this month
about where do they stand on thebest team of all time? Yeah,

(11:35):
that was you know, in mymind, at least in the stats guys
world, that was the biggest questionI had, you know, leaving the
tournament was where does Penn State rankingthis? Okay, and this is like
a dream thing for a wrestling guythat love stats is to try to figure
this out. And you know,one of the things involved here and none

(11:56):
of the three of us on matchstats went to either Iowa or Penn State
or Oklahoma State or any team thatreally might have an argument. So it
might be easy for us to removethe school loyalty, but for other people
it might be a little bit moredifficult. Okay, argument had in Oklahoma
versus the argument had in Iowa versusthe Yeah, you take it and you

(12:18):
take it to Norman, you takeit to Stillwater, you take it to
Aims, you take it to IowaCity, you take it to State College,
Pittsburgh, you know, Bethlehem,Lehi Valley. You have this argument.
Anywhere else, you're going to probablycome up with different, different what
is, what ifs? What aboutISM's statistical manipulation of course and recency bias?
Which this is probably where of usthree, I get hit the most

(12:41):
because prior to I'd say I didn'tremember. I didn't watch the NCAA wrestling
tournament until nineteen ninety eight, andI didn't start going until two thousand and
two. So I've only got thatrealm of reference, at least with my
own eyes. And sometimes the statisticswill tell you one thing, but there's
also that other statistical reference that's notreally measure. Glenn, you know what
it's called. It's called the eyetest. So you know I've had corrective

(13:05):
eye surgery. We're both wearing youguys are wearing glasses, so who knows
what that actually means. But alsospeaking of the eye test, for those
of you following along, if you'relistening, remember go to mattelkonline dot com
or NWCA online dot com to getthe accompaniment to this. So this is
the the slideshow that Glenn puts togetherfor each show that is in the show
notes. So if you're listening andyou're not driving and listening, you can

(13:26):
you can follow along with the PDFaccompaniment. So as we get to these
numbers, we get to these charts. If you're listening along and you need
a visual aid, those are alwaysgoing to be in the show notes,
so making sure you guys know thatbefore we move forward. Thank you,
Jason, and I'm glad you didbring up the eye test thing, because
you know, being a numbers guy, I think it's pretty much close to

(13:48):
one hundred percent all about numbers.But I'm as human being that does the
eye tests and say, well whatabout Yeah, so I understand where Jason's
coming from. Now. We usethe seven categories that I added an eighth
to determine this. Number one isnumber of champions, number two, number
of all Americans, number three,number of team points, number four,

(14:11):
margin of points, number five percentageof team points. And then number six
is really the same thing. That'swhy I say seven and there the real
points. Number seven then would bepoints above replacement. That's a takeoff on
the wins above replacement for baseball statsjunkies. And then the last one team

(14:31):
wins and losses, which is reallysomething you don't hear about leaving a wrestling
tournament, Like, what did anybodytell you what Penn State's record was in
the matches leaving the tournament. Inever heard anybody say that. I just
went and looked it up because it'snot part of our vernacular with wrestling.
We we make a good point ofyou know, I know that when we're

(14:52):
looking at kle Sanderson's record, likewhat the team's record is like since he's
been the coach in semi finals andfinals, like it's outlandish crazy. So
that's the really the only time yousee the records tossed around, because again,
you wrestle more matches, you're gonnahave more wins, You're gonna have
obviously more losses. Everybody's at bareminimum gonna have two matches barring an injury,

(15:13):
forfeit or something like that, soyou're, you know, at best,
at worst, you're zero and twofor everybody in the field times three
hundred and thirty. So that's thenumber of matches we're looking at now.
Although that at points above replace thatdefinitely is assault in the swat and made
up wrestling thing. So we'll justthat's a Gords talk about is most tampions.

(15:35):
I mean, there's and I andwe've got a slide on that.
So let's let's look at that slidebecause that's a pretty good indicator the best
team of all times that But that'sagain, and this is where we'll get
into the discussion about it, becauseit's like, Okay, if you have
five champs and then you have fiveforfeits hypothetically and you could get you could

(15:56):
hypothetically go oh for in dual meetsbecause those five champs don't outset getting pinned
five times? So is that thedefinition of a team. This is where
we can get into the semantical discussionsof it. But that's a little far
off, right now, that wasthe That's a plausible but improbable scenario.
So Glenn, Yeah, this isthe answer. And here's the question.

(16:17):
Yep, here's the thing with thefive schools, five different teams that have
had five champions. Now what Jasonand Kevin were just saying about this?
In twenty twenty two, for example, Penn State had five champions. Okay.
In twenty twenty four, Penn Statehad four. Okay, However,
they had one hundred and seventy twoand a half points in twenty four.

(16:41):
In twenty two they had one hundredand thirty one. Okay, they only
had six ol Americans in twenty two. Okay. I can't imagine saying the
twenty two Penn State team was betterthan the twenty four team. Now,
if you just used a metric ofnumber of champions, yes they are.
But the example I use on thenext slide is big shot Robert Ry of

(17:07):
course is known for his clutch shots, but the definition of clutches who knows?
Okay, and he won seven rings, were Wilt Chamberlain only won two.
Nobody in their right mind would eversay big shot Bob Boy is better
than Will Chamberlain. Okay, soyeah, I mean, and what's also
interesting on the slide here, Wiltis known as the record book for reason.

(17:27):
Not sure it's the reason most peoplethink come to mind, but we'll
just leave that one. I'll there'sanother record that still's known for allegedly moving
forward again, those of you havea certain age to understand that. Okay,
all right, so we had wehad most champions. So second thing

(17:49):
we're gonna look at is most allAmericans? And where does Penn State rank
with that all American? There havebeen nine instances where a team is at
nine All Americans or ten, Minnesotabeing the only one with ten in two
thousand and one incasion one individual one. Thank you Jason for this. I

(18:11):
got a clear can't. I can't. We can't leave out the other schools
that have had ten or at leastsome cases eleven or twelve in the NAIA
or the women So of notes.Yeah, sure, So with that being
said, is Penn State had eightthis year? Okay, which on that
metric, Penn State would be tiedfor tenth. Okay. If that's the

(18:32):
only thing you used, it's somethingto use, Okay. And of course
this year's Penn State team. Thetwo guys that didn't place lost in the
Blood round, you know, wonby sudden victory. So it would be
pretty hard to imagine that this PennState team is at best a tenth best
team. If you only use themetric of all Americans, that's where they

(18:55):
would be. Okay. So,okay, so we had most champions,
most all Americans. But now weget to the most team points and it's
one hundred and seventy two and ahalf. Is this the defining factor?
Okay? I think this is ahuge factor. Okay, because you know,

(19:19):
if if winning doesn't matter, whydo they bother keeping scores? What
vicelam Pardi once said, Okay,and wrestling's a different type of sport where
not all wins are the same.It pens worth more than you know,
a regular decision with this, it'ssomething in status recalls it drawn from the
same earn. Okay, Penn Statebeat twenty twenty four, Penn State beat

(19:44):
ninety seven Iowa by two and ahalf points. Okay, Now some things
started to change, as you cansee, it's like twenty one that and
we went over this in the past. This year was the first year of
a three point takedown. In ninetysix, we started to modify double elimination,
etc. So a lot has changedon that. But one of the

(20:07):
biggest things that's changed, besides theopportunity of having more matches, is the
change in placement points. Okay.I actually consulted my fellow host, he
Jason Briant about this, and Jasonreached out to the statistician of murders the
GIMP from LEI about when those teampoints changed, Okay, and what the

(20:32):
placement points changed there, And youcan see in there, first and second
place are the same, Okay,Third, fourth, third through eighth have
all increased in today's calculation from whatthey did in ninety seven when Iowa used
to hold that record. So ifyou give Iowa the placement points the ninety

(20:56):
seven placement points that Penn State gotninety seven, Iowa team actually has more
points than this Penn State team.So, first of all, team points
is very important, but it's notthe end all the be all. You
can't just say just because of that, it's the best team with changes and
stuff. And this is a veryinteresting thing because you know what was if

(21:19):
they said, well, a touchdownis now worth nine points or the you
know, the extra points worth fourpoints. It would change things. Okay,
I want to clear up one thinghere. Okay, I was born
when Roger Morris hid his sixty firstbut I'm not old enough to remember it.
The Grand Pooba, I think,was already retired dead. Okay,

(21:42):
he is old enough to remember it. Okay. Now, Delaware wasn't even
a state yet. Oh way,Yeah, but I do remember. I
remember he's coming, he's he's gettingclose, and they already started this argument
as he got closer to the purists, We're going it's not the same thing

(22:03):
because he had, you know,eight more games. Yeah, nineteen sixty
one was the first year of onehundred and sixty two game schedule because they
expanded baseball and you couldn't do theseven different teams. You would play twenty
two times to come up with onefifty four. That's how they came up
to one fifty four number. SoI'm a statistician. At that point.

(22:26):
In my mind, Roger Maris heldthe record for most home runs in the
season period. Okay, Penn Statestill holds the record in my mind for
most team points scored. The differenceis they didn't say that, Uh,
Marris, you got a home runand a half for anything you hit on
a Sunday or anything like that.Okay. The argument about whether Maris' season

(22:52):
in sixty one was better than russseason in twenty seven is a different story
than who holds the record for mosthome runs? Okay, And of course,
since then McGuire, Sosa Bonds threwa lot of gas on that with
the explosion of home runs in thelate nineties in early the century. Okay,

(23:12):
So I wanted to tell you guys, there's a difference. I'm saying
Benn State holds the record for mostteam points, but that doesn't prove they're
the best ever. It's a bigpoint in it. Okay. Okay,
Slide twenty seven. Okay, Sowe talked, so what about margin and

(23:40):
victory over the runner up team?I think that was a really big thing
about this year's about this year's championship. Oh, I agree, Kevin.
I don't see how anybody could haveleft that arena that was at all following
whatever team race there was, Okay, without your being blown away by that

(24:02):
Penn State out distance Cornell the teamrunner up by one hundred points, Okay,
And they had one hundred and seventytwo and a half. That's just
a huge thing. So I didsome research on this. I want you
guys to think about this. IfCarter Starucci, fortunately he was able to
continue when he won his fourth title, was not a son with the same

(24:25):
the school, the same way ofsaying Starachi's name, pass, he's he's
older than Virginia, not quite asold as Delaware. Yes, yes,
yes, yes, yes, verygood. Okay. If if the first
four timer in Penn State history hadnot been able to wrestle, okay,
and they didn't get any points ofthat weight class, Penn State still would

(24:49):
have set the margin of victory record. I want you guys to think about
that for a second. Okay,now to get a bigger grasp of just
how dominant Penn State was. PennState had four national champions. If we
just decide to erase older points thatthose four guys scored, they still would

(25:15):
have won the team title. Howmuch time do you need to let that
set in? I mean that isjust yeah, I mean you take you
take the points, the four titlepoints away, you just give them zeros,
yes, zeros now granted, Yeah, I mean you know that that

(25:40):
would you know, you'd have tomove els around and things like that.
I mean, it would, itwould change a lot more than that,
But it's at its base. Justtake take their points away, and they
still all the other guys. Theother six guys scored enough points to win
a title. Yeah, it's justnothing, including two of them who didn't
places. Yeah, I mean,it's just it's wild. And we may

(26:00):
several references, you know, tothe twenty seven Yankees with the Sultan squad,
Babe Ruth and Roger Maris. Butif you remove Ruth and Gerrik from
the twenty seven Yankees, do theystill win the World Series? I don't
know, you know, I mean, but we're removing four guys from Penn
State and they win it. Okay, lineup and geez. That's that's the

(26:22):
mind boggling stats so far. Andthere's more coming, folks, But that's
one. Oh yeah, that holybuckets. Yeah, that is the biggest
mind boggling one that I saw Slidethirty one. Okay, so we talked
about margin and victory, but isthere a possibility that that stat is deceiving?

(26:52):
Is there there are other circumstances thatmake it not so powerful? Of
a statistic. Yes, okay,it's a mind boggless like like we've said
earlier here. Okay, when Iwas watching the tournament, I noticed that
there was a lot of parody inteams two through ten. Okay, Penn

(27:14):
State was on one planet, andthen the two through ten weren't our planet
here, Okay. If some ofthe other NCAA champs would have decided to
go into Cornell, Cornell would havebeen a lot closer to Penn State than
they were. That does not meanthat Penn State wasn't lights out dominant and
an unbelievable team. Okay, sincewe talked about the twenty seven Yankees so

(27:38):
much, if you put hornsby atHack Wilson on the Philadelphia A's, okay,
maybe the A's are closer to theYankees, and maybe the actually make
the world cheeries to sell the Yankees. You don't know, okay. So
I did some some mathematical stuff withthis. On slide thirty four, you

(28:02):
see that Penn State is one hundredpoints above Cornell, and then you see
all the way down the tenth OklahomaState is only sixteen and a half points
behind Cornell, and Oklahoma State wasin tenth place. So that's nine teams
within sixteen points. If we chopPenn State in a half, we have
a great team race. We threeteleven teams. Okay, that's all eleven

(28:26):
because they would have been one andtwo. Yeah, yeah, they would
have been. Yeah. Like ifyou divide a last in a half it's
the first and second largest state,they still would have been one and two.
Correct. Again, Remember, though, it's the show's about real stats,
not hypotheticals. It's real stats,right, Glenn, real status,
Yes, yes, yes, correct. Okay, So thank you Jason.

(28:48):
So if you look at slide thirtysix, Okay, I went back to
the last forty five years, andthank you to the hard work of Jason
Bryant that he emailed me some stuffabout all the teams scores back then.
Made my life a little bit easier. The points spread in teams two through
ten in twenty twenty four was lowerthan any year since nineteen eighty. Okay,

(29:15):
that's a wild thought. Okay,two thousand and eight was very close
to that. Okay, if youdo it with a percentage, because we
know now there's more team points.Even if you do it as a percentage,
it's still the lowest. So we'venever seen parody in teams two through
ten like we saw this year,which was a neat thing. Okay,

(29:38):
that's also indicative. It shows you, like we joked about how crazy one
twenty five was this year. Thatwas probably a you know, that was
indicative of how tight the season wasafter number one when we look at the
team race, and of course thestats here validate that and it's like,
yeah, I mean two through ten'snever been this close. This is the

(30:00):
one that I think. This isthe jaw dropper for me when I was
going through this before before the showand I'm like, holy crap. And
here's the thing. Penn State's dominanceovershadowed this fact to the point where it
didn't even dawn on me until wesat here and started talking about it,
like wow, it was that closeto through ten, which could have been

(30:21):
a headline type of year, butthere was such a gap between one and
two that controlled the headlines, thatcontrolled the narrative more so than how incredibly
tight two through ten was. That'sa history making type of number here,
if you know. Yeah, wedo a pool and part of it is
is, you know, just topick something who are the third and fourth

(30:44):
place teams this year that changed everysession. Every session the top five or
six teams changed except for Penn State. They just I mean in the final
session, it was changing almost everymatch. Yeah, it was amazing,
amazing the parody. And I thinkin a part of that is the coaching
is so much better now across thecountry. You've got you've got coaches at

(31:08):
fifteen or twenty schools that can producea national champion, and that didn't used
to be the case. Yeah,very well, said Kevin. So if
you look at this here the slidethat chasing us up now the ten closest
point differentials for team two through tennineteen eighty to twenty twenty four. Okay,

(31:33):
if you notice ninety five is theonly year before the modified double elimination
took place. Then you go tothe next slide and it has the percentage
of team points, and then tothe slide after that. The largest spreads
were all before the modified double eliminationtook place. So is that a function

(31:55):
of the modified double elimination or isit a function of essentially what Kevin,
which is said that we now havebetter coaching throughout and the teams there's more
poarity in the sport now. Alsowant to clarify for those who are you
know, of the younger age,who are stat junkies that are that are
not older than the state of Delaware. It is when Glenn means modified the

(32:17):
elimination is we didn't have full wrestlebacks until nineteen ninety six. So when
I say that, and when Glennsays modified double elimination, if it was
a true double elimination, you stillhave the the the loser of the finals
would have a chance. I wouldhave to be beaten twice. So again
it's a modified doublement. It's likelike look at the Little League World Series.

(32:38):
You know you've got to beat thechant twice or the chance you know,
to win, you've got to youknow, you lose twice to be
eliminated. So and that we don'thave that, whereas our third place person
only has one loss, or youknow, our or our runner up has
one loss. But what it isalso means is you didn't get pulled back
into the It's not an automatic hto two. If the guy who beat

(33:00):
you in the first round had towin their next match, and even going
back before then, they had tomake the semis. So when you compare
the international system we have now,which was like, oh, you have
to make the finals to get pulledback in in CAA wrestling used to have
that. That used to be ourformat. So this weird thing that we
all complain about, guess what,we kind of invented it years and years

(33:22):
ago. You look at the drawsand it's in the NCAA rule book in
the format, So looking at that'salso a key thing to remember. Like,
so if you lose in the firstround, your guy gets upset,
like John Smith did not place asa freshman, the guy he lost to
in the in the early round didn'tmake the semi finals or did make the
quarterfinals, and John Smith as afreshman got bounced, d and p whereas

(33:45):
in today he'd had a chance towrestle back. So and we didn't have
this format until the mid nineties,so that's something to consider. There are
a lot of guys. There wasThere was one seeds I would think.
I think Matt Linlan was a oneseed and got beat in the first round
and didn't get a chance to wrestleback. That was it because the guy
he lost to in the first roundlost in the next round. So you
know, that's what we say whenwe talk about modified double elimination. It's

(34:07):
not a true double elimination, butit is what we consider double elimination is
is kind of what what Glenn's talkingabout. Just to just to clarify the
nomenclature here for you. Thank youvery much for clarifying that. Okay,
now slows don't want to help.Okay, but does parody in the team

(34:29):
standings cause a team blowout from twoto ten? Okay? You know,
I did some research on that,Kevin, because I thought part of that
blowout could have been that. Andwhat I did was I did the point
spreads from one through two, okay, the average point spread, and then
compared it. And it really hasno reason for the for the blowout.

(34:53):
It's it's equally dispersed on that.So to answer your question, there can
be parody and a blowout. Therecan be parody and no blowout. It
just it was basically happenstance. Andthe bottom line on why Penn State as
such a margin victory is because theywere damn good. And that's the statistical

(35:15):
love statement right there. Yes,that's just it's yeah, that's that is
an irrefutable fact, irrefutable that theywere damn good. Okay, all right,
now, I know we're going totalk about team points and real points.
And when I went through this thing, I made a note to myself,

(35:38):
could you spend a little time talkingabout the team points and real points
because I don't think I understood itgoing through. Yeah, because you know
you've got you've got it in quoteshere to Glenn real points. Let's let's
explain that from a from a froma layman's term, not assaultant of stat
situation. So give it, giveit the real people what it means.

(36:00):
Okay, give it to the realpeople. Okay. What I did here
was I figured out the team likePenn State, for example, one hundred
and seventy two and a half pointsthis year, and then we figured out
the total team points that were scoredby all teams, and where Penn State
would rank on that percentage. Andif you go to slide forty five,

(36:20):
you see the Penn State had alittle bit over twelve percent of all the
team points. Now, the recordfor this category is the eighty three Iowa
team that had well had much morethan that, over fifteen percent. Okay.
Now the situation here is before wedid the modified double elimination, Okay,

(36:46):
there weren't nearly as many matches.So teams like eighty six, and
we'll discuss in Iowan eighty three,they didn't have anybody in the wrestle backs,
Okay, so it didn't matter tothem that those points were scored by
somebody. And if you have morewrestle backs, a team who might,

(37:06):
let's say, wins all ten weightclasses, will have a smaller percentage of
the points than if you had nowrestle backs. Okay. So it is
a way to show dominance, butit's not a complete way to show it.
The term real in quotes, Okay, I got this from my past
life when I was an NBA studentand a bad wrestling coach. Okay,

(37:30):
when you take, like if somebodywere to make one hundred dollars, and
we'll take when Kevin graduated from collegeeighteen seventy, Okay, and somebody makes
one hundred dollars today twenty twenty four, the guy in Kevin' z era is
doing much better due to inflation.So, for example, the one hundred

(37:52):
dollars in eighteen seventy might be equalto six hundred thousand dollars today. So
what I did was said, Iused it. I started this in twenty
twenty three. That that was thebaseline, okay, and that determined a
real point scenario, which if wego to slide forty seven, that will

(38:16):
show you all the way I didit, all the way for the champions
from seventy four on down. It'sthree different slides, and you'll see where
I highlighted Penn State and Blue thisyear on slide forty nine, because that's
the regular thing. What that triedto do, guys, is put everything
in the same comparing apples and apples. Okay, this is what I did.

(38:42):
What I didn't understand how do youget the multiplier in the next to
last column. Okay, if youlook at the next to last column on
the you're twenty twenty three, it'sone. Okay. If you go to
total tournament points in twenty twenty four, fourteen hundred and twenty eight points were

(39:02):
scored. In twenty twenty three,thirteen seventy were scored. That means points
came easier in twenty twenty four.Maybe that's because the three point takedown rule.
You know, it could be becauseit's just different things. Okay.
So in other words, in thesame twenty twenty three as the baseline here,

(39:23):
Penn State would have scored one sixtyfive point five y five there,
and by far the best is theeighty three Iowa team. However, Okay,
they are given, ah the pleasureof there weren't as many wrestlebacks then,

(39:44):
So you can't just use this statand say eighty three i was the
best ever. You can, youcan include it, but it's not going
to prove anything, Okay. It'sa percentage of the total points is the
multiplayer then correct total points year toyear using eighty using twenty three as the

(40:05):
base the baseline, Okay, correct. And the reason we used twenty three
is because we did that last yearas a show and we didn't know anything
from twenty four yet, because itdid not happen yet. I hope I
explained that well enough to you guys. Okay, slide fifty three please,

(40:25):
all right. So I know thatyou're a stack guy and you and you
started really as a baseball stack guy, and you've got you talk you talk
about wins above replacement baseball. Isthere something similar? And I say,
we have points about replacement, Howare they the same? And how is

(40:45):
that? How does that work asa factor? Okay, what I did,
as Kevin mentioned, I wrote mygrad thesis on stats of baseball before
moneyball, and that's why we useterm that Matt stats is the Moneyball of
wrestling. The sabermetrics people, that'swhat baseball nerds call themselves, has developed

(41:08):
this thing called win above replacement.War is the an acronym. Okay.
That means if you take Barry Bondsis unbelievable two thousand and one season and
you replace him with an average leftfielder, how many more wins did San
Francisco have because Barry Bonds was onthat team. That's what wins above replacement

(41:32):
mean. How many more team winsSan Francisco would have gotten with Barry Bonds
over a replacement. I tried todo the same thing with points above replacement.
And as Jason said earlier in theshow, this is a thing Gormley
made up, and he's absolutely correct. I was the one that made this
up. Okay, So what Idid here is you see on side twenty

(41:57):
four. I don't want to borepeople too much with the math fifty four
excuse me too much with the math, okay, but what it boils down
to is easily the best points abovereplacement is the eighty six Iowa team.
No one's even close to them.Now, with that being said, eighty

(42:17):
six Iowa only had eight guys.They did not have an eighteen pounder or
a heavyweight. So if we justsay, okay, let's say they had
an eighteen and a heavyweight and theyboth lost two bouts two and done,
well, they both could have beenwon and done in those years, Okay,
that Iowa team would still hold thepoints above replacement lead. That's a

(42:42):
pretty wild thing to think about.That Iowa was that good at eighty six.
Of course, one of their winswas pinning to William and Merry Guy.
Okay, so those points count forhim. Penn State was behind the
eighty six Iowa team on this.Okay, I hope that explained a little
bit. Kevin. You did allright, So you ran all those stats

(43:09):
and now we're gonna narrow it downto four teams. I'm narrowing it down
to four teams in no particular order, and I just did it randomly.
I didn't do it chronologically or thesame team eighty three, Iowa twenty four,
Pence State ninety seven, Iowa eightysix. Iowa are the four teams

(43:29):
with all these stats that it camedown to on slide fifty six, anything
highlighted and red is the top forthat team. If it's highlighted and yellow,
it was a tournament high, notnecessarily that team high. So you
can see all these teams have differentarguments to be used there. Okay,
it's a great barroom debate, guys, because nobody can come in and say,

(43:52):
statistically, this is a fact.No it's not. Okay, Statistically,
Barry Bondchi bore home runs than anybodyelse in one season or a career.
That's a fact. Okay, Butthis thing, we just can't boil
it down to that, Okay.So Glenn, for example, barroom arguments,

(44:13):
this is where you know, youcompare apples to apples and apples oranges
and apples to cumquats. So let'ssay, let's let's let's take the example.
Well, fan a, Well,Penn State had the most points and
the biggest margin of victory. Well, they also had a tournament where they
had the most total matches to scorepoints in and the advantage of the three
point takedown in the two three orfour point near fall. So there's more

(44:36):
points a match available that weren't therebefore, and there's more actual matches that
are available for So again that iswhere we get into that. It's I
don't want to say sliding scale becausemy wife gets on me all the time
about using that term incorrectly, justlike a lost leader. So but those
are those things as like the caveatsto each of these individual things. So
yeah, okay, we've had tenweight in these eras, we can say,
okay, you know five chance,five chances to ten weight classes.

(44:58):
Well, we had an era wherewe had had you know, ten all
Americans all. This team had nineall Americans ball in an era where there
were eleven weight classes. So eachera in this case, we don't These
four teams don't work on that.But like the teams like in the late
sixties when we had eleven weights,he had arguments like that, they come
into play. So each team hasits own caveat to counteract against with the

(45:20):
opposing argument, making this such agreat debate, and again that recency bias
because I was there, because youwere there, Well this guy did this,
This had they had more chance,or how good would they have been
if Carter Staracci was healthy? Howmany more points do they score if he
is on one hundred percent? Thereare so many different things you can throw
in, but I love it whereyou've got it highlighted here to say,

(45:40):
you know, there's more matches onthe board, there's more possible team points
because there are more matches scored.There's the technical falls were through the roof
this year, as we talked aboutlast show from the National Championship. So
again, each argument has its ownsub argument to counter to make sure that
argument is valid. It's nuts andI geek out about stuff like this.
I don't I can't bring a spreadsheetor a podcast to the bar argument to

(46:04):
do it. But now we've givenyou the primer for it. At least
spreadsheet. Yeah, I mean,I keep a database on my phone to
solve bar bets all the time.As a matter of fact, especially during
fargo. You know how many timespeople will text me like hey, so
and so on all American or oryou know, sometimes even resumes. I've
had ads email me like hey,this guy says he placed here and more
more, you know, more thanonce has been no they did not,

(46:28):
so uh yeah, sometimes bar bets. Sometimes it's a job. It's on
the line, So come prepared withyour stats, ladies and gentlemen. Yes,
yes, yeah, it's best tocome prepared and if you're not prepared,
just make it up in yeo loud, Okay, Slide fifty seven.
And I don't want to beat thiseverybody, but it shows those four teams

(46:52):
all replacements, and if they atanything, they lost to the blood round.
So that just shows you how welldifficult it is just to look at
that and say which one of theseteams is the best? All right?
A couple things going back, LikeJason Kevin talked about the way things were
in the old days. The twentytwenty four Penn State team, Okay,

(47:16):
the one hundred and forty nine poundof Cassic came back at place third.
If he was wrestling with the rulesback before, when you had to lose
to her, you know, whenyou lost their semi finalists in order to
wrestle back, he would have beenout of the tournament right away, you
know. So it's wild that PennState then scored nineteen points when he wrestled

(47:37):
back. Okay, their thirty threepounder he would not have had a second
back. Okay. The ninety sevenIowa team, their heavyweight would not have
had any points if he wrestled ineighty three, Okay, due to different
rules. The eighty three and eightysix Iowa team, it didn't matter what

(47:58):
the rules were change or anything likethat. They didn't participate in the wrestle
backs early because they kept on winning. Okay. So it's really it's an
interesting thing. Like Jason said,you better come prepared for a debate with
that, because how many people aregoing to think of the forty nine pounds
situation for Penn State. We woundup coming in third. If he was

(48:21):
eliminated right away, we would nothave even considered them as the most team
points because they would have been,you know, close to twenty points away
with it. It's slide fifty nine, okay, And this is one that
I so we're going to look atthe looking at the top four. What

(48:44):
are the win loss records for thosefour teams at the tournament. Yeah,
we mentioned this early in the showthat that's rarely mentioned. Okay, I
put it up there. The highestwinning percentage of those four teams is the
eighty six i Highway team at eightyeight percent, twenty four Penn State is
second and eighty three percent. Okay, Penn State won one more match than

(49:08):
the eighty three Iowa team. Itwas that close with them. It's really
close to all that. But withthe Iowa team in eighty six, again,
this thing is still over ahead andalways will be. They did not
have an eighteen pound or a heavyweight. So if you say in eighty six

(49:28):
Iowa would have had them, theyboth were won and done. Iowa still
would have had the best percentage eightysix Iowa. If they were zero to
two, then Penn State would havehad it. So it's really a difficult
thing to say. Can you justput this in there. The reason I
did it like that due to TedWilliams drawing so many walks. Okay,

(49:52):
In baseball used to be you needa certain amount of at bats to win
a batting title. Walks do notcount as at bats. Ted Williams had
so many walks one year he wouldhave won the batting title had they counted.
So they switched it to you needcertain plate appearances. If you don't
have enough plate appearances and it getsclose, they can assume you made another

(50:16):
out with another plate appearance, andas lawyer, you're still over the second
place guy. You get the battingtitle. That's never happened. But that's
where I got that from. Now, I don't remember that coming up,
and I want to say, Iwant to say it was the summer of
ninety two if I'm not. AndI can't remember who the player was,
but I remember plate appearances came intoplay because he had been out. I

(50:39):
can't remember who the player was,but I remember I was in seventh grade,
going into eighth grade, and Iremember hearing about this for the first
time. Because again, the adjustedaverage took him okay, he needed twenty
more plate appearances. They just madehim, oh for twenty and that was
the adjusted batting average. I'm like, that's ridiculous, Like it's just again

(51:00):
there's lies, damn lies and statisticsin this case. It's like, yeah,
yeah, I remember, I remember, you know, I remember reading
about and that was the first timeI'd ever heard about the Ted Williams.
I think it was what four hundredat bats and then it became four hundred
plate appearances because uh, and thenplayed appearances. Now, yeah, okay,
something like that, because you knowthat I just remember hearing that when
I was a kid. You know, it was like whoa that was?

(51:22):
That was something that was. Itjust seems like, oh, so hypothetically
it prevents teams from pitching around guysand oh, okay, the Yankees doesn't
want this Red Sox guy to beattheir record, so they're just gonna walk
them all. I mean, Iget it. It's again, you know,
it's it's a it's adjudicating the outlier. But uh yeahh you know.
Anyway, I just remember that coming. That just popped into my head right

(51:42):
then and there, so I getit. Well, yeah, and that
ture I got that from. Okay, so we've got we've got the stats,
and so drum roll, who dowe think the best team was of
these four? You first, Kevin? Okay, I would have a drum

(52:06):
roll sound effect or else I haveplayed it that I do get. I
got something for Glen's jokes though Ican do that anyway. I went with
eighty six Iowa and and and youyou brought up the point where they only
brought eight. Their eighteen pounder hadsome trouble making weight did not go to

(52:28):
the you know, to the conferencechampionship. He was the return and runner
up, So I think that kindof counters that over on the you know,
the winning percentage. I think hewould have helped their winning percentage.
So with eight guys, five champs, a runner up, a fourth,
and a fifth, they scored likethe thirteen percent of the points if you

(52:50):
look at all the stats all theway across. I just felt like that
was one heck of a team.But then ninety seven intrigued me with Iowa
because they were not supposed to bea dominant team. Every one of their
wrestlers was at seed or better andthey just had a phenomenal Now is this

(53:17):
the best team or is the bestteam of the tournament? I think ninety
seven might have been the best tournamentteam ever. But because they just they
just out wrestled everything they were,they had, you know, a one
time tournament. But I went witheighty six Iowa. Ninety seven Iowa second,

(53:42):
Glenn, what do you got?I have eighty three Iowa, And
I looked at this thing. I'vedone a lot of research on this thing,
and this was a really tough decisionfor me to make. It was
it was so tight on things,But I went with eighty three Iowa.
All right, I'm going to backthe slides up so I can have something
that I can look at and kindof justify a little bit, because again,

(54:06):
I, you know, do Ihave an opinion? I don't know,
mainly because I have to look atit because I didn't start watching collegiate
wrestling regularly. Now I start.I saw it when I was going to
the Virginia Duels, but I didn'treally start paying attention to the nationals till
you know, ninety seven to ninetyeight seasons. So my scope is limited
to the last twenty something years atthis point, almost thirty years. Yeah,

(54:30):
twenty five and a half year.So I look at you know,
you hear the lore about these teams, you know, the five champs,
it's like five out of eight,and then Penn State gets six placers and
five champs. It's like the percentageof champions also comes into play. But
I mean, and then last year'steam, well, where's the rest is
it? Is it Penn State's fault? The rest of the field wasn't as
competitive for is there like the marginof victory? So I'm really torn on

(54:52):
this, and I don't think Ican make a distinction without looking at it
again, It's not like Glenn's numbersaren't aren't you know? Enticing one way
or the other, I'm also oneof something where I've got to look at
it. Like with my Hodge vote, I looked at it. I looked
at stats and everything, and Iwent down and I broke it down so
many different ways, so my headcan wrap herself around it. Because I'll
be completely honest here, I wasthe only tomorrow to my knowledge, I'm

(55:14):
the only one of the country thatgave Greg Kirkley to first place vote as
an official voter. And I didit because I broke down so many stats
in the percentage of how tough theywere. So I'm not afraid to go
against against the grain on this andI think without seeing. But the problemise
is where I struggles where I didn'tsee. Iowa was teams in the eighties

(55:35):
and in the nineties, so that'swhere it's hard for me to make make
a judgment. Now, I willsay, since I started going to Nationals
in two thousand and two, thistwenty four Penn State team is the best
team I've seen so without a question. In my era of watching college wrestling,
going back to ninety eight, that'sa no brainer. It's hard for
me to compare it to teams thatI didn't see with my own eyes.

(55:57):
And you know, I can probablygo even further than Glenn's stats and see,
well, let's find you know,how tough were their opponents. Who
were these seeds who got hurt?Like you know, looking at looking at
Randy Lewis's like broken all. Butwhere does that happen? How does that
impact things in these years now?I don't know if Randy was on that
particular the year we're talking about here, off the top of my head,
but those are things where it makesit hard for me because I'm going to
want more to make my opinion.But I'll say, without a shadow of

(56:21):
doubt, last twenty five years,the Penn State teams the best I've seen.
So I can make that that lastquarter century, I'm going to make
that without a question. I haveto go back and spend even more time
on those Iowa teams that I didnot see, And it's really hard to
grasp when I wasn't there. Iwasn't in the stands, I wasn't following
wrestling, I wasn't old enough.I was four, I was six and
I was eighteen, you know,so you know in covering high school wrestling

(56:44):
a lot in ninety seven, likeyou know, that's where it's hard for
me to actually have a real opinionon this. And I'm not trying to
get out of this, this opthis this question, but just I'm not
versed enough and having that that eyetest, I don't have the eye test
to help swing my opinion one wayor the other. I have seen the
Penn State team. I did notsee the Iowa teams. And I think

(57:04):
that's what what hurts me in havinghaving a kind of a lack of a
concrete opinion on this. No problemat all. Okay, so sorry,
that's not a cop out. Iam just uh, I lack the I
lacked that extra oomph on it.And again I'm not I'm not buoyed by
going to one of those schools.So anyway, anyway, I want to

(57:29):
say this, guys, uh getwell coach Ryan. Uh Well. Rooted
for Tommy Ryan. I've always beena big fan of Tommy and I hope,
I hope you have a speedy recovery. We're all here at match Stats
and n w c A. What'syour speed recovery. Yeah, I sent
Coach Ryan yesterday a text on himyesterday and he actually sent me some pictures
back him. Holy fuck. It'slike, you know, he said,

(57:50):
Okay, there's the X ray.Okay, then there's okay, there's there's
the scar. Uh and then thenthere's the wound whole. Then then there's
the tractor trailer that I'm not goingto show it on the screen because it's
pretty graphic, but it's just like, holy crap. He talked about dodging
a bullet like I mean, yeah, it's just it's amazing that tom Ryan's
still with us right now, justbased on the images that he showed.

(58:13):
I mean, you know, it'sgoing to be a recovery for him.
I mean, you know, itcould have been a lot worse. So
you know, thoughts and and youknow, legit thoughts and prayers to Coach
Ryan on a speedy recovery because thatit looked, you know, the stuff
he sent me was just absolutely gruesome. Yeah, Tommy Ryan's a good man
and also done a lot for thesports, So we all here wishing the

(58:34):
speedy recovery. Also, thoughts,thoughts go out to the Richmond family.
You know, Sean Richmond was anad at Stroudsburg High School, wrestled in
Lehigh Valley, wrestled at pitt He'san ad at Strousberg, was on his
way to prom as an administrator,and it was in an accident there.
And I know that's been dominating theheadlines from the Lee High Papers, the
Lehigh Valley Live in the morning callhead stories on Sean Richmond. You know,

(58:57):
he was not even forty years old. You know, it's one of
those things where you know, lifeis precious. We see Tom Ryan just
you know, you know, he'she's alive and Sean isn't, and it's
like it's just it's literally a gameof centimeters and it's like, you know
how things can go just like thesnap of risks. So thoughts to the
Richmond family and that's Stroudsberg community aswell. Okay, she notes here.

(59:21):
keV notes first women's NCAA championship couldbe as early as the winner of twenty
twenty six, number two, Andwe talked about all the different factors.
Penn State twenty twenty four had fourchampions, five teams. Other teams had
five champions. They're tied for six. Penn State twenty twenty four had eight

(59:44):
all Americans. None other teams hadnine. Plus they're tied for ten.
Remember two thousand and one, Minnesotahad ten, which you know, that's
like the old Miami Dolphins. Everyyear they kind of probably have a co
that nobody got ten. Mac Ryderfrom Minnesota. May Or may not have

(01:00:05):
been celebrating when one of their Pinnaclekids, Joey Volt beat beat Braden Davis
in the blood Round. May Ormay not have happened because may Or may
not have total team points. PennState twenty twenty four one hundred and seventy
two and a half. Like likegorm said, that's number one. No
matter how you slice the stastistics,number five, margin of victory and team

(01:00:29):
points they ranked number one, numbersix. Twenty twenty four, Penn State
ranked twelve and percentage of teen pointsnineteen eighty three, Iowa was significantly higher
number seven. Again, Penn Stateranks twelfth in comparison to real points,
which Glenn did a thank you ondoing the job on explaining that, and

(01:00:53):
number eight. Penn State ranks numbertwo in points above replacement. Nineteen eighty
six, Iowa number one, numbernine of the top four teams. The
nineteen eighty six Iowa had the bestwinning percentage. Penn State twenty twenty four
was number two on this list andten. The debate on who was the

(01:01:15):
greatest team since nineteen seventy four isa perfect baring argument. There's really no
definitive, statistically correct answer. Thankyou for something to show up, Kevin,
Kevin, Jason, I have anythingto say before we sign off here,
No that I just that that wasinteresting and we, you know,

(01:01:37):
trying to pick the best team.It's like Jason said, you go.
I went back and forth and triedto, you know, do my own
little spreadsheet. It finally was justyou got all the stats, but it's
got in the end again. Sometimesthe eye test is is what sways you.

(01:01:58):
It's not necessarily a number, youknow, because then you know,
let's let's let's circle back to theHodge. I came up with numbers that
that you know, validated my mykurk Lee vote. But the eye test
for Aaron Brooks, especially when youlook at the fact then he goes a
couple weeks later and wins the OlympicTrials, So it's like, you know,
eye test, eye test. Ohand then you know, revision is

(01:02:21):
history, throw that on top ofit, or hindsight the gift of hindsight,
so you know, you know,you can always formulate an argument to
make what you want to happen happen. I mean, just look at any
political debates. Anyway. We won'tgo we won't go down that road.
But that's where we're at right now, at least where I sit. So
Glenn, next episode, what wegot Okay, next episode is going to

(01:02:42):
be the growth of collegiate wrestling.We need to get back and let the
fans know where we stand in allthis because obviously the last couple of weeks
have all been dominated by Penn State'sLight Sail Show and the Olympic Trials.
So anyway, guys, we willsee you Wednesday, June nineteenth on the
growth of collegian and Russell on behalfof my fellow Cohorst, Jason Bryant,
Kevin Hazard. I'm Glenn Grimley.See you next time, say that time,

(01:03:06):
Same Matt channel