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Is it really just recruiting?? Let's take a look...

Tom has had 10 top ten recruits since 2010. If his hypothetical performance with the PSU recruits was similar to the actual results he put up with top-10 results, it would have resulted in less than half as many champs as Cael had according to the data. Cut PSUs champs in half and reduce their finalists by 25% and 2013, 2014, and 2018 go to OK State, Minnesota, and Ohio State, while 2011 is a coin flip at best.

I didn't say Brands was a bad coach and have never said he's not a top one. I just think there's a big gap between Cael and EVERYONE else.
Which coach had the most top 10 recruits?
 
The one who does the most with them (as dice's numbers show).


His numbers show what he wants them to show. They did not even have rankings until recently. Who actually did the ranking?
 
So the coach that had the most top 10 recruits does the most with them????

Exactly. It is mostly recruiting.
It’s possible—likely even—that a player can have the most at bats, hits, and the highest batting average in a season. Such a person often ends up the MVP.
 
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Oh boy opened the wrong thread. Sorry dice you lost me give e a minute

No puncts purpose sorry pride not really lol just having a laugh with my self
 
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Oh boy opened the wrong thread. Sorry dice you lost me give e a minute

No puncts purpose sorry pride not really lol just having a laugh with my self

cheers-shaun-of-the-dead.gif
 
Daughter is 24. I'm down visiting her and her brothers for the holiday. Very nice change of pace having older kids and having them host for the first time.

As I'm a guest in HER house now, she's officially allowed to be as sassy as she wants. I'm going to ask her for an allowance on her next raise.
Walk around and leave lights on in all the rooms, then stand in front of the open fridge for an hour…..
 
I think this is an interesting topic and I think it's almost undeniable that PSU has statistically done better than expected, even with good/great recruiting. For me, I don't really need to see the math though. Anyone with two eyes and even a modicum of honesty can see that PSU wrestlers continue to level up year after year after year within the program. I'm not talking about normal improvement that you'd expect from a D1 athlete from year to year, I'm talking about large jumps and it's not just from one or two guys. Look at what guys like Bartlett or Van Ness or Starocci or Brooks are doing from one year to the next. Sure, most of those guys were pretty highly ranked in high school, but did ANYONE expect Bartlett or Van Ness to be destroying or pinning everyone this fall? Did ANYONE on the planet really think that Starocci would easily major Lewis at the NWCA Classic? Did anyone presume that Brooks would or should easily major Sloan? Does anyone (even the most loyal Iowa wrestling fan) believe that Starocci does that or Brooks does that had they been in the Iowa room for the last 4 years? Really? No, they don't, not even the Iowa guys believe that.

It's mostly anecdotal or hypothetical, but you can also look at PSU's backups, many of whom were recruited as "room guys" and who had limited credentials and moderate rankings. It appears that guys like David Evans or Terrell Barraclough are likely borderline All American types themselves and they've basically been career backups who came to the program without expectations or high rankings. And there are a bunch of other examples of PSU backups that could have and would have done well had they taken what they learned at PSU and wrestled elsewhere that had room for them.

The fact is that these guys are making HUGE improvements. Is it their training partners? The NLWC? The coaches? Sure, all of the above, but Cael Sanderson runs the program. For ANYONE to pooh pooh the idea that Sanderson is a great coach or that he develops these guys better than anyone else would is laughable.
 
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I think this is an interesting topic and I think it's almost undeniable that PSU has statistically done better than expected, even with good/great recruiting. For me, I don't really need to see the math though. Anyone with two eyes and even a modicum of honesty can see that PSU wrestlers continue to level up year after year after year within the program. I'm not talking about normal improvement that you'd expect from a D1 athlete from year to year, I'm talking about large jumps and it's not just from one or two guys. Look at what guys like Bartlett or Van Ness or Starocci or Brooks are doing from one year to the next. Sure, most of those guys were pretty highly ranked in high school, but did ANYONE expect Bartlett or Van Ness to be destroying or pinning everyone this fall? Did ANYONE on the planet really think that Starocci would easily major Lewis at the NWCA Classic? Did anyone presume that Brooks would or should easily major Sloan? Does anyone (even the most loyal Iowa wrestling fan) believe that Starocci does that or Brooks does that had they been in the Iowa room for the last 4 years? Really? No, they don't, not even the Iowa guys believe that.

The fact is that these guys are making HUGE improvements. Is it their training partners? The NLWC? The coaches? Sure, all of the above, but Cael Sanderson runs the program. For ANYONE to pooh pooh the idea that Sanderson is a great coach or that he develops these guys better than anyone else would is laughable.
did ANYONE expect Bartlett or Van Ness to be destroying or pinning everyone this fall?

I bet Bartlett and Van Ness did.

Did ANYONE on the planet really think that Starocci would easily major Lewis at the NWCA Classic?

Starocci probably did think he would major him too, but "easily"... yeah he probably would say that too.

Did anyone presume that Brooks would or should easily major Sloan?

Again, Brooks probably believed that would happen, but I don't think he would say it was easy.

I rewatched some early PSU/Cael years recently, Q Wright matches etc, and I realized how spoiled we PSU fans are now. We expect every PSU wrestler to be great. There was a time when we we thrilled to be in the finals with a chance. These guys make it look easy, but it is anything but easy.
 
The fact that these guys have supreme confidence in themselves says something for the sort of competitors that they are, but it's also indicative of how the coaches deal with them on a daily/weekly/yearly basis. PSU wins NCAA semi-finals matches and finals matches at a far greater incidence than would be expected based solely on rankings and it's partly gameplanning and prep, partly conditioning/lifestyle and partly a mental thing and Cael and company are simply better than anyone else at preparing these guys. Like I said, not to sidetrack a discussion about statistics and likelihood, but it's all in the eye test and anyone with a shred of honesty can see that Cael Sanderson and his other coaches are not only great recruiters, but great coaches in the room/on the mat as well.
 
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A PSU wrestler interview said recently that the matches are easy compared to the battles in the room.

A BB interview went in depth about his freshman year experience working with Zain.
 
So if Brands was the coach of PSU for the last 13 years and had 4 fewer championships, what other D-1 teams win these 4?

Tom Brands is a far better coach than you would ever give him credit. I think Tom would have done quite well with same wrestlers PSU has had for the last 13 years. Really well actually.

Tom needs top 10 P4P talent at Iowa and has struggled to consistently get it. PSU has not struggled at all.
there are a lot of really good coaches and the same could be said if they had the 'talent'. Brands gets a boost with attracting talent on account of the Iowa rep starting with Gable. All I'm saying is there are a lot of good coaches, aside from Brands, that your statement fits
 
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A hypothetical for sure, but I have little doubt Eireman, Kemerer and the Marinelli would all have won individual championships under Cael, even if our kids at those weights went to Iowa.
 
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I missed Cornell, good catch.

Next two will be tOSU and Cornell. You guys will have to give me a week or so.

I suspect you are correct. Cornell will likely fare very well.
Do you know how to use the SUMPRODUCT function in Excel? Can use that to compile the stats for every school at once. Appreciate the effort, and if I can save you any extra effort ...

Don't want you breaking down physically in March ...
 
Just an update:

I was able to locate most of the class of 2008 and 2009 Intermat rankings (still trying to track down a few stragglers - I need the #8, 25, 26, 38, 44, 45, and 50 from 2009, but I have the rest). I am reconfirming all of the data from 2010 through 2023 as well and am compiling all of the raw data in a more organized spreadsheet which should have the names, team, rank and NCAA finishes of every wrestler ranked in the top 50 each year and additionally every AA since 2010 not ranked in the top 50. I've decided to slightly modify the methodology and to not eliminate any wrestlers from the data that transferred, but to assign wrestlers with significant results only to the teams that they spent the bulk of their career with. For example, Nick Suriano will be listed as Rutgers, Seth Gross will be listed as SDSU, Austin DeSanto will be listed as Iowa, Max Dean will be listed as Cornell (but they will only get credit for accolades earned at their school). If you have a recruit that transferred and never did anything at the initial school or later, the initial school gets dinged - their recruiting mistake. But it's not fair to ding Drexel for not getting anything from DeSanto, Iowa for not getting anything from Gross, PSU for not getting anything from Suriano, etc.

Obviously, this is a lot of work so my previous deadline of this weekend is not going to happen (plus, I'm heading to Cumberland Valley on Friday), but I'm thinking a couple of weeks. I then will be able to use this data via Excel functions (thanks @El-Jefe for the suggestion) to generate a lot of meaningful comparisons.

I plan to re-do the Iowa comparison and then move on to Ohio State and Cornell first, but should be able to easily present pretty much any comparison upon request once I have the raw data in place. I look forward to some good discussion, and also to the responses of "but, the rankings were wrong sometimes" and "Cael got more recruits" from the likes of @voltz99 and @IRONBIRD . You can't fix stupid.
 
A hypothetical for sure, but I have little doubt Eireman, Kemerer and the Marinelli would all have won individual championships under Cael, even if our kids are those weights went to Iowa.


Your examples probably support the theory it is mostly recruiting. The iowa guys did not lose to walk ons. Were not Nick Lee, Vincenzo Joseph, mark Hall and Starocci all top 10 recruits?
 
Just an update:

I was able to locate most of the class of 2008 and 2009 Intermat rankings (still trying to track down a few stragglers - I need the #8, 25, 26, 38, 44, 45, and 50 from 2009, but I have the rest). I am reconfirming all of the data from 2010 through 2023 as well and am compiling all of the raw data in a more organized spreadsheet which should have the names, team, rank and NCAA finishes of every wrestler ranked in the top 50 each year and additionally every AA since 2010 not ranked in the top 50. I've decided to slightly modify the methodology and to not eliminate any wrestlers from the data that transferred, but to assign wrestlers with significant results only to the teams that they spent the bulk of their career with. For example, Nick Suriano will be listed as Rutgers, Seth Gross will be listed as SDSU, Austin DeSanto will be listed as Iowa, Max Dean will be listed as Cornell (but they will only get credit for accolades earned at their school). If you have a recruit that transferred and never did anything at the initial school or later, the initial school gets dinged - their recruiting mistake. But it's not fair to ding Drexel for not getting anything from DeSanto, Iowa for not getting anything from Gross, PSU for not getting anything from Suriano, etc.

Obviously, this is a lot of work so my previous deadline of this weekend is not going to happen (plus, I'm heading to Cumberland Valley on Friday), but I'm thinking a couple of weeks. I then will be able to use this data via Excel functions (thanks @El-Jefe for the suggestion) to generate a lot of meaningful comparisons.

I plan to re-do the Iowa comparison and then move on to Ohio State and Cornell first, but should be able to easily present pretty much any comparison upon request once I have the raw data in place. I look forward to some good discussion, and also to the responses of "but, the rankings were wrong sometimes" and "Cael got more recruits" from the likes of @voltz99 and @IRONBIRD . You can't fix stupid.

 
I like the data and appreciate it but the thing I would love to understand and ask Cael is how do you get so many top recruits in. What are you looking for and what makes you pass on guys. Also where do you think you recruited incorrectly and what did you learn. It seems to me that the recruiting has improved over the years , is sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.
 
Your examples probably support the theory it is mostly recruiting. The iowa guys did not lose to walk ons. Were not Nick Lee, Vincenzo Joseph, mark Hall and Starocci all top 10 recruits?
And Iowa got Eierman, Kemerer, and Marinelli off the scrap heap?
 
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Just an update:

I was able to locate most of the class of 2008 and 2009 Intermat rankings (still trying to track down a few stragglers - I need the #8, 25, 26, 38, 44, 45, and 50 from 2009, but I have the rest). I am reconfirming all of the data from 2010 through 2023 as well and am compiling all of the raw data in a more organized spreadsheet which should have the names, team, rank and NCAA finishes of every wrestler ranked in the top 50 each year and additionally every AA since 2010 not ranked in the top 50. I've decided to slightly modify the methodology and to not eliminate any wrestlers from the data that transferred, but to assign wrestlers with significant results only to the teams that they spent the bulk of their career with. For example, Nick Suriano will be listed as Rutgers, Seth Gross will be listed as SDSU, Austin DeSanto will be listed as Iowa, Max Dean will be listed as Cornell (but they will only get credit for accolades earned at their school). If you have a recruit that transferred and never did anything at the initial school or later, the initial school gets dinged - their recruiting mistake. But it's not fair to ding Drexel for not getting anything from DeSanto, Iowa for not getting anything from Gross, PSU for not getting anything from Suriano, etc.

Obviously, this is a lot of work so my previous deadline of this weekend is not going to happen (plus, I'm heading to Cumberland Valley on Friday), but I'm thinking a couple of weeks. I then will be able to use this data via Excel functions (thanks @El-Jefe for the suggestion) to generate a lot of meaningful comparisons.

I plan to re-do the Iowa comparison and then move on to Ohio State and Cornell first, but should be able to easily present pretty much any comparison upon request once I have the raw data in place. I look forward to some good discussion, and also to the responses of "but, the rankings were wrong sometimes" and "Cael got more recruits" from the likes of @voltz99 and @IRONBIRD . You can't fix stupid.


You did the work for me and made my point. The vast majority of PSU's success was top 10 recruits.

PSU top 10 recruits = 21 National Championships.
PSU recruits ranked 10-20 = 2 Championships.
PSU recruits ranked 21-50 = 0.0
PSU recruits UR = 2 Championships.

As I pointed out before there are some flaws. You said the cutoff was 2010 since there really was not any rankings before 2010. YOu then included Matt brown who graduated HS around 2007. You also said there was not much data before 2015. Cassar was before 2015.

You also confirmed my point that some of the rankings are wrong. You used MULTIPLE rankings. You listed both FLO and Willie rankings. ARe they both right, both wrong or one wrong when they have DIFFERENT rankings? Is Starocci a top 10 or NOT? The two different rankings YOU listed are not both right.

Initial rankings are just an opinion of ONE person or one service. Those rankings can change by the day. The more the person doing the rankings sees and the more info they get the more accurate they can get. Dont pretend the rankings are all accurate. The rankings change for a reason. The services have DIFFERENT rankings.
 
Just an update:

I was able to locate most of the class of 2008 and 2009 Intermat rankings (still trying to track down a few stragglers - I need the #8, 25, 26, 38, 44, 45, and 50 from 2009, but I have the rest). I am reconfirming all of the data from 2010 through 2023 as well and am compiling all of the raw data in a more organized spreadsheet which should have the names, team, rank and NCAA finishes of every wrestler ranked in the top 50 each year and additionally every AA since 2010 not ranked in the top 50. I've decided to slightly modify the methodology and to not eliminate any wrestlers from the data that transferred, but to assign wrestlers with significant results only to the teams that they spent the bulk of their career with. For example, Nick Suriano will be listed as Rutgers, Seth Gross will be listed as SDSU, Austin DeSanto will be listed as Iowa, Max Dean will be listed as Cornell (but they will only get credit for accolades earned at their school). If you have a recruit that transferred and never did anything at the initial school or later, the initial school gets dinged - their recruiting mistake. But it's not fair to ding Drexel for not getting anything from DeSanto, Iowa for not getting anything from Gross, PSU for not getting anything from Suriano, etc.

Obviously, this is a lot of work so my previous deadline of this weekend is not going to happen (plus, I'm heading to Cumberland Valley on Friday), but I'm thinking a couple of weeks. I then will be able to use this data via Excel functions (thanks @El-Jefe for the suggestion) to generate a lot of meaningful comparisons.

I plan to re-do the Iowa comparison and then move on to Ohio State and Cornell first, but should be able to easily present pretty much any comparison upon request once I have the raw data in place. I look forward to some good discussion, and also to the responses of "but, the rankings were wrong sometimes" and "Cael got more recruits" from the likes of @voltz99 and @IRONBIRD . You can't fix stupid.
Sorry I didn't think of this before: maybe Earl Smith still has an offline copy of rankings from his late, great D1CW site?

That might save you a bunch of digging.
 
Your examples probably support the theory it is mostly recruiting. The iowa guys did not lose to walk ons. Were not Nick Lee, Vincenzo Joseph, mark Hall and Starocci all top 10 recruits?
I think what I am saying, granted probably very unpopular here, is if you swap those recruits between the two programs you would not see the same results.

Less (probably not none) championships for our recruits, and more (definitely not none) championships for Iowa's.
 
You did the work for me and made my point. The vast majority of PSU's success was top 10 recruits.

PSU top 10 recruits = 21 National Championships.
PSU recruits ranked 10-20 = 2 Championships.
PSU recruits ranked 21-50 = 0.0
PSU recruits UR = 2 Championships.

As I pointed out before there are some flaws. You said the cutoff was 2010 since there really was not any rankings before 2010. YOu then included Matt brown who graduated HS around 2007. You also said there was not much data before 2015. Cassar was before 2015.

You also confirmed my point that some of the rankings are wrong. You used MULTIPLE rankings. You listed both FLO and Willie rankings. ARe they both right, both wrong or one wrong when they have DIFFERENT rankings? Is Starocci a top 10 or NOT? The two different rankings YOU listed are not both right.

Initial rankings are just an opinion of ONE person or one service. Those rankings can change by the day. The more the person doing the rankings sees and the more info they get the more accurate they can get. Dont pretend the rankings are all accurate. The rankings change for a reason. The services have DIFFERENT rankings.
Cassar was ranked 20th at 195 at the end of his SR year. Good luck finding a recruiting ranking for him.
 
I think what I am saying, granted probably very unpopular here, is if you swap those recruits between the two programs you would not see the same results.
This shouldn't be controversial. Dice's research showed this statistically.

Of course it's probabilities, so any individual wrestler might perform identically at the other school. But the group as a whole won't.
 
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Sorry I didn't think of this before: maybe Earl Smith still has an offline copy of rankings from his late, great D1CW site?

That might save you a bunch of digging.
I actually thought of this but could not remember the URL. If you have that I can use the Internet way back machine and it may be accessible.
 
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