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Does Tom Brands make his wrestlers better?

dolecda

Active Member
Jan 18, 2007
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I am going to throw this out there. Do the Brand’s brothers make their recruits better? I have watched incoming freshmen come to Penn State under Cael’s tutelage and have seen them go from good to great. Zain, Bo, and Jason Nolf are the obvious, Quentin and James English are to be included, but I also watched the evolvement of a guy like Anthony Cassar. I watch Iowa wrestling and it appears to me that Spencer Lee is going to continue to be the world class wrester that he is, without anything Tom Brands can teach him. Austin DeSanto is going to do whatever he wants to do without any stamp or input from Tom Brands. Kaleb Young came to Iowa as a guy that was supposed to compete for a national championship. He is still not a top three. All three PA wrestlers. I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames. I don’t see Marinelli winning an NCAA championship. My question is this; what does Tom Brands and his coaching staff do to make a terrific high school recruit into a national contender?
 
I am going to throw this out there. Do the Brand’s brothers make their recruits better? I have watched incoming freshmen come to Penn State under Cael’s tutelage and have seen them go from good to great. Zain, Bo, and Jason Nolf are the obvious, Quentin and James English are to be included, but I also watched the evolvement of a guy like Anthony Cassar. I watch Iowa wrestling and it appears to me that Spencer Lee is going to continue to be the world class wrester that he is, without anything Tom Brands can teach him. Austin DeSanto is going to do whatever he wants to do without any stamp or input from Tom Brands. Kaleb Young came to Iowa as a guy that was supposed to compete for a national championship. He is still not a top three. All three PA wrestlers. I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames. I don’t see Marinelli winning an NCAA championship. My question is this; what does Tom Brands and his coaching staff do to make a terrific high school recruit into a national contender?
Please check out Cassiopi's and Nelson Brands' Big Board rankings and then apologize. Desanto has gotten better in more than just wrestling skills. He can now get off bottom, score much more and be more in control on the mat. Seriously bad take for even the most ardent PSU homer.
 
Underrated part of this post is including Quentin Wright, top ranked recruit and true freshman AA, alongside James English as a diamond in the rough Cael polished up lol.
 
I am going to throw this out there. Do the Brand’s brothers make their recruits better? I have watched incoming freshmen come to Penn State under Cael’s tutelage and have seen them go from good to great. Zain, Bo, and Jason Nolf are the obvious, Quentin and James English are to be included, but I also watched the evolvement of a guy like Anthony Cassar. I watch Iowa wrestling and it appears to me that Spencer Lee is going to continue to be the world class wrester that he is, without anything Tom Brands can teach him. Austin DeSanto is going to do whatever he wants to do without any stamp or input from Tom Brands. Kaleb Young came to Iowa as a guy that was supposed to compete for a national championship. He is still not a top three. All three PA wrestlers. I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames. I don’t see Marinelli winning an NCAA championship. My question is this; what does Tom Brands and his coaching staff do to make a terrific high school recruit into a national contender?
You are like the Matters version for Iowa 😂🤣😂
 
I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames.

Well, he made one good point as another poster alluded to. If Alex Marinelli is practicing in Ames, Tom Brands is definitely not helping him get better at wrestling.

Also, by this logic of using rankings to measure improvement then Dan Gable and Cael Sanderson are the two worst coached college wrestlers in the history of the sport. Sanderson at least stayed consistent but never really improved on his no loss record. Gable's worst year was his last year.
 
I am going to throw this out there. Do the Brand’s brothers make their recruits better? I have watched incoming freshmen come to Penn State under Cael’s tutelage and have seen them go from good to great. Zain, Bo, and Jason Nolf are the obvious, Quentin and James English are to be included, but I also watched the evolvement of a guy like Anthony Cassar. I watch Iowa wrestling and it appears to me that Spencer Lee is going to continue to be the world class wrester that he is, without anything Tom Brands can teach him. Austin DeSanto is going to do whatever he wants to do without any stamp or input from Tom Brands. Kaleb Young came to Iowa as a guy that was supposed to compete for a national championship. He is still not a top three. All three PA wrestlers. I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames. I don’t see Marinelli winning an NCAA championship. My question is this; what does Tom Brands and his coaching staff do to make a terrific high school recruit into a national contender?

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Spencer wants to get off the mat as fast as possible he hates it so much
Every time I watch spencer and he ends it early, I'm reminded of how stupid that nomad article was.

But maybe your on to something here.....maybe nomad was sounding an alarm about brands scaring Spencer off the mat.
 
Of course he does. It’s a well known fact that Brands takes all of his kids from high school checkers teams and turns them into All-Americans. Meanwhile Sanderson takes the best P4P recruits and turns them into mediocre dodge ball players.
 
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I remember seeing the Tom Brands interview where he talked about the infamous Larry Lee 3" binder. He said when it was given to him he immediately saw the blue tabbed section labeled "Fun" and turned to it first. It was just two pages long. Page 1 only had two sentences on it saying "Your recruits and wrestlers have to enjoy what they're doing. Let them have fun." Page 2 was just the Iowa 2015 B10 Co-champion team photo with a caption that said "Don't do this".
Tom said it changed him forever as a person and a coach. He now forces the whole team to practice smiling and playing fun for 15 minutes a day 5 days a week.
It appears its working because the quality of his wrestlers is improving. 😛
 
Of course he does. It’s a well known fact that Brands takes all of his kids from high school checkers teams and turns them into All-Americans. Meanwhile Sanderson takes the best P4P recruits and turns them into mediocre dodge ball players.

Manatee you are are spot on with the mediocre dodge ball players.

Unfortunately our guys have recently been getting hit hard with the protien spike part of the ball. 😟😷

Cael will find a fix.
 
I am going to throw this out there. Do the Brand’s brothers make their recruits better? I have watched incoming freshmen come to Penn State under Cael’s tutelage and have seen them go from good to great. Zain, Bo, and Jason Nolf are the obvious, Quentin and James English are to be included, but I also watched the evolvement of a guy like Anthony Cassar. I watch Iowa wrestling and it appears to me that Spencer Lee is going to continue to be the world class wrester that he is, without anything Tom Brands can teach him. Austin DeSanto is going to do whatever he wants to do without any stamp or input from Tom Brands. Kaleb Young came to Iowa as a guy that was supposed to compete for a national championship. He is still not a top three. All three PA wrestlers. I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames. I don’t see Marinelli winning an NCAA championship. My question is this; what does Tom Brands and his coaching staff do to make a terrific high school recruit into a national contender?

I am not for speech censorship of any kind, but I wish there was a your full of crap option for this steaming pile of nonsense. TnT are amazing wrestlers and coaches. Are they different, sure. They also have best team in the country over the last year and there is only one group with a shot at them.
 
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Brands of one of the elite coaches in the NCAA and absolutely makes his kids better. He is also entertaining, of not sometimes irritating to listen to and watch some of his antics. The wrestling world would be at a loss without him.

Is he anywhere near Cael in terms of pure coaching and developing talent? That question is just plain silly.
 
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I am going to throw this out there. Do the Brand’s brothers make their recruits better? I have watched incoming freshmen come to Penn State under Cael’s tutelage and have seen them go from good to great. Zain, Bo, and Jason Nolf are the obvious, Quentin and James English are to be included, but I also watched the evolvement of a guy like Anthony Cassar. I watch Iowa wrestling and it appears to me that Spencer Lee is going to continue to be the world class wrester that he is, without anything Tom Brands can teach him. Austin DeSanto is going to do whatever he wants to do without any stamp or input from Tom Brands. Kaleb Young came to Iowa as a guy that was supposed to compete for a national championship. He is still not a top three. All three PA wrestlers. I watch Alex Marinelli and here is a guy that in my opinion has moved up only a couple of positions from the time he arrived at Ames. I don’t see Marinelli winning an NCAA championship. My question is this; what does Tom Brands and his coaching staff do to make a terrific high school recruit into a national contender?

I think you just phrased your question wrong. The Poison Dwarfs were great wrestlers and are great coaches. I think you have a top 5 elite college wrestling coaches:
1, The Cael Monster
2. The Poison Dwarfs at Iowa
3. The OKie with mush ears John Smith
4. Saving Private Ryan Suckeye
5. Rob "I only like my wrestlers to put up 3-4 points a match" Koll at Scornell

All run strong programs and develop great wrestlers BUT what makes Cael so much better and dominate then everyone else. It is the AGRESSIVE STYLE that he coaches! There is a reason we roll up huge bonus points at tournament time while most other teams tend to turtle up, Cael is not afraid to lay it on the line when it counts and no other coach is willing to do that. Watching Scornell wrestlers win these low scoring 1-2 points matches is like watching paint dry!

Make no mistake Cael has dominated the sport since 2009. Yes, the Suckeyes won an NC in 2016 when we had an injury depleted line-up. Last year, the Poison Dwarfs were able tp put together a decent team to challenge for a NC (It only took them 10 years LOL!). They were able to avoid the injury bug that we couldn't. They should have wiped the floor with us last year but they still couldn't and had to wait until HWT to squeek it out! If we had Cassar healthy we would have won. There is no coach that is as aggressive when everything is on the line then Cael and that is the reason he has dominated College Wrestling for the past decade plus and I don't see anyone else knocking him of the mountain in the future unless they are willing to match Cael aggressive bonus point generating coaching style.
 
Hawkeye Report has every right to be like “can you believe BWI guys”. I am so thankful everyone is following up to make this an exception. This is bulletin board type stuff here.
 
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Underrated part of this post is including Quentin Wright, top ranked recruit and true freshman AA, alongside James English as a diamond in the rough Cael polished up lol.
Nolf and Zain as good to great as my favorite. I believe Zain won a world Junior or cadet championship prior to starting at Penn State. Nolf was a top 5 P4P with only 1 HS loss. He took them from great to elite.
 
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Nolf and Zain as good to great as my favorite. I believe Zain won a world Junior or cadet championship prior to starting at Penn State. Nolf was a top 5 P4P with only 1 HS loss. He took them from great to elite.
It's incredible what Cael was able to do with project recruit David Taylor! lol
 
I personally love this post, so true, I mean Brands could not even win the national championship last season with that stacked team....even Lee was unable to make Final Match. embarrassing🥵
 
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It's incredible what Cael was able to do with project recruit David Taylor! lol

Honestly - I will give TnT credit for Marinelli. The kid went from not even being able to go to the right city in college to winning 2 Big Ten titles.
 
It's sort of an oddly posed question, but the overall sentiment isn't far off. In comparison to whom is the main issue. It's true you don't see, on the whole, the kind of progress we see from Penn State wrestlers. Do the Iowa wrestlers get better? Yes. By how much?
 
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Honestly - I will give TnT credit for Marinelli. The kid went from not even being able to go to the right city in college to winning 2 Big Ten titles.

Marinelli??? REALLLY?? I will give him the two Big 10 titles. Great! What happens at when all the marbles are on the line at the NCs? He goes out like a chump early every year to someone he should have beat. WHat is the highest he ever finished at the Tourney 6-7th? You ain't a legend with those results! Now Vincenzo Joesph has two NCs!!!! Lets see if this overrated bull can even make it to semi-finals once in his career! That is the difference between Brand coaching and Cael coaching! One gets hsi team to peak at the right time every year and the Poison Dwarfs don't!!! Hence 9 NC's in 10 years for Cael and NONE for the POISON DWARFS!!!! BEAT IT YOU LITTLE SHORT DEVILS!!!! HOLY CAEL WILL SMITE YOU DOWN EVERY YEAR!!!!
 
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