rideOut

I love the progress Tennessee is making, imagine 10 years ago listing lineups of 8th graders we expect to make some national noise. Looking forward to seeing these young men rep our state over the next 5-10 years.

I just used this promo code (RF25FFO) to get 25% as well. Only paid $11.99 after taxes.

Bro, please stop, you are not funny and you are casting a bad light on the Cleveland program, which I know is not in any way represented by you, but its bad taste and quite annoying. Leave your bitterness in the other thread and move on. I promise your life will feel more fulfilling if you just let the little things go.

Thanks for putting in the time and effort to do these rankings, they look great. I am really curious to see which teams take 2-4 on the podium this year, could be a handful of different squads. Should a an exciting finish regardless.

Also, just to clarify per the TSSAA handbook, 8th graders can wrestle in high school if, "2023-24 TSSAA Handbook Page 15 July 18, 2023 Eighth Grade Participation Section 8. An eighth grade student is eligible to participate for a member school if he/she is enrolled at the school. Students below the eighth grade are not eligible to practice or participate for a member school. Any student repeating the eighth grade shall not be eligible for high school participation during the year that the student is repeating the eighth grade. Participation as an eighth grader shall not reduce the number of semesters a student is allowed to participate after enrolling in the ninth grade." In the case of many of the Class A high schools that participate in wrestling they have eight graders on the team. Honestly man, the reason everyone is calling you out isn't because we think that what WrestlingGod said is true but because you blew this whole situation out of proportion. You came off as incredibly offended when a simple mistake was made and all that you had to do was call him out and say "Hey Father Ryan actually has never had an 8th grader on their team because they don't not have a middle school." But, you instead got defensive when we all called you out on your childish behavior. No one here hates you but life sure would be a lot easier for us and certainly for you if you acted appropriately. Sincerely an innocent bystander.

Chill man, I am sure it was a mistake, nobody intentionally tried to offend you or Father Ryan. There are bigger things in the world to worry about than an offhand statement made on a podcast about high school wrestling.

Hit the weight room... jk, don't worry about weight lifting until you at least get to high school. There are weight classes for a reason, most of the people you will wrestle against in competition will be the same weight have relatively the same strength so you shouldn't get ragdolled. But in practice its ok to push yourself to wrestle bigger and stronger opponents. Just make sure you work on the fundamentals and don't get discouraged by losing to someone bigger than you during practice, that has happened to everyone that has stepped foot on a high school wrestling mat. As for strategies to deal with strength, you could counter strength with technique and speed, but really it depends on how much stronger he is than you, there is only so much you can do against someone that is that much stronger and again that goes back to fair competition and not getting discouraged. Good luck.

Not sure who runs this league and if its run through TSSAA or some other organization, but do you know if Rutherford county plans on competing?

Your logic isn't sound, you aren't considering multiple variables which is there is varying levels of competition and the 13 Halls kids didn't only wrestle against the Pigeon Forge, Greeneville, and Soddy kids at state, they wrestle against kids that qualify from various other teams. So they did have an advantage by qualifying more wrestlers even if those "soft" wrestlers only won one or two matches. Those points add up to a usually very tight A-AA individual state tournament team score race. Sometimes they do get "smoked" as you say but the 12 out of the 16 wrestlers per bracket win at least one match, so chances are they will earn extra points that can make a difference when its all said and done.

Great point, the reduction of weight classes is a band-aid solution and the actual root cause is the low level of youth participation. In my opinion this is the harder but more efficient way of creating "better matchups." A lot like parenting, taking time to build a relationship with trust and instruction/proper correction will go a lot further than constant belittlement and physical punishment.

I have seen those types of comments, and those can be demeaning. While some of the points are valid who are we sitting behind the keyboard to say, that should be a conversation for the athletes, their parents, and coaches. However, I do think there was a projection from the claims that this thread in particular was diminishing the kid's accomplishments. But, I do agree with your broad statement reflecting this forum as a whole.

No one is insulting the kids, don't try to turn this around on them haha. They clearly only have an issue with you using statistics to state the fact that it is easier to be a NCAA All-American which is a ridiculous notion by the way. That is like stating Larry Owings a top 5 NCAA wrestler all time because he beat Dan Gable. It doesn't work that way. Although I commend you for sticking up for the kids, I like the All-State team and show casing a rather overlooked sport even if it is just taking the top 4 without a lot of thought being put behind it. But, no one is attacking the kids they were pointing out your flawed claim that it is harder to be All-State in TN than it is to be All-American in the NCAA.

Just to clarify they are in the same sectional not district, although I think we all know what you meant. And the regions/sections usually get shaken up every reclassification cycle and I don't know if Rutherford and Bradley county have ever competed for a spot at state before this last cycle, so it is possible that within the next 3-5 years that Blackman has a clean shot a state every season, although nothing is guaranteed. This should be an enticing position regardless.

I know duals were a few weeks ago and Traditional State is a few days away but I have had this question on my mind for a few weeks now. Which dual team in which year had the all time best line up, all divisions considered? Not traditional tournament scoring but a straight up dual, and yes, I am aware that it depends on which weight starts first and which team reports first, but if they wrestled 100 times who would win the majority?

That is true, but you have to take into consideration that participation levels have risen over the years and it only makes sense for the number of divisions to grow with the sport. There is a sweet spot where if there are too many divisions/champions it becomes oversaturated and loses its value. On the other hand if there is too few divisions/champions it turns kids away to other sports where they feel like they have a better shot at winning. I think we can all admit losing isn't fun. With a 32-man bracket for AAA and 16-man bracket for A-AA this past classification cycle it makes logical sense for there to be 2 even 24-man brackets since everything will now be evened out. However, I'm not sure if that is the approach TSSAA will take.