Southern Wrestling

[In Hoc Signo Vinces]

Which southern state in y'all's opinion is has the best wrestling (i.e. depth of good wrestlers also included) and where does TN stack up?

[Nainten]

To begin to address a question like this I think you have to at least establish criteria by which to make assessments. This way at least everyone is comparing apples to apples. What are some criteria we can use to make comparisons?

Number of HS programs?

Number of nationally ranked HS programs?

Number of Division 1 wrestlers produced

Number of D1 and D2 AA's produced?

Number of NCAA qualifiers produced?

Number of nationally ranked HS wrestlers?

 

I can provide some measure of two of these. If you look at how many committed HS recruites IM has up right now you will see this for the southern states

 

VA 11

FL 7

TX 7

NC 5

GA 4

TN 4

AL 3

SC 2

 

If you look at how many NCAA D1 AA's in 2009 each state produced it looks like this:

 

FL 3

TN 2

KY 1

NC 1

AL 0

GA 0

SC 0

VA 0

TX 0

LA 0

 

I don't have data on the other criteria although it isn't too hard to find a lot of it. Florida looks good using these filters, with Tennessee in the upper 50% somewhere. Hard to say, however, how everyone shakes out without any real data to look at.

Well,...I mean, I guess there is always empirical data like," We went to Louisiana and got our butts whipped by two of their private schools so I know their wrestling is a notch above ours."

 

I don't mean to propose that my numbers answer the question but they are a start.

[RMC]

I think the count is off for committed HS recruits and probably for all states. For Georgia Collins Hill alone has 3......TJ Mitchell, Joel Smith, and CJ Collins.

 

I like where you started though. Looking at placement in D1 programs and other levels of college. I think you'd probably have to add in how the states did at Super32 and Fargo.

[In Hoc Signo Vinces]

How much stock should also be put into the NHSCA Senior Nationals?

[RMC]

How much stock should also be put into the NHSCA Senior Nationals?

Yup...include that too.....

 

We need BayouBear to chime in. I would imagine he probably has a pretty good handle on this.

 

One of things that really hurts Georgia, in my opinion, is that in most of counties do not support middle school wrestling teams.

[jcddmoon]

I am not a HS wrestling expert. I am new to the world of TN wrestling. However I am originally from Murray County, and went to MCHS during the glory years so I do know a little about wrestling in the Chattanooga/North GA area. I am now the President of an AAU wrestling team in Clarksville. Every weekend when I go to these youth tournaments I am further encouraged by the growth of wrestling in the state. The future of TN wrestling is very bright. I think as these club teams grow you will begin to see alot more TN teams compete on the national level.

[BayouBear]

Hmmmmm. It's a good question but a hard question to answer.

 

Let's look at the criteria Nainten suggested;

 

# HS Programs - Georgia has 5 classes. It certainly encourages participation but does not necessarily insure quality.

 

# Nationally ranked HS Programs - Certainly no offense to Collins Hill or Brandon, FL but national rankings of a few teams can't be a measuring stick. Example... Brandon and Collins Hill are ranked higher than any team in Iowa. In fact, there are no Iowa teams ranked in the Top 25. Does that make Florida and Georgia better than Iowa?

 

# Division I wrestlers - This is the measurement I use mostly because it's easy to get the data....but it really isn't a good one. Tennessee has 6-7 million people and Florida has nearly 20 million. They should be putting more into Division I wrestling programs.

 

# Division I and DII All Americans - Another decent measurement but not really because it is more a measurement of the Great wrestlers a state produces and not of the general quality of wrestling across the state.

 

# NCAA Qualifiers - See above

 

# Nationally Ranked HS Wrestlers - See above

 

 

The BBBL (BayouBear Bottom line) is this ---- The quality of wrestling in a state is reflected by the quality of the top "tier" of teams and the best and only measurement I ever came up with was to visualize matches between the Top 5 or 10 teams of one state versus the top 5 or 10 teams from another state. For example; take Baylor, Bradley, Christian Brothers, Cleveland and Father Ryan and put them up against Collins Hill, Pope, Camden County, Loganville and Gilmer (just a guess RMC). 1's versus 1's, 2's versus 2's and so on. This would give you a quick and fairly accurate indication of the quality of each state.

 

Where would Tennessee stand versus all other Southern states using this method? I think at or near the top in most years.

 

 

jcddmoon - I'm very aware the youth program is thriving and I too am hopeful of a bright future for Tennessee wrestling.

 

What we really need is more college wrestling in Tennessee and the other southern states. One of the big reasons why some states are better than others is the number of college programs in those states. Those programs graduate wrestlers every year and many go into coaching. The high school coaching spots fill up with ex-college wrestlers and then it filters down into the middle schools and the clubs.

[jcddmoon]

jcddmoon - I'm very aware the youth program is thriving and I too am hopeful of a bright future for Tennessee wrestling.

 

What we really need is more college wrestling in Tennessee and the other southern states. One of the big reasons why some states are better than others is the number of college programs in those states. Those programs graduate wrestlers every year and many go into coaching. The high school coaching spots fill up with ex-college wrestlers and then it filters down into the middle schools and the clubs.

 

Agreed, This is very evident when you look at wrestling in the Chattanooga area. UTC has done alot to improve the programs down south.

[Nainten]

Hmmmmm. It's a good question but a hard question to answer.

 

Let's look at the criteria Nainten suggested;

 

# HS Programs - Georgia has 5 classes. It certainly encourages participation but does not necessarily insure quality.

****Agreed.

 

# Nationally ranked HS Programs - Certainly no offense to Collins Hill or Brandon, FL but national rankings of a few teams can't be a measuring stick. Example... Brandon and Collins Hill are ranked higher than any team in Iowa. In fact, there are no Iowa teams ranked in the Top 25. Does that make Florida and Georgia better than Iowa?

****I asked the question. You answered. No argument here either.

 

# Division I wrestlers - This is the measurement I use mostly because it's easy to get the data....but it really isn't a good one. Tennessee has 6-7 million people and Florida has nearly 20 million. They should be putting more into Division I wrestling programs.

****this one's a little tricky, I agree, but I like it too. I think it gives a good approximation of what is going on out there in level of talent. If you wanted to refine this you could do a ratio of the # of college wrestlers produced to the number of high school wrestlers participating. This is actually do-able but who has the time.

 

# Division I and DII All Americans - Another decent measurement but not really because it is more a measurement of the Great wrestlers a state produces and not of the general quality of wrestling across the state.

****But you could use it to separate states that are very close by other criteria. # NCAA Qualifiers - See above

 

# Nationally Ranked HS Wrestlers - See above

****This goes hand in hand with the number of college wrestlers produced. I agree.

 

The BBBL (BayouBear Bottom line) is this ---- The quality of wrestling in a state is reflected by the quality of the top "tier" of teams and the best and only measurement I ever came up with was to visualize matches between the Top 5 or 10 teams of one state versus the top 5 or 10 teams from another state. For example; take Baylor, Bradley, Christian Brothers, Cleveland and Father Ryan and put them up against Collins Hill, Pope, Camden County, Loganville and Gilmer (just a guess RMC). 1's versus 1's, 2's versus 2's and so on. This would give you a quick and fairly accurate indication of the quality of each state.

**** I dont' necessarily agree with your premise but I'd love to see a regional duals tournament like that nonetheless.

Where would Tennessee stand versus all other Southern states using this method? I think at or near the top in most years.

 

 

jcddmoon - I'm very aware the youth program is thriving and I too am hopeful of a bright future for Tennessee wrestling.

 

What we really need is more college wrestling in Tennessee and the other southern states. One of the big reasons why some states are better than others is the number of college programs in those states. Those programs graduate wrestlers every year and many go into coaching. The high school coaching spots fill up with ex-college wrestlers and then it filters down into the middle schools and the clubs.

**** Agree wholeheartedly that more college programs helps the whole state.

 

BB,

My definition of the best wrestling state is the state the produces the largest number of high level wrestlers. For the purposes of this discussion I'll define high level wrestlers as those good enough to wrestle in Division one or division two in college. To me the state that has the most of these type wrestlers is the best. That's just my definition. If I am a college coach do I focus my energy recruiting Florida or Georgia? Tennessee or Alabama? Whose college level talent pool is bigger? That's how I look at it.

[RMC]

I don't know how deep our pool is in Georgia...but it's got over 9,000 in it now.