RMC Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 (edited) 17 hours ago, Nextlevelwreetling said: We are in a state that rarely produces any college All-Americans in comparison to a state let’s say like Georgia. That’s a fact a hard fact to swallow but a fact. I mean college All-Americans on any Division level… We should stop talking about consolidating one state championship an start making sure we the coaches are preparing our athletes not just to get a scholarship D1, NAIA, D2, D3, and juco but to actually start on said teams, and then compete on the next level and bring some honors home to TN. If you want to consolidate something We need to be pulling together in the off season training more to get these kids ready for the next level success. Why? So those kids can come back coach and raise the level of wrestling. Y’all complain about Georgia but they produce more all-Americans then we do across all the college levels… I complain about Georgia because I live there, assisted with a fairly successful program, and also helped run the state tournaments for several years. When we moved here there were 5 classifications and now there are 7. Georgia has still never produced a NCAA D1 National Champ and I think only had 1 reach the finals....Charlie Heard. My nephew's teammate at Baylor did pretty well....Jordan Leen. I do like the USA Wrestling program that's here for the youth. Edited February 16, 2022 by RMC 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobrakid8 Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 23 minutes ago, RMC said: I complain about Georgia because I live there, assisted with a fairly successful program, and also helped run the state tournaments for several years. When we moved here there were 5 classifications and now there are 7. Georgia has still never produced a NCAA D1 National Champ and I think only had 1 reach the finals....Charlie Heard. My nephew's teammate at Baylor did pretty well....Jordan Leen. I do like the USA Wrestling program that's here for the youth. Yeah, there are to many division in GA also, watered down the competition some. Yes, TN has had 1 NC with Leen and a RU with Simpson. We have had a few AA's but few and far between. I don't think GA has had a ton of AA's either, but of course I haven't done a ton of reading up on them lately. Of course the south itself hasnt been a huge hotbed of wrestling, Florida is huge with population and I don't remember them having a ton of AA's, same with Bama, Louisiana and such. Seems we concentrate more of our athletes in football and a other sports besides wrestling, which is a huge shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ummmno Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 34 minutes ago, cobrakid8 said: Yeah, there are to many division in GA also, watered down the competition some. Yes, TN has had 1 NC with Leen and a RU with Simpson. We have had a few AA's but few and far between. I don't think GA has had a ton of AA's either, but of course I haven't done a ton of reading up on them lately. Of course the south itself hasnt been a huge hotbed of wrestling, Florida is huge with population and I don't remember them having a ton of AA's, same with Bama, Louisiana and such. Seems we concentrate more of our athletes in football and a other sports besides wrestling, which is a huge shame. Georgia has had a lot more success than TN. Especially recently. I honestly do not know the last time this state produced an D1 AA. Georgia has one every year or so. Ryan Millhof, Chip Ness, Sean Russell, Taylor Lujan, the Bullard brothers, etc. A lot, if not most all, of their recent success has to go to Cliff Fretwell and Compound Wrestling. Since established they've really gone from just another southern state with no wrestling to a national powerhouse. Every year they get multiple fargo AA's, Super 32 AA's and champs, and their dual teams are always in the mix. Heck, even Alabama has had more AA's in the last decade than us. Sam Latona last year, and Brandon Womack a few years before that. Tennessee, as a state, on the college scene, is behind. Maybe some of the kids now from here, Chittum, Hilton, Mason, etc can change that. But our history? Not great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMC Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 53 minutes ago, cobrakid8 said: Yeah, there are to many division in GA also, watered down the competition some. Yes, TN has had 1 NC with Leen and a RU with Simpson. We have had a few AA's but few and far between. I don't think GA has had a ton of AA's either, but of course I haven't done a ton of reading up on them lately. Of course the south itself hasnt been a huge hotbed of wrestling, Florida is huge with population and I don't remember them having a ton of AA's, same with Bama, Louisiana and such. Seems we concentrate more of our athletes in football and a other sports besides wrestling, which is a huge shame. I think GA is up to maybe 12 or 13 D1 AA's.......I think last few are Peter Yates (3x), Ryan Millhof, Sean Russell, Chip Ness (2x), and Daniel Bullard. Taylor Lujan, of UNI, most likely would be and AA had the tournament not been cancelled as he was #1/#2 ranked going in. Got a chance with a few spread around the country this year. I don't follow it as closely as I used too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobrakid8 Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 4 minutes ago, RMC said: I think GA is up to maybe 12 or 13 D1 AA's.......I think last few are Peter Yates (3x), Ryan Millhof, Sean Russell, Chip Ness (2x), and Daniel Bullard. Taylor Lujan, of UNI, most likely would be and AA had the tournament not been cancelled as he was #1/#2 ranked going in. Got a chance with a few spread around the country this year. I don't follow it as closely as I used too. Me either, when we started to water down our state I somewhat stopped following and just spent more time on my own sons sports. I think GA is a better state compared to ours because they spend more time again with freestyle and such compared to what TN wrestlers do. Back 20 or so years ago when we had the Matt Keller's, Kevin Ward's, Leens, Simpsons doing pretty well. I havent kept up in past 5-10 years as I used to so I'm not sure how many AA's we have had in the past 10 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ummmno Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 2 minutes ago, cobrakid8 said: Me either, when we started to water down our state I somewhat stopped following and just spent more time on my own sons sports. I think GA is a better state compared to ours because they spend more time again with freestyle and such compared to what TN wrestlers do. Back 20 or so years ago when we had the Matt Keller's, Kevin Ward's, Leens, Simpsons doing pretty well. I havent kept up in past 5-10 years as I used to so I'm not sure how many AA's we have had in the past 10 years. 0 The answer is zero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobrakid8 Posted February 16, 2022 Report Share Posted February 16, 2022 8 minutes ago, Ummmno said: 0 The answer is zero. I thought so, but wasn't 100% sure on that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nextlevelwreetling Posted February 17, 2022 Report Share Posted February 17, 2022 19 hours ago, RMC said: I complain about Georgia because I live there, assisted with a fairly successful program, and also helped run the state tournaments for several years. When we moved here there were 5 classifications and now there are 7. Georgia has still never produced a NCAA D1 National Champ and I think only had 1 reach the finals....Charlie Heard. My nephew's teammate at Baylor did pretty well....Jordan Leen. I do like the USA Wrestling program that's here for the youth. A quick glance at participation numbers at Division I NCAA Championships paints a picture. The 2015 tournament had zero Georgia qualifiers and the 2016 tournament had one. That shifted to eight in 2017, nine in 2018, 11 in 2019, and nine qualifiers for the 2020 championships that were canceled due to COVID-19. A look at Fargo All-American data provides an even greater snapshot of Georgia's rapid ascent on the national stage. The state produced 111 Fargo All-Americans and 12 champions prior to 2010. In the past decade alone, it produced 132 All-Americans and 13 champs. Additionally, 10 Georgians are currently in the Trackwrestling national high school rankings, including Chase Horne (No. 2 at 285), Gabe Arnold (No. 2 at 170), Caleb Henson (No. 3 at 152), Matthew Singleton (No. 4 at 170), No. 4 Noah Pettigrew (220), and Caden McCrary (No. 7 at 138). this is small data from track article but I’m not talking just D1 cause that’s 1 level the highest level. Georgia D2, and NAIA participation has been overwhelming… why is that important because those kids are tough wrestler and come back to the state and give back. GA produces more D2 and NAIA all-Americans then we do just last year life university won the NAIA CHAMPIONSHIP BREAKING a 9 year winning streak from grand view. That’s just an example I found and I’m from TN this it’s just an observation they sign more kids to all divisions and produce more AA across the lower divisions and then they come back and help others achieve higher success. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbg Posted February 17, 2022 Report Share Posted February 17, 2022 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Nextlevelwreetling said: A quick glance at participation numbers at Division I NCAA Championships paints a picture. The 2015 tournament had zero Georgia qualifiers and the 2016 tournament had one. That shifted to eight in 2017, nine in 2018, 11 in 2019, and nine qualifiers for the 2020 championships that were canceled due to COVID-19. A look at Fargo All-American data provides an even greater snapshot of Georgia's rapid ascent on the national stage. The state produced 111 Fargo All-Americans and 12 champions prior to 2010. In the past decade alone, it produced 132 All-Americans and 13 champs. Additionally, 10 Georgians are currently in the Trackwrestling national high school rankings, including Chase Horne (No. 2 at 285), Gabe Arnold (No. 2 at 170), Caleb Henson (No. 3 at 152), Matthew Singleton (No. 4 at 170), No. 4 Noah Pettigrew (220), and Caden McCrary (No. 7 at 138). this is small data from track article but I’m not talking just D1 cause that’s 1 level the highest level. Georgia D2, and NAIA participation has been overwhelming… why is that important because those kids are tough wrestler and come back to the state and give back. GA produces more D2 and NAIA all-Americans then we do just last year life university won the NAIA CHAMPIONSHIP BREAKING a 9 year winning streak from grand view. That’s just an example I found and I’m from TN this it’s just an observation they sign more kids to all divisions and produce more AA across the lower divisions and then they come back and help others achieve higher success. The State of Georgia has a population of 11 million and the State of Tennessee has a population of 7 million. The Atlanta area has a population of 6 million. If used correctly the population numbers make a major difference. Edited February 17, 2022 by cbg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowcatcher Posted February 17, 2022 Report Share Posted February 17, 2022 CBG is always the man of reason supporting his stance with FACTS! I know everyone has their own strong opinion and there are definitely valid stances to both sides of this, but personally, I have loved the 3 division split. Let's be real, if we had one division, Cleveland and Baylor would win the state almost every year with someone like a Father Ryan stealing one once every 10 years or so. The split gives you a reason to get excited for a matchup like Pigeon Forge v. Greeneville. Otherwise, that match means nothing to anyone outside of G'ville and PF if it's all just one big division. That said, I don't think anyone in Single A would argue that it's as hard to win a small school title as it is in AA or DII, but some of the studs like the G'ville big 4, Lance Williams, the Uhorchuk brothers, Caleb Wolfe, and a healthy Foreman would all have a chance to win the other divs. Single A just isn't as deep. Many of those guys won't even wrestle a 6 min. match in the state tournament. You can also argue many of the Single A multi-time champs may not even win a title in the other divs., but I am still a proponent of it being a good thing for TN wrestling. How cool would it be to see a All-Star tri meet though between the A, AA, and DII champs a week after the season?! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenAround Posted February 17, 2022 Report Share Posted February 17, 2022 6 minutes ago, cowcatcher said: CBG is always the man of reason supporting his stance with FACTS! I know everyone has their own strong opinion and there are definitely valid stances to both sides of this, but personally, I have loved the 3 division split. Let's be real, if we had one division, Cleveland and Baylor would win the state almost every year with someone like a Father Ryan stealing one once every 10 years or so. The split gives you a reason to get excited for a matchup like Pigeon Forge v. Greeneville. Otherwise, that match means nothing to anyone outside of G'ville and PF if it's all just one big division. That said, I don't think anyone in Single A would argue that it's as hard to win a small school title as it is in AA or DII, but some of the studs like the G'ville big 4, Lance Williams, the Uhorchuk brothers, Caleb Wolfe, and a healthy Foreman would all have a chance to win the other divs. Single A just isn't as deep. Many of those guys won't even wrestle a 6 min. match in the state tournament. You can also argue many of the Single A multi-time champs may not even win a title in the other divs., but I am still a proponent of it being a good thing for TN wrestling. How cool would it be to see a All-Star tri meet though between the A, AA, and DII champs a week after the season?! Middle TN Ref association tried to do this a couple years back. TSSAA would not allow it to be a straight up dual team of each division so kids would have had to be sprinkled in randomly on each team but you would still get to see the individual matchups. We were going to have a +3or 5 weight allowance but ultimately we could not get guys to commit. Now you have the D2 guys going to the Preps the week of D1 state, they will not want to wrestle another weekend after that in a All-Star dual. We purchased singlets, coaches shirts and everything but ultimately it fell flat on its face. Location was going to be at Oakland high. (central to everyone in the state.) Sounds good on message boards but too many logistical issues to overcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nextlevelwreetling Posted February 17, 2022 Report Share Posted February 17, 2022 17 minutes ago, cbg said: The State of Georgia has a population of 11 million and the State of Tennessee has a population of 7 million. The Atlanta area has a population of 6 million. If used correctly the population numbers make a major difference. Your not wrong and that’s a valid point! Popping back up from the rabbit hole I made. My objective wasn’t to really compare State to state , but too say that we need to share recourses and build better functioning summer clubs like compound, storm, grind house, and more. I believe our clubs are trending up in the right direction and they need to travel and wrestle more active in the summers. I just want our coaches focus there cause that’s where we will see our wrestling state wide take leaps. It costs money and time but most parents would do it I think if they knew it would benefit their child. If we came together about that rather then arguing about a single state championships I think we be better for it… 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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