Martin looks like a really good kid out there. I guess it’s easier to be when you’re that good it’s easier. Now Rutgers ...
Cenzo - Most improved?
- Thread starter NittanyChris
- Start date
Last year Joseph looked "doughy".... like he hadn't lost his baby fat yet. This year he looks more "cut". I think growing into an adult body and training full time really helped him out.
I am not calling him fat or weak last year, just a visible observation to this year lol
I am not calling him fat or weak last year, just a visible observation to this year lol
This. His ascension is reflected in a comment he made to JB during the coach’s show this week. When asked about prepping for the tOSU dual, Cenzo admitted that he had lost track of who they were even scheduled to wrestle last week.
#You’reNotMyNextChallengerYou’reJustNext
From my vantage point, Cenzo was just expressing the thinking of the whole team.
It was less about losing track of that specific 2-week schedule, and more about how they think all the time. Very little time looking at tape (one coach does it more than the others), and even less time prepping for a specific wrestler.
Instead, the coaches have the guys focused on THEIR skills, THEIR techniques, THEIR improvement, THEIR goals, without regard to who their facing in the next bout. Dominance, wrestling THEIR match, scoring points...it's all about THEIR wrestling, not the other guys. Philosophically-speaking, it's genius...and while Cael's not the first, he's the one doing it now.
Interesting take, of course. Someone oosted yesterday, i believe, that Cael’s coaching style is to let a wrestler go against an opponent just on their own skills the first time, but then developes a very specific game plan against a wrestler the next time.
They said that Lee against McKenna on saturday was Lee wrestling without a game plan (and that seems a bit harsher phrased than intended), but at BIGs and NCAA he will have a specific startegy to use. They also mentioned Hall’s left leg placement and I believe Imar versus VJ as other examples. Said our wrestlers have very specific scouted game plans.
You say that Cael’s strategy is not this, just more focus on their abilities and go for it. Interesting takes.
Some big matches agsinst the right opponent require a game plan. I am on the fence re Cenzo vs Imar as he pretty much beat him with his full tool set and he looked to be having fun and just wrestling, with the inside trip only the icing on the cake after he had already for the most part established he would win. On the other hand a perfect example of adhering to a script was Bo vs Dean That whole match was definitely not your normal risk taking Bo. He followed a controlled calculated approach giving Dean nothing much to work with, and the game plan delivered. It did have me biting my nails up until the last second however.
We may never know, but I do feel that generally speaking, this is the team approach, and that it works very well over 99% of D1 wrestling. I can't help but wonder if tactics necessarily become more central at the senior freestyle level, or in the rare uber-talented D1 matchups (Cenzo Imar, Dake Taylor, etc). For my part, I love the steady focus our team brings to everything they do. This sport can provoke profound emotions (my adrenaline is still replenishing from last Saturday), and I think it's not a stretch at all to attibute Cael's success on the mat and as a coach to his natural, but cultivated/enhanced ability to keep the biggest moments small and the focus on technique.
I can't quote Cael, Cody, Casey, or Jake, only paraphrase after years of listening to them. With only 20 hours of countable practice time each week (max 4 hours per day), 37 wrestlers in the room, 10 of them starters, and time required for weight training and talk (not all 20 hrs is on the mat), and 4 coaches (not all are in the room every practice), it's easy to see the dilemma...there's simply not enough time to prep (in a major way) for the opposition, though I'm sure there's some at times.
If you want to know whether we do any prep for specific wrestlers.....you need look no further than NN vs Snyder. There was a clear plan and there had been definite work done to create a counter to Snyder’s single attack. We saw it repeated several times in the match, working once, I think.
That said, as a rule, our team spends much much less time on tape and scouting than most teams do. It is part of the style we see. Press your style, try stuff over and over and create pace.
