Miracle path to Fifth Consecutive National Championship

[WPB_lion]

I understand from the article on the front page that winning the national championship for a fifth consecutive year would take a miracle. I am interested in the wrestling board experts opinions as to the finish that would be required of PSU wrestlers at each weight class to achieve this miracle (ie. I would assume we would need national championships out of Brown and McIntosh and almost all others will need to achieve AA status).

 

[PennStateTurf2002]

I think it would certainly take all 7 being all american. It would take a surprise high finish by someone.

I am not predicting this but probably what it would take…

125 Solid All American and get a big upset to get a top 6 finish
133 Pull off some wins that he has been giving away, top 4
149 Have to win the close ones this time around and finish top 6
174 Brown, has to wrestle to seed and maybe come thru with a big one 1 or 2
184 Cutch would have to go over his head and finish top 8
197 Mac Going to be tough to get thru semi finals but would need to get to finals at least
HWY Lawson will have to find a way to get deep in this tournament, will take a lot but top 6 or 8.

That is a lot to ask for but I guess it isn't impossible. It wouldn't take a miracle for any of those things to happen individually but maybe a miracle to expect all of that to happen together however.

 

[Maddog]

Think we would need to have at least three in the finals (Brown, Smack, and ?), 6 AA's overall, and have the other contenders knock each other off enough that 100 points wins it all. Unlikely, but conceivable.

 

[KidNittany]

This year will probably have similar parity to our title in 2011 in Philly, so you'll probably want around 100 pts to be close to the title.

As an FYI, we scored 107.5 that year, with a 1, 2, 2, 3 and 3, all of their bonus, 1 win out of 125, R12 out of 41 with bonus (F/M), and an R12 out of HWT with no bonus.

You can start to see why it will be a challenge.

Brown, Gulibon and McIntosh are legitimate title contenders.

Conaway and Beitz are potential title contenders if they wrestle at the apex of their game. Top 3 is asking their best effort.

McCutcheon and Lawson are going to fight for AA status, and are more likely in the R12 range than 1-4 or 5-8.

Ideally, you want maximum parity, except against our guys.

It's nearly impossible to objectively pick them to win this year. So, if they do, Cael pretty much deserves Coach of the Millenium award. Everyone will need to be on to win, and by on I mean win with bonus everywhere.

 

[Lion-around]

Nothing is impossible, but a championship win here would definitely fall unto the very long shot (Hail Mary) category. Last year Penn State won the national championship with 109.5 points. Lets guess and say it takes 112 points to win this year; that means each of our 7 wrestlers would have to average 16 points to get to 112. To show how difficult that will be, last year Nico came in 3rd and got 15 points; Zain and Brown each came in 5th and earned 12 and 11 points respectively; Morgan and English each came in 7th and earned 8.5 and 6.5 points respectively. Taylor and Ruth both won championships and earned 27 and 24.5 points respectively. Those who didn't AA (Jimmy, Dylan and Jon) added 5.0 points. We'll definitely need lots of bonus points and almost all to be high AAs with some finalists/champions to have any shot. Not impossible, but very difficult.