Scuffle is today and tomorrow. A few good brackets but people dropping out really makes this tournament look weak this year. As well as the lack of blue-chip guys on a red-shirt that are entered/ wrestling. 141 and 157 should be good. 125 as well.
Southern Scuffle
- Thread starter wrestlingfan22
- Start date
Does this mean that SL and Ayala are both entered at 125? 🤔😜
Irritated with Flo…every time you change mats you have to watch a commercial? Can’t they come up with a better revenue model.
Yeah, these matchups (especially early) are quite the disappointment. I'm probably going to skip the early rounds, Rant below, feel free to ignore but I felt like venting:
We have more options than ever now to watch and follow college wrestling but quite frankly it isn't the same product it used to be. First semester offers so much less in terms of high end matchups and all the holiday tournaments are a shell of what they used to be. Then when dual season happens at nearly every one we have one of the 2-3 best matchups not take place because someone is sitting out.
I don't have the answers but as a 20+ year college wrestling fan it's just not nearly as enjoyable as it used to be to follow it during the season. I'm not blaming coaches, the "ducking" complaints are often misguided, I know the season is too long, etc. I often understand the reasons when you look at them individually but collectively it has watered down the college wrestling as a whole. Quite frankly it results in me being less passionate of a fan before March.
The lack of blue chip guys on redshirt is because the Scuffle foolishly changed their model from an open tournament to one where they only invited teams. Penn State is not sending a team to a tournament with the Bid 10 schedule starting on Friday. I am sure other schools made a similar decision. I don't know how NC State, VA and VA Tech were able to enter partial teams.
https://gomocs.com/sports/2021/11/3/southern-scuffle-participants
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I’ll be up there to watch the Semifinals session tomorrow. Will there be any good semi matchups?
Anyone else on here going? I’ll buy you a coke at the concession stand.
Anyone else on here going? I’ll buy you a coke at the concession stand.
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That was a stupid decision on their part. A lot of teams sent their RS guys to gauge their progress, and fans got to see them wrestle several matches. Hopefully they see the error and make a correction for next year.
As for the timing regarding the BIG schedule, not sure what can be done. Doubt they care too much about an in season tournament.
Well put and i agree with you. It's tough to get excited for something when my first thought is what matchups were going to miss rather than anticipating the ones we get to see.
Maybe the season isn't long enough, rather than too long. More matches equals more chances for good matchups? Is there a difference between entering the post season at 25 (or 30)-1 rather than 19-1? I think there certainly is. Are the PSU guys even going to get 20 matches before BIGs this year?
As you said. No easy answers.
Why not enter a "Full Team" and then scratch who you want to. Isn't that what some did?
Just to clarify, my buddy in the Iowa shirt is not there this year.
I love the sport, but wrestling has some big time problems.
I’m sure Askren, who loathes ducking, will have a handy excuse
He isn't wrong. Problem is, what is the solution. I hate to see it, but maybe the seeding committee needs to start hammering guys for MFFs.
Or coaches designate a starting 10, and they get a loss for every match they miss? If a team goes to mid season tournaments such as Midlands or the Scuffle, starters must go and compete or take losses. Coaches can change the starter once per year to allow for pulling a shirt mid season. Long term injuries allow starter to be changed again. It's an admittedly shitty solution because it punishes guys for legitimate reasons to miss like a minor injury or weekend flu.
Or wrestlers have to have a minimum number of matches to qualify for conference tournaments? But this again punishes wrestlers for missing for legitimate reasons.
Or seeding is based on season long performance at the weight, not the post season wrestlers record.
Things like this didn't happen often before, so what changed in recent times? Coaches "gaming the system?" I can't imagine it's the wrestlers choice. They didn't get to be elite level athletes by avoiding tough competition.
I don’t have all the answers but something most definitely needs to be done. Shortening the season and increasing the importance of the number of matches wrestled as a seeding criteria is a start.
Lowering the seed as punishment for not wrestling or forfeiting can and will punish the other folks in the bracket
Or at the very least it’ll make it like the World Cup where you get a sub bracket of death
Not sure but screwing up a bracket by placing athletes in the wrong spot in the bracket is not a good answer. Seeding is not a popularity contest and it should never be used as punishment
I think you have to count MFF as a loss. These kids are competitive and will hate seeing losses on their record. I think that would stop most of it. Yes, it will the few legitimate guys who actually got injured and had to MFF but I don’t think there is another easy solution
If its not a qualifying tournament (confrence ) just withdraw and give back.the team.points
Sorry, but that's not good enough. There's a problem with non-participation and something has to be done to remedy this problem. Doing nothing is no longer an option. It's reached a boiling point.
The more I think about it, the more I don't like my earlier suggestions.
I don't think the wrestlers are making these decisions. These guys are competing with broken hands, torn up knees, etc.
So the question is: How do you punish the program (coaches) without punishing the wrestlers?
Take away team points at both post season tournaments for wrestlers missing regular season matchups? Any coach eyeing up a spot on the podium at Nationals won't want to start in a hole.
Extra scholarship money for starters competing over 90% of available matches? That 9.9 is valuable. Coaches would love to have a little more. Then do coaches push an injured wrestler out to compete to keep the match count up? And of course, Title IX issues? Source of money?
Or do the coaches get together and draw up a gentlemens agreement to stop killing their own sport?
No idea what the solution is. Glad I don't actually have to come up with one.
I don't think the wrestlers are making these decisions. These guys are competing with broken hands, torn up knees, etc.
So the question is: How do you punish the program (coaches) without punishing the wrestlers?
Take away team points at both post season tournaments for wrestlers missing regular season matchups? Any coach eyeing up a spot on the podium at Nationals won't want to start in a hole.
Extra scholarship money for starters competing over 90% of available matches? That 9.9 is valuable. Coaches would love to have a little more. Then do coaches push an injured wrestler out to compete to keep the match count up? And of course, Title IX issues? Source of money?
Or do the coaches get together and draw up a gentlemens agreement to stop killing their own sport?
No idea what the solution is. Glad I don't actually have to come up with one.
Ya know, just before this last week, I was explaining to my buddies in our Group Chat (mostly football and other sport fans) that this was the season to get into college wrestling. Sasso, AB, and Yianni have all gone down before the 1st of January. Iowa State bumped up 2 or 3 guys in a division 1 dual AND WON. UNI took out blue blood Ohio State. Bedlam came down to heavyweight. MN took out Okie State.
Luckily, they don't listen to me and didn't try to get into it this weekend.
Luckily, they don't listen to me and didn't try to get into it this weekend.
I couldn't find the brackets on Track or Flo, once again wrestling doing its best to make sure people can't follow events.
It’s funny how flo/intermat do these preview/predictions for midlands/scuffle/etc when we know half the time no one shows up.. does this happen in any other sport? Hard to see how wrestling grows.. miss the days where Taylor/Dake showed up to duke it out.. now it’s why bother until March..
Time to build participation/competition expectations into NIL deals?
This is pretty easy really. Seeds are determined by the the team's performance at a weight class in duals vs individual performance of a wrestler determining seeding. Simple and fair.
What if your teams stud gets injured at the end of the season? The back up gets the 2 seed because of someone else's accomplishments?
It’s not a perfect solution, but it is the best I’ve seen suggested. If a stud is injured, they probably wouldn’t do much with the 2 seed anyhow.
If there was a great solution to no-shows/MFF/ducking, it’d have been implemented. I think some of the suggestions made punish wrestlers on other teams (e.g. someone faces a wrestler they shouldn’t early in the tournament; someone doesn’t make the tournament that should have, etc.).
The only thing that would solve it is $$$ and wrestling isn’t making $$$ (or enough of it). If, for example, television / streaming rights (payments) said you have to send your best guys… but wrestling isn’t there for that to work.
But I keep coming back to it has to cost someone $$$ for it to stop.
The only thing that would solve it is $$$ and wrestling isn’t making $$$ (or enough of it). If, for example, television / streaming rights (payments) said you have to send your best guys… but wrestling isn’t there for that to work.
But I keep coming back to it has to cost someone $$$ for it to stop.
Not seeding the best wrestler in the bracket #1 is not the best thing to do for the rest of the wrestlers in the bracket. I don't care if the best wrestler pissed off the fans 10 times of over the course of the season by skipping matches. Drawing him in or reducing his seed is not fair to the other studs in the bracket!
Lets say a stud like Kyle Snyder waits until the Big 10s to wrestle his senior season and enters the meet 0-0. (lets say he wrestled and won in 5 FS opens instead of the regular season) since he is 0-0 he is drawn in (because he upset the fans) and sure enough he gets Adam Coon in the first match. Is that right? Coon and the fans are now screwed. Lets.say he he is drawn in on the bottom side and the 2 & 3 seed are now screwed. I know its a stretch but it is an extreme example of why you don't punish with seeds
Lets say a stud like Kyle Snyder waits until the Big 10s to wrestle his senior season and enters the meet 0-0. (lets say he wrestled and won in 5 FS opens instead of the regular season) since he is 0-0 he is drawn in (because he upset the fans) and sure enough he gets Adam Coon in the first match. Is that right? Coon and the fans are now screwed. Lets.say he he is drawn in on the bottom side and the 2 & 3 seed are now screwed. I know its a stretch but it is an extreme example of why you don't punish with seeds
What if the #1 draft pick in football gets hurt in practice before the title game? The season ranking and playoff position is determined by team performance in all of the other sports.
But if the starting 5 for #1 basketball team were killed in a car wreck the week before the NCAA bracket announcement, would they still be the top seed?
First of all, I don't think the #1 kids do most of the ducking. It is usually the #2/3/4 kids doing the ducking trying to move up a spot or 2 to have a better chance at reaching the semis/finals. I don't care what kind of anti-ducking criteria is used to penalize this behavior. But the punishment should be getting docked 2 spots. That disincentivizes the behavior and it doesn't blow up the bracket.
Now you guys that are smarter than me can sort out what the criteria is to identify the evil-doers.
Now you guys that are smarter than me can sort out what the criteria is to identify the evil-doers.
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