I know most here don't like Tom Ryan, but I watched his interview after tournament and I thought it was a really good interview. He was very candid and complimentary, and he made some valid points (regarding what Kyle Snyder has been able to do). I really liked the interview.
Tom Ryan Interview
- Thread starter jrd23psu
- Start date
i agree that this was a good interview and shows Ryan in a good light
Well, how about instead of focusing on things he didn't mention or say, and then trying to make him out to be a scumbag based on thinks he didn't say in the interview, we just talk about what he did say.
It was a good interview. He made some good points and observations about Kyle Snyder, and he came off as very passionate. Nothing in this interview paints Tom Ryan in a negative light. He didn't disparage anyone and gave plenty of credit to Bo Nickal. For all the hate Tom Ryan gets on this forum, this interview was a good one.
My guess is if Tom Ryan was our coach we would love his routine. Well except the dual meet national championship silliness.
I personally don't get the animus toward Ryan-I've always respected him-but, then again, I'm not a fan of a school that is a rival of his either.
I've also had a sympathetic angle with which I respect him as well, simply because he lost a child. Not many in this world go through such trauma and persevere.
I've also had a sympathetic angle with which I respect him as well, simply because he lost a child. Not many in this world go through such trauma and persevere.
Or the holding back of wrestlers who might get beat in a dual and hurt their seeding. Or give his charges lunger breaks by throwing the brick over and over again. Or whining about every call that doesn't go his way. Don't think I would love his routine no matter who he coached for.
Maybe you would or maybe not. I guarantee most on this board would be very adamant defending him.
Part of Ryan reminds me of CJF--at least in the sense that both really work the media angle to try and improve his team's situation/standing. However, Ryan does seem more prone to making excuses in defeat. I'm sure I would love him if he was here, but it's different with Cael, because he and by extension his team are role models for me in life in a way Franklin or Ryan simply can't touch. Gratitude opens up all kinds of possibilities if you can live your life that way, and exhibit A in PSU Wrestling is a pretty profound example.
Ryan's antics mat side are a bit much and I don't like that he shields his wrestlers to protect seed at times... but he was totally fine in that interview. The constant ridiculing of everything not PSU is unbecoming to be honest... Enjoy that we are at the top of the heap and do so with some class..
I posted on Scout a couple of days ago about Ryan's interview, but I thought it was a good interview and I can see why his wrestlers like him. He does have a tendency to make excuses at times, but this was a hard interview in the face of so much disappointment and I thought he handled it well.
You make valid points nerfstate. The excuses in defeat is a buckeye tradition, he is only following what we sees the football coach do along with 98% of the fans. I hear it all the time. As far at judging Ryan I go to who he recruits and what they present themselves as which I've witnessed to be generally great. I was a bit surprised given Ryan's game day antics yet his young men present themselves quite well, Tomasello in particular but not exclusively. Snyder can venture into smack at times and given we have the same last name it difficult to condemn him too much.
Over all we have developed a rivalry from two factors. Cael took PSU from a great potential to a great team and Ryan took the OSU program and did the same thing, maybe a bit differently but the result is similar with one glaring difference. PSU is dominant and OSU is 2nd. While Iowa is staring in at the top two wondering what happened. Iowa will potentially surpass OSU in the coming years but they will be hard pressed to surpass PSU. Cael's dynasty is built solid to the core, character, character, character. OSU has character but not dominance and Iowa's dominance retired.
Happy days in Happy Valley.
Iowa will finish ahead of tOSU for a year or two, but I would be shocked if Iowa bettered them more often than not in the next 10 years. tOSU is the primary rival for PSU with Iowa and Michigan a close 3-4 moving forward imo.
I think that Tom Brands is positively a buffoon given how he carries on matside, but I think he's very passionate about wrestling and a very decent guy otherwise. I rather feel the same way about Ryan. I can't stand the lunger breaks, holding wrestlers out to protect seeds, the excuses after a loss or comments like, "not how we would have handled it", but I'm sure he's positively passionate about wrestling and about his team, so I'll give him credit for those things. People do evolve and maybe he'll come around. 
Know enough to respect the man. Judging folks we don't really know has become all too common from many in the world we live in today. Sad really.
[QUOTE="I've also had a sympathetic angle with which I respect him as well, simply because he lost a child. Not many in this world go through such trauma and persevere.[/QUOTE]
Hmm. Didn't know that. Looked up a few articles on the death of his son. Changed my perspective.
Hmm. Didn't know that. Looked up a few articles on the death of his son. Changed my perspective.
Haters are going to hate. We have no idea what circumstances are in place when he chooses to keep wrestlers on the sideline. Certainly it appears that at times he is protecting a seed, but there have also been instances when he is simply protecting an injured wrestler. Your other statements are just exaggerations -- only so many challenges are permitted per dual or tournament [and why wouldn't he give one of his wrestlers a breather if the rules permit it and the wrestler needs it?], and all coaches work the refs in an effort to benefit their wrestlers.
Fact is, all fans see their players and coaches in a favorable light while seeing opposing players and coaches in a more skeptical manner. It's human nature, no reason to deny it.
these coaches are in the limelight and making a decent salary. Fans are allowed to state their opinion on liking or not liking their actions or statements. I'm pretty sure they don't give a damn. So while I'm not judging Ryan at all, I do not like how he comes across - or is magnetized by the camera or his opinion regarding dual meets. Not much judging here. Agree on 'crossing the line' beyond opinion. Sure do like the way the OSU wrestlers behave.
I like and respect the tOSU wrestlers, respect Ryan (he's a wrestler after all) , but don't like him all that much. Too much baggage with the guy. Holding his son out of prelims at Big10s last year only to let him wrestle-back, the tweets following last year's finals, the "not how we would have handled it" BS, the implied PSU has a great team but tOSU has a great program video, his antics at Rec Hall when things went south, and his camera whoring at nationals are enough to justify my dislike. I also wonder if he would have been so brazen heading into the dual if Nolf hand't been injured. Add to that his misguided attempts to overhaul the way we determine the team champion...I sure am happy with how things worked out and we got Cael.
I like the various “characters” throughout college wrestling. I’m glad there are different styles and attitudes in the coaching ranks and love seeing “good guys” and “bad guys” on the mats. If everyone was the same, I’d probably not care to tune in as much as I do.
I'm somewhat of a wrestling novice. How does he want to determine the team champion?
Ryan is part of the brigade that wants national duals to result in the team title. When that didn't work, he was one of the coaches that tried to make national duals be a component of the team title -- natty duals winner gets points added to the team score at the NCAA Tournament, and of course enough points to tilt the scale.
Luckily he didn't get his way on that.
I've poked a lot of fun at the guy, but the bottom line to me is that he develops winners on and off the mat.
It would be nice if dual meets mattered more. As it is the entire season is defined by what happens the final weekend, especially for the top programs.
Respect Tom Ryan and what he has accomplished at tOSU. I like and respect the tOSU wrestlers. No doubt they are good.
But I sure like it when we beat them. Our dual meet this year was maybe the most exciting dual ever and what a finish at the NCAAs. Beating a good rival sure makes life better!!
But I sure like it when we beat them. Our dual meet this year was maybe the most exciting dual ever and what a finish at the NCAAs. Beating a good rival sure makes life better!!
And that is shaped very heavily by individual results at duals.
Duals do matter. It wouldn't hurt college wrestling for its coaches to say that, instead of denigrating duals. Want attendance to improve? Want to add programs? Want to stop losing programs? Stop saying your product doesn't matter.
The bottom line is if we lost 5 dual meets but won ncaas, the dual meets would be largely irrelevent. -- kind of like how I feel about the big 10 championships. As someone who has never wrestled and isn't as invested in the sport as many others around here, I think it would be cool to have an 8 team tournament (or whatever the best number is) and the winner is the team champ. I assume this is the premise of the national duals concept.
Agreed. We've seen far too many National Duals sparsely attended. Why would you want to determine a champion where you could have the 2nd best kid in the country and not have him score any team points assuming he loses to the best kid in the country? Similarly, why should a wrestler who absolutely dominates an inferior opponent only get 6 team points? Throw in the likely weight class maneuvering you'd see increase and the blatant stalling to limit that damage that would also increase, no thanks.
The current format pits the top 33 wrestlers in each weight class against one another with points earned accordingly.
Just think about this past weekend, there was palpable drama each day as the team race seesawed back and forth. There was also underlying drama for the 3rd and 4th place trophies as well as the subplots of Conel, Lock Haven's surprise performance, etc. If it had been a dual meet championship instead, it would have been a foregone conclusion that PSU and tOSU would meet for the championship, with the days preceding filled with beat downs and fans of eliminated teams thinning out along the way. If you want an example of this, look no further than the NCAA basketball tournament. Lots of empty seats on Saturday and Sunday after the round 1 participants were sent packing.
The wrestling leadership needs to accept that this is a niche sport whose fan base is largely made up of former wrestlers and/or friends/family of former wrestlers. The notion that a more traditional team competition confined to 2 hours or less will open doors to a whole new population of fans is just silly. Hopefully they don't screw up the best thing going across the world in this sport.
Name the last national team champion to lose 5 duals in a season. Or lose 3 duals, for that matter.
You're right, a duals tournament would be cool -- right up until you realize that it has been tried and failed. A 4-team weekend national duals tourney failed to draw 3000 fans at Minnesota one year and at Oklahoma State in another (both were since Cael was hired by PSU).
Plus it's been proven over and over again that the wrestling isn't as good. Guys wrestle to not lose in order to protect the team score. Once one dual is clinched, the backups wrestle and weights get forfeited so the starters are fresh for the next round. Etc.
You guys are probably right, but those national duals you mentioned had no bearing on a championship - and therefore were just another meet.
College football is great because each game matters A LOT. College basketball less so. And wrestling even less. I personally like it when the season matters .... and not just for individual seeding purposes.
And I'm not suggesting to get rid of the tournament - we still need individual placements
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You mean like the Super Bowl, World Series, CFP, Stanley Cup, March Madness, college World Series or World Cup?
I can certainly understand that sentiment from the casual fan (no disrespect whatsover), but at the end of the day, wrestling is still an individual sport with a team component thrown in. There's a lot more parity in college football and basketball (at least on the men's side) than wrestling. You could have an 8 team dual championship every year, but in all but the rarest of instances, you'd know going in who was going to meet for the championship with rare occasions where 3 or possibly 4 teams may have a shot. The current format is what results in the sold out arenas and attendance records.
The other thing that can't be forgotten is the whole peaking process. The ultimate prize for a wrestler is an individual NCAA championship. The likes of Cael, Jon Smith and Tom Brands are dead set against holding national duals in any proximity to the current NCAA tournament. So do you hold the team championship a month before the conference tournaments? How meaningful is that?
And we can't forget that for many schools, wrestling budgets are extremely tight. Would not surprise me to see some top 8 teams turn down the unexpected "invitation" to travel to Columbus, Iowa City, or State College to get their asses kicked.
I'm not following. You don't make the World Series or super bowl or any of those other things if you don't qualify. There are rounds leading up to that.
Losing dual meets wouldn't have mattered just like losing the big 10 championship didn't matter. years from now do you think anyone will care who the big 10 champs were (other than us and them)
The nats lost in the nlds. Guess what - that mattered. The jags lost in the afc championship. Guess what - that mattered. The US didn't do well enough in their qualifying games in soccer. Guess what - no World Cup for them.
If Snyder decked nick during the dual meet, that would have altered the outcome but I'm pretty sure it would have had no impact on the national championship. However, if we held on in Columbus in football, that regular season game would have had a tremendous impact on the national championship.
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And because of the dual meet outcome, Alex Marinelli was seeded ahead of Vincenzo Joseph at Big 10s, Mark Hall was seeded ahead of Bo Jordan and Nick Nevills was seeded ahead of Sam Stoll to name 3 examples. From a practical point of view, wrestlers can't compete in tournaments every single weekend throughout the season, too much wear and tear. So the next best thing is dual meets. But wrestling is, always has been, and hopefully always will be about preparing for the end of season pinnacle which is the NCAA tournament. Hey, if nothing else, the format is still way better than gymnastics and track & field.
im thinking that whenever a thread goes off the tracks...not a little...but alot....an example would be like most threads on the HR or a thread here on the NJKid ......
that this ryan video should be posted.
#ryanrollrasslinstyle
that this ryan video should be posted.
#ryanrollrasslinstyle
Yea, I get that about the seeding but I think it's a shame that the dual meet final score really doesn't matter. That's not to say the final weekend isn't spectacular.
Btw I have a similar issue with march madness in that allowing 68 teams in the field minimizes the importance of the regular season.
Hey, thanks for remembering!
Had the best of both worlds: got to do some fun stuff with her, and saw almost every match. (I might have worked from home Thursday and Friday.)
Startled her and scared the dog when Bo stuck Martin. They both recovered, Ohio State not so much.
I get it, it may be a shame, but as it stands, casual fans like you are keeping tabs on what's going on at the NCAA wrestling tournaments for 3 straight days. It's just the nature of wrestling or any individual sport for that matter. Go to a dual meet format and more often than not, you won't be tuning into until the championship match. And even then, coaches will default to what's best for the individual wrestler over the team if the individual tournament is still 4-6 weeks away. Just listen to the interviews with the Penn State wrestlers from this past weekend when asked about the team race. They repeatedly said their focus is on doing the best they can, not worrying about the team race, and in the process the team race will take care of itself.
