2026 NCAA Wrestling Championship Official Thread

Chasingthirty-five

All-Conference
Apr 23, 2023
1,842
3,958
113
I’m curious to see what his recovery trajectory will be. Was speaking about it with my wife (who is a PT so this is an informed opinion) and she said depending on the severity of the injury, a high level athlete in a contact sport may need up to a year to be fully healthy. Obviously a ton of caveats since we don’t know the severity of the injury or anything like that, but a shoulder ain’t an ACL
I think I said it somewhere but pending his aspirations, a medical shirt year could really be great. Elite defense. Give him all the time he can to start building more offense.
 

RWilson24

Sophomore
Aug 26, 2025
68
115
33
lol ain’t gonna cut it cheif, I’ve lived in south central PA my whole life. Dad has been an Oklahoma football fan since the 70s. Would y’all like to talk football as well?
The only thing worse than a sooner football fan is a Pedo wrestling fan. Both as delusional as they come. You guys cry more than the moms at my granddaughters wrestling tournaments. FFS
 

Travis25

All-Conference
Jan 14, 2020
335
1,017
93
Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but our three champs made it through the three most difficult brackets. They each faced the highest seed they could have faced in every single bout. The only exception was Landon drawing the #21 seed instead of the #12 in his second round matchup. Everything else was completely chalk.
 

Pokes1988

Heisman
Apr 17, 2018
7,681
10,109
113
What a weekend. Stoked for the program and these guys.

Get better, get healthy, fill in a couple holes (particularly HWT) and let's work on DOMINATING next season.

Biggest difference between OSU and PSU right now is the ability to put out bonus points early and often. We won but they jumped out a 40 pt lead QUICK and we started clawing back.

Final Tallies:

3 Winners
1 Runner Up
1 4th Place
1 5th Place
2 8th Place

Obviously there's a couple of spots you'd like to see advance (165/174) and potentially get all 10 in the AA status but all things considered, helluva season. You can see the tides starting to shift off of PSU a little bit.

FWIW, I haven't watched more than 5 minutes of tournament basketball. I devoted my entire TV time to this!!
 
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Pokes1988

Heisman
Apr 17, 2018
7,681
10,109
113
I didn't see it stated but a couple of times, I did see Lockett working with Robideau and I think Merrill while they warmed up. Not sure what goes behind that but nice to see that he had a disappointing weekend but still there for the boys to do his part to prepare them to compete. I saw him a lot cheering, so kudos to him.

I'm one of his biggest critics (especially the last month) but give credit where credit was due!
 

pokepelli

All-American
Jul 10, 2005
35,240
7,501
103
Panda seemed to lack confidence at the beginning of the year. He just kept working and working and I think Taylor helped him mentally throughout the year. That match that he almost lost in the beginning of the season but somehow scored to win it in the last few seconds was the match that started to turn the tide for him.
I would have never thought at the beginning of the year he would be a national runner up. Very proud of him.!
 

killmnl

Heisman
Jan 17, 2013
15,207
29,564
113
Jax's words in the post match interview.

You want to win national championships, come to Oklahoma State. At the walk in recruiting clinic, Dr Forrest just injected 200 cc's of recruiting elixir. On the biggest stage, on the final match of the tournament, it was poetry in motion.

David Taylor just got handed a huge lever manned by some really good kids.
 

OKSTATE1

Heisman
May 29, 2001
52,112
72,931
112
Honestly I feel like that tweet is making a heck of a lot of assumptions and bold claims based on a very vague comment in that video.
I laughed because people are trying to stir up a rivalry and some hate between OSU and PSU. It would be good for wrestling.

The announcers during the finals even said PSU needs to wrestle OSU in GIA.

ESPN knows it would get huge ratings and OSU fans are so hungry GIA would be an absolute madhouse.

Clickbait, eyeballs, whatever you want to call it. And the fact OSU is being talked about this way says a lot, right now OSU is the program to unseat PSU. I like leaning in to this becoming an epic rivalry with OSU restoring its historical place in the sport.

Cael is such a whiner! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
 

Dvten25

Heisman
Dec 28, 2011
11,360
20,588
112
It wouldn’t shock me if Cael is tired of tampering. I have to imagine plenty of teams are trying to get guys they have stocked on their bench. But NCAA has shown they won’t do anything about that so is it really cheating at this point? Not sure what else others could be doing.
 
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Chasingthirty-five

All-Conference
Apr 23, 2023
1,842
3,958
113
Honestly I feel like that tweet is making a heck of a lot of assumptions and bold claims based on a very vague comment in that video.
Ya I was waiting for the punch that wasn't really thrown. Jax enrolling early didnt break any rules. NIL is legal, so not sure what rules us or anyone he is referencing breaking. But as the first coach (wish it had been us) to stretch the RTC rules into amazing success (again, applauding it) its kinda ironic for him to so vaguely say something like that in current times.
 
Jan 28, 2003
596
495
63
Ya I was waiting for the punch that wasn't really thrown. Jax enrolling early didnt break any rules. NIL is legal, so not sure what rules us or anyone he is referencing breaking. But as the first coach (wish it had been us) to stretch the RTC rules into amazing success (again, applauding it) its kinda ironic for him to so vaguely say something like that in current times.
It’s just rich coming from Cael when they were the first to be skirting the NCAA rules with paying athletes through the RTC…..
 

Dobsie

Heisman
Jul 11, 2011
60,297
12,180
93
It wouldn’t shock me if Cael is tired of tampering. I have to imagine plenty of teams are trying to get guys they have stocked on their bench. But NCAA has shown they won’t do anything about that so is it really cheating at this point? Not sure what else others could be doing.

Cael and his staff are not innocent in the tampering realm. Heck their success started in a very gray area of RTC. He's there because they have a very wealthy donor base that skirted the rules of the NCAA for the longest time.