Peterson was always a R12 lvl wrestler even since his freshman year. People forget but Soldano had a pretty good freshman year.. I’d say his freshman season then and sr year were pretty comparable. I mean, Bailey was 4th at Little Rock… and he hasn’t done as well since going to Iowa.. even w all those elite coaches, training partners.. etc so what’s to make of that logic?
Wrestling 2026 Rutgers NCAA Tournament Thread
- Thread starter Leonard23
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This staff has to be fired. Plain and simple. The 2 shots at AA were transfers. They do not recruit and develop anyone for the last 5 years. Goodale actually holding this program back now.
Totally agree.Enough of the we need to be "Jersey Tough" bullshiт speeches,year in and year out. They are getting old and people are tired of them. We dont want a team and coaching staff, that just does enough to get by. We are loosing all the best talent, and absolutely has to do with the coaching staff and the lack of development of wrestlers.
6th years have an added year of their bodies being torn up.
Look at similarities between Brown and Shawver.......VERY similar records and progression (I know dowe want to be compared go MD?)
I dont think that was a miss by staff
Both of our wrestlers who left for greener pastures performed similarly (Is goodale a better coach than Tom Brands?) than they did at RU.
IMO it is about recruiting and getting an associate head coach.
Unfortunately, RU performed as expected per seeds at this tournament.
Bright Spots
#1 Remy C.
#2 Incoming recruits
A big splash is needed at SKWC or Coaching staff to bring in training partners/coaches
Mid 30s is bad. Columbia passed Rutgers by in 2 seasons with less resources and more obstacles.
My OP was a sarcastic one. Some posters here pointed to the Soldano and Peterson transfers as a way to compare Rutgers to other programs and use it as a barometer to see how they were developed at Rutgers. I can almost guarantee if either made the podium we'd have a few "see what good coaching does" posts.
Zinn is showing up and seems excited about the program. I'm not so sure she would make the change here though. Six years left on the contract (I believe) and a coach who has brought the most consistent winning, stability in all of Rutgers sports. It will be interesting. I posed a question to you a few weeks back on what/how Rutgers could handle a Goodale coaching change, but you didn't respond. Given the length of the contract, the success relative to other Rutgers sports, and how Rutgers has operated in the past, I'd be surprised if a HC change happened in the near future. Unless Goody decided to step down/move to another Rutgers role.
another season behind Rider and Princeton. Still some fans talking about winning traditions and dual meet success. Nobody else cares about that. You have to show up and represent the program in post season. That is the sport! from youth to seniors. Win when it matters.
Exactly. It all comes down to recruiting, which has to get a lot better, and even then it's not a lock when you see guys like Bouzakis never AA. All this talk about not developing is hysterical. People are asking for magic to develop recruits that are not even close to elite to be AAs and then complain when they wrestle to their seed and ability. Knox and Harer will hopefully change things next year, if they don't redshirt, but we need more. Hopefully, Zinn can find the $ for elite recruits, a top assistant, and 2 or 3 SKWC resident athletes that will draw elite recruits. It's time to convince Ashnault to come back, but I'm not sure he'd want to right now, maybe in 2 or 3 years. Who are other top assistant candidates? SeaBass isn't leaving Columbia. I'd be surprised if Green left Nebraska for here.
I don't see Goodale getting fired or wanting to move to an admin AD position. If his contract runs through 2032, he's owed over $1.7M at $287k/yr+ increases. And wrestling has been one of the more successful sports and generates revenue, something like 3rd highest here.
Does Columbia have elite recruits?
I get the point. Some fans want to be top ten yesterday and you need talent for that.
I get the point. Some fans want to be top ten yesterday and you need talent for that.
I was intrigued. It's a bunch of guys who have done nothing until this year. Only Mueller (1) and Owen (2) won state championships, and neither were blue chip recruits.
Alvan 165- last year 24-12 / qualified for NCAA's ranked 24th / now AA 12 pts.
Owen 141- last year 18-12 / did not qualify / not ranked / now 3-2 NCAA 1.5 pts
Fine 174 - last year 15-10 / did not qualify / not ranked / now 1-2 NCAA .5 pts
Bah 125 - last year18-16 / did not qualify / not ranked / now 1-2 NCAA .5 pts
Mueller Hwt -last year 12-15 / did not qualify / not ranked / now 1-2 NCAA .5 pts
The other two did not win a match.
You can see Pritzlaff elevated everyone and not a little but by a lot. And if you say well guys only won one match what's the big deal. We had 4 guys who couldn't even win one.
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But arent blue chip recruits attracted to top level coaching staffs that have accomplished coaches at the D1 level and above?
If you tell a recruit you can go to team A and work out with a Sebastian Rivera or a James green etc. or you can go to a team and work out with someone you never heard of that wrestled for Lincoln tech back in the 90s, does that effect the level of recruit you can bring in?
I mean, that's kinda what Rider & Columbia did this year...
I will say we have genuinely developed some guys in this room. Cotton is most notable. I just don't want his best career finish now to be a R12 from his sophomore year.
Cope much? We just finished 35th at ncaa tied with George Mason behind rider who wrestles in a cafeteria ( who seem to have the magic recipe to produce AAs considering they do it every year) Air Force , West Virginia ( who openly stop their alumni from donating to wrestling and steal the $$ for football, American , UPenn, princeton, Columbia, Little Rock , Purdue and Indiana. Who gives a da*n about beating Minnesota in a meaningless dual when this is the end of the year results. We have 7 AAs and no finalists in the last 7 seasons, Princeton has had 3 finalists since then , rider 1 and we can’t produce an AA with all the resources and fan support I hear so much about. How about a guy makes the ncaa semis I’ll take that. There is a fine line between supporting your team and just spewing propaganda for them and the past 2 seasons and 3 out of the last 4 have been 100 percent failures. Your talking about well recruiting has to improve , Goodale been here for 18 years and lost his most valuable recruiting tools in Donny ,Seabass and Ashnault , but some how he’s going to turn things around now? But hey at least we beat a “blue blood” in the February though right? We got the dual and they have 3x as many AAs as us and 2 different Minnesota guys outscored our entire team
Rider has 1 AA too, Klinsky. He's a 6th yr grad student, and was a highly ranked recruit according to Rider ("Ranked No. 1 among all seniors at 113 lbs. by Wrestling USA… Ranked 15th in the country by Flo and Intermat" ), 113 NJ state champ, 3x state finalist.
Not coping. It's reality. 35th sucks and shouldn't happen, but I also don't throw tantrums based on made up narratives.
This is a pretty damning quote from the Head Man himself, Daily Targum Oct. 21, 2025.
"It doesn't matter what we do, it matters in March. I have to figure out March in a bigger way"
"So, the expectations are that tournament. I gotta really wrap my head around, the process is super important, this year is super important."
He set the expectations for NCAA's and failed again. Keep wrapping your head around it coach, because it's clearly not working.
"It doesn't matter what we do, it matters in March. I have to figure out March in a bigger way"
"So, the expectations are that tournament. I gotta really wrap my head around, the process is super important, this year is super important."
He set the expectations for NCAA's and failed again. Keep wrapping your head around it coach, because it's clearly not working.
Joey O 3x NJ State champ went R12 then 1-2
Clark R16 last year ranked 12th to start this season
Lenny Pinto 2x R12 .starts year in top 10 finishes in the high 20s and goes 1-2 DNP
shawver big 10 champ and AA then R12 starts year top 10 at all star. Needs a WC to qualify and goes 0-2 BBQ.
we started the year with 4 guys ranked in the top 12. Supposed high end kids and they just wet the bed and none of them even made the R16. All 4 visibly regressed compared to last year. Yet lock haven and rider figure out how to get 6th yr career underachieving seniors in the podium
Rutgers lost to Penn State at home in January 2025, 35 - 3. JMA was packed with spoiled and fired up PSU fans. There was an older couple sitting in front of me wearing blue and white and cheering on with a sense of ease while our boys took a beating, which wasn’t nearly as bad as the one we took this season. I’ll never forget when I heard them comment that RU was simply out muscled and Penn state had the endurance to outlast Rutgers wrestlers, regardless of skill level.
A common theme I read about here time and time again is strength and conditioning. Coaching and recruiting aside, this is something we can work on. It will require a change of mindset and discipline. Did anyone else notice that Cesar Alvan and Tyler Klinsky looked jacked at nationals?
A common theme I read about here time and time again is strength and conditioning. Coaching and recruiting aside, this is something we can work on. It will require a change of mindset and discipline. Did anyone else notice that Cesar Alvan and Tyler Klinsky looked jacked at nationals?
Whoever the **** our S&C coach is needs to go back to personal training at Planet Fitness because this **** is not acceptable for a B1G program.
I think it was Curves
The recruiting can always improve, but we've had some very high ranked classes since Ashnault and Suriano. That's actually one of our bright spots, IMO. Can things turn around with current staff? Possibly, but by the looks of this tournament, unlikely.
Or is that the team just had a really bad tournament? They sure didn't look ready.
We all know the issue is developing wrestlers and clearly strength&conditioning. Sure, there's been some outliers who have over-achieved over the course of time (SCW, Dshaw, MVB). The dual wins are always fun, but it's just not enough. Half of the schedule is against lesser skilled teams to pad our dual record.
Also, been hampering on this for years. We need to go to the Clif Keen tournament. That's the standard and gives everyone a real look at our team and gets us experience against other conferences, let alone a simulation for a big time tourney. Tired of watching matches against Northwestern, Drexel, and Michigan State all year round.
It pains me to see all our rivals perform much better than us. There's just no way to sugar coat this past weekend. Just awful.
Or is that the team just had a really bad tournament? They sure didn't look ready.
We all know the issue is developing wrestlers and clearly strength&conditioning. Sure, there's been some outliers who have over-achieved over the course of time (SCW, Dshaw, MVB). The dual wins are always fun, but it's just not enough. Half of the schedule is against lesser skilled teams to pad our dual record.
Also, been hampering on this for years. We need to go to the Clif Keen tournament. That's the standard and gives everyone a real look at our team and gets us experience against other conferences, let alone a simulation for a big time tourney. Tired of watching matches against Northwestern, Drexel, and Michigan State all year round.
It pains me to see all our rivals perform much better than us. There's just no way to sugar coat this past weekend. Just awful.
Yes, Goodale has gotten plenty of credit for what he has done. It is now about what he cannot get done. No one wants to see him cast away, but the program needs better. No one person is more important than the program.
Joey Oliveri was the 4th 3x NJ state champ Goodale has brought in and we have 0 AAs out of the 4
NJ produced the second most qualifiers per state while the flagship university sits in the mid 30s range.
I said this on the other forum. Exactly this. I am just repeating what expectations he laid out himself earlier in the season. This tournament was a miserable failure and there's absolutely no way to spin that.
Olivieri might have been a 3x NJ state champ but I don’t recall he was a blue chipper out of hs… anyone remember his big board class ranking?
He was a 4x champ. I get the overall point but if we’re going to include him in that stat, then shouldn’t we include the other two 4x champs he landed?
Camp was a blue chipper but was already burnt out at Ohio state. He mentally wasn’t in it anymore wherever he wrestled at. On the flip side, Suriano woulda became a National champ anywhere he transferred to.
He has 6 years more left? What da. He ain't going anywhere even if he only has annually renewable contract - he doesn't have a landing spot - no program similar to RU's stature wants him. What an idiot to extend his contract to that many years... Typical RU.