Well, 4 starters for Oklahoma was a bit of a bummer, but it got me to thinking.
For tourney seeding purposes alone at both conference championships and Nationals, why not simply seed the weight classes for each team as opposed to the wrestlers themselves.
Didn't get me wrong, individual wrestlers can earn and maintain a "ranking" in their weight class that will be used to determine the strength of competition in matches, which in turn will help determine the relative impact of individual wins and loses, but at the end of the year the slot earned on a bracket is based upon the aggregate of all that years matches independent of the wrestler who participated.
In this sense whether it be injury, missed weight, or out right ducking, when a backup goes, that slot on the roster earns it's place in the process. If the backup wins, great, but if he loses it's a team weight slot loss independent of the ranking of the wrestler who went.
Thus, each team gets a weight slot "seed" based upon 100% of the matches at each weight each year. If a hammer is out for a month with an injury, he may well end up getting the lowest seed at the conference tourney, and then it is up to him to place high enough to make it to Nationals.
I don't see any other way to encourage coaches to send out their best every time.
Even this model is far from flawless and teams like PSU with embarrassing depth would be punished less, but something should be done.
It's bad enough that the annual match count has dropped from nearly 40 per season to in the low 20s for most wrestlers. I am all for protecting against injuries, but there is a limit, and any actions aimed specifically at just protecting high ranked guys seeds should face some sort of painful tradeoff.
For tourney seeding purposes alone at both conference championships and Nationals, why not simply seed the weight classes for each team as opposed to the wrestlers themselves.
Didn't get me wrong, individual wrestlers can earn and maintain a "ranking" in their weight class that will be used to determine the strength of competition in matches, which in turn will help determine the relative impact of individual wins and loses, but at the end of the year the slot earned on a bracket is based upon the aggregate of all that years matches independent of the wrestler who participated.
In this sense whether it be injury, missed weight, or out right ducking, when a backup goes, that slot on the roster earns it's place in the process. If the backup wins, great, but if he loses it's a team weight slot loss independent of the ranking of the wrestler who went.
Thus, each team gets a weight slot "seed" based upon 100% of the matches at each weight each year. If a hammer is out for a month with an injury, he may well end up getting the lowest seed at the conference tourney, and then it is up to him to place high enough to make it to Nationals.
I don't see any other way to encourage coaches to send out their best every time.
Even this model is far from flawless and teams like PSU with embarrassing depth would be punished less, but something should be done.
It's bad enough that the annual match count has dropped from nearly 40 per season to in the low 20s for most wrestlers. I am all for protecting against injuries, but there is a limit, and any actions aimed specifically at just protecting high ranked guys seeds should face some sort of painful tradeoff.
