Hodge Race widens

Corby2

All-American
Jul 14, 2025
3,438
7,416
113
MM had eight pins this year( zero last year). Seems to me he improved this year as well.
He decided to quit playing with his food and pin them . In the past he was focusing on techs . He could've been pinning guys all along he just decided not to
 

HOA242n!

Senior
Aug 18, 2025
222
553
93
Mendez was only up 4-2 until a desperate attempt by Hardy gave Mendez a last-second takedown. Should have ended 4-2. Now...where is my Cocoa Pebbles mom? The teacher hates me. Why do we get pimples? I hate girls. I lost at Halo because my controller sucks. It's your fault....I wouldn't have cracked the TV screen if you had bought me a better controller. No I wasn't mom.....my worn socks are always crunchy! How am I doing? :)
As someone with an 11yr old boy, you lost at Halo because the other guy was "spamming" (pre-teen boys have a different definition of this word than I do) or there was a glitch. It's a small percentage of males who understand personal accountability before their mid-20's and a growing number of them never comprehend this (integral) life concept.

I am an autism spectrum, straight up objective stats guy. If you Google "Hodge Award", the description is "the nation's most dominant wrestler". By every metric, Messenbrink is the most dominant college wrestler in the country this year, and Mendez is a distant third. I wonder what the average riding time is in Messenbrink's 5 major decisions is? It's got to be around 3 minutes, as he clearly was working on pinning combinations, in match - in essence playing with his food, to improve his overall game. He hasn't had a remotely close match all season and the gap between him and the #2 guy in his class has only widened. Gotta love Mendez, but he's a step behind in every single statistical way and had two close ones with Hardy. If the Hodge was a lifetime achievement award, it should be in the description and Starocci should have won it last year, by possibly the widest margin in history. Unfortunately, the world isn't strictly based on logic like I wish it was and "feelings" determine a growing number of things, apparently including the Hodge Award. Clearly there are a lot of people in the wrestling community who are all up in their feels about how PSU has dominated the sport for the last decade-and-a-half.

It's a shame that probably the most dominant NCAA wrestler of this generation will likely end his career with a (single) loss (in the NCAA final, as a RS freshman against a 6th year - 5-time AA - RS senior, when it appears he wasn't aware of riding time) and probably (at most) a single Hodge. I doubt Messenrbink is losing sleep over it.
 
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Jason1743

All-American
Jan 23, 2006
23,932
6,647
113
I don't have an issue with Ryan winning the COTY award. tOSU had a damn fine season that was not expected beforehand, and well, they can't give it to Cael every year. That's just not the way it works at any level. When there is a good story behind a guy that doesn't win it all the time, that's the way it goes.

Davino, Duke, Marcus - all deserving. Chalk this up to guys voting before the B1Gs. If someone actually voted Davino after watching PJ's performance after that tournament, they are a joke, but I would bet most of those votes were cast a while ago.

The Mendez thing is absolutely mystifying. I asked @WillieTheBrain why he said Mendez a few weeks ago and gave some numbers which were hard to dispute - they've only gotten worse in favor of Mitchell since. He hasn't responded yet and I'll give him a broken ankle pass for now - but it's hard for me to see anyone coming up with a logical argument for Mendez and articulating it. Mostly, it's like "well, he's a beast." Yeah, he is, but Mitchell is a bigger and better beast. And don't give me 141 being better than 165. You have an undefeated freshman who pretty much is a one-trick pony right now and people are acting like he's Spencer Lee. BTW, Mendez hasn't faced him yet. He's only beasted him hypothetically by most of the guys that want to award Mendez the Hodge. Brock Hardy who has been majored by Vega twice, and was getting the crap kicked out of him by Braedan Davis before he gassed. Very nice guy, top wrestler, but is he better than Caliendo? No way. And Mitchell has absolutely dominated Caliendo - Mendez has only dominated Hardy ONCE in all their meetings - 4 out of the last 5 meetings were once score affairs either at the buzzer or with less then 2 seconds left. Lockett and Blaze (returning finalist) are also in this weight. How about a hypothesize that Mitchell will major Lockett - does that work as well?

If anyone could articulate an argument why Mendez is more deserving of the Hodge beyond the fact that this is his last chance at it (that didn't help Carter last year), I would think it would be Willie - so I'll keep the door open and see if he responds.
I don't have an issue with Ryan winning the COTY award. tOSU had a damn fine season that was not expected beforehand, and well, they can't give it to Cael every year. That's just not the way it works at any level. When there is a good story behind a guy that doesn't win it all the time, that's the way it goes.

Davino, Duke, Marcus - all deserving. Chalk this up to guys voting before the B1Gs. If someone actually voted Davino after watching PJ's performance after that tournament, they are a joke, but I would bet most of those votes were cast a while ago.

The Mendez thing is absolutely mystifying. I asked @WillieTheBrain why he said Mendez a few weeks ago and gave some numbers which were hard to dispute - they've only gotten worse in favor of Mitchell since. He hasn't responded yet and I'll give him a broken ankle pass for now - but it's hard for me to see anyone coming up with a logical argument for Mendez and articulating it. Mostly, it's like "well, he's a beast." Yeah, he is, but Mitchell is a bigger and better beast. And don't give me 141 being better than 165. You have an undefeated freshman who pretty much is a one-trick pony right now and people are acting like he's Spencer Lee. BTW, Mendez hasn't faced him yet. He's only beasted him hypothetically by most of the guys that want to award Mendez the Hodge. Brock Hardy who has been majored by Vega twice, and was getting the crap kicked out of him by Braedan Davis before he gassed. Very nice guy, top wrestler, but is he better than Caliendo? No way. And Mitchell has absolutely dominated Caliendo - Mendez has only dominated Hardy ONCE in all their meetings - 4 out of the last 5 meetings were once score affairs either at the buzzer or with less then 2 seconds left. Lockett and Blaze (returning finalist) are also in this weight. How about a hypothesize that Mitchell will major Lockett - does that work as well?

If anyone could articulate an argument why Mendez is more deserving of the Hodge beyond the fact that this is his last chance at it (that didn't help Carter last year), I would think it would be Willie - so I'll keep the door open and see if he responds.
If freshman of the year was voted before the Big Tens, I would think Blaze would have bested Davino since Blaze was undefeated and beat Davino head to head.
 

dicemen99

All-Conference
Nov 15, 2005
3,404
4,455
113
If freshman of the year was voted before the Big Tens, I would think Blaze would have bested Davino since Blaze was undefeated and beat Davino head to head.
Good point, I didn't think that one all the way through.

I think someone posted that Cael said afterwards that they could only submit one wrestler for consideration and that they had submitted Marcus since he was the only undefeated frosh - PJ had one loss.
 

tullfan68

All-Conference
Jun 20, 2021
776
1,019
93
why did teams have to pick one wrestler on their team to win an award before the finals that just defeats the purpose of wrestling!
 

tullfan68

All-Conference
Jun 20, 2021
776
1,019
93
Toms team winning one match in a dual does not make him coach of the yr!!far from it!
 

alton11

Redshirt
Nov 12, 2001
19
4
3
Good point, I didn't think that one all the way through.

I think someone posted that Cael said afterwards that they could only submit one wrestler for consideration and that they had submitted Marcus since he was the only undefeated frosh - PJ had one loss.

This just emphasizes the stupidity of this award process. If PJ and Marcus were both undefeated, Cael would be required to choose one of them without knowing who would win a big 10 championships.

And ironically, if the coaches had to select 1 wrestler for hodge, Caels selection would have a better chance because our guys wouldnt split votes.
 

HikeNatParks

Senior
May 12, 2023
172
815
93
Shoot me, but I’d almost trade a surprise Braeden AA for a surprise Mendez upset (Vega or Stanich?) just to secure Mitchell’s Hodge. Otherwise, with this year’s fix all set, I could see next year’s plot building for a mutant spider named Jax.
I say almost because if Braeden recreates his TD flurry against Brock and somehow hangs on, he has a solid shot at the semi’s. Now, that, I would never trade!
 
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Rock-man

Freshman
Nov 27, 2021
36
73
18
Shoot me, but I’d almost trade a surprise Braeden AA for a surprise Mendez upset (Vega or Stanich?) just to secure Mitchell’s Hodge. Otherwise, with this year’s fix all set, I could see next year’s plot building for a mutant spider named Jax.
I say almost because if Braeden recreates his TD flurry against Brock and somehow hangs on, he has a solid shot at the semi’s. Now, that, I would never trade!
Now that would be awesome, can't wait to see the rematch - thought about it filling out my bracket. I agree that he has a shot a semi's if he beats Hardy, but IDK, I don't see it happening...
 
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Cali_Nittany1

All-Conference
Dec 11, 2019
670
2,867
93
Shoot me, but I’d almost trade a surprise Braeden AA for a surprise Mendez upset (Vega or Stanich?) just to secure Mitchell’s Hodge. Otherwise, with this year’s fix all set, I could see next year’s plot building for a mutant spider named Jax.
I say almost because if Braeden recreates his TD flurry against Brock and somehow hangs on, he has a solid shot at the semi’s. Now, that, I would never trade!

Obligatory gif: