Inside Jokes Explained

SRATH

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One of my favorite pics from that match:


I wanted Jacob Warner to lose......but by the end my heart was bleeding for that kid, Iowa and all. Complete humiliation in a very short time.
 

manatree

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Oct 6, 2021
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“Not how we would’ve handled it”
In a 2018 tweet, OSU coach Tom Ryan (aka Tan Tom/TaTo) whined about the PSU/OSU dual being held at Rec Hall rather than the BJC, suggesting it was a strategic move to ice out OSU fans rather than the actual reason that there was a conflict with a basketball game at the BJC. Here’s the tweet: “PSU does a lot right... but not with this dual. A bit confused why this dual is being wrestled in a small venue & no @wrestlingbucks fans had a chance to get tickets. Not how we would have handled it.”

To be fair, Ryan had a valid point, but I think the blame was on the B1G Network who wanted the match for the prime time Saturday slot. The BJC was empty & available for the traditional Friday night wrestling slot the day before.
 

CaliPSUfan

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Oct 31, 2021
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On the old board we had a pinned explainer thread for inside jokes that was fun to keep up with and add to as new material emerged. Given that I have recently seen several posters asking the meaning/backstory of some of the common obscure board jokes, perhaps we should do that here now that the boards are merged? (@Tom McAndrew)

To get it started, here are several I can think of or made note of from the old board.

3 inch binder / gold intel binder
During an interview a few years back Tom Brands excitedly claimed to have gotten a recruitment binder from Spencer Lee’s father Larry that was 3 inches thick and full of “gold intel” about how other teams (clearly implying PSU) were recruiting unfairly and tearing down Iowa. Now that Brands knew the opposition’s secrets, he would use the gold intel too (https://iawrestle.com/2017/11/09/le...-were-being-recruited-against-tom-brands/amp/)

8 Scoring Wrestlers
Several NCAA tournaments ago the poster formerly known as 21Guns insisted that if PSU did not have 8 scoring wrestlers we had no chance of winning a national title. Anyone who disagreed with him was challenged to a fight, outside a State College bar.

83%
Mark Hall did an open letter to all wrestlers going through the recruiting process and used an arbitrary percentage of 83% to represent the frequency of a particular occurrence. Others have suggested it was not arbitrary but Mark was making a deliberate “How I Met Your Mother” reference. Either way, the Iowa board jumped all over it and it became a running gag over there.

Aruba + “Tan Tom”
The Monday after the 2017 NCAA tourney where freshman Mark Hall defeated OSU’s Bo Jordan in the finals, Tom Ryan took to Twitter to complain about the officiating in the match. His location on the tweet showed he was in Aruba. This led to the running joke that Ryan made advance travel plans expecting to lose the team race, wasted no time getting out of town, and was more concerned with getting a tan than being with his team immediately following their biggest event of the year.

“Bobby Telford … from the University of Iowa”
Flo did a special on Anthony Knox’s 1st day of recruitment and which college coaches contacted him and in what order. Mike Grey was 1st to call right at midnight. Through mid-morning the next day, all the top programs had called. In all cases it was the head coach except Iowa. Rather than Brands making the call, Assistant Coach Bobby Telford called and left Knox a voicemail. He introduced himself as "Bobby Telford (awkward pause) from the University of Iowa." The pause is what made the joke. Knox didn't respond right away, leading some to think he didn't recognize Telford's name, or maybe he was pissed that Brands didn't make the call. Either way, you could see Knox's ego deflate a bit as he listened to the voicemail and, apparently, mentally remove Iowa from his list of schools.

Cruise liner / Cruise liner Nick
A poster on the Rutgers board declared during the 2016 offseason that Rutgers as going to get an unexpected PSU transfer that offseason that was so big it would make us "poop a cruiseliner." They apparently thought it was Vincenzo Joseph, then Anthony Cassar, then others. Incoming freshman Nick Suriano did later transfer to Rutgers for the 2017-2018 season. After that, posters started jokingly referring to Suriano using references to a cruise liner.

Do you have a plan?
During an interview with Cael after PSU won the Southern Scuffle in 2015, Flo’s Christian Pyles seemed to be questioning Cael’s roster choices (Zain, Nolf, and Nickal were redshirting). Cael turned the question back on Pyles and asked if “he had a plan” Cael should know about. Pyles had a deer in the headlights look.

FULL COURT PRESS!!!!
This initially started with the poster known as Spyker incessantly demanding that Cael put on a “FULL COURT PRESS!!!!” to recruit David Carr. Spyker frequently made generous use of ALL CAPS and exclamation points.

HIT THE WEIGHTS HARD!
Another Spyker-ism that started with him declaring the cure for Nick Nevills and what would make him dominant the next season.

Illegal fist to the back
During a PSU dual at Nebraska several years back, the student announcers were clearly clueless about wrestling moves, scoring, etc, and would make up terms to describe what they were seeing. Some of their more laughable calls were an “illegal fist to the back” and the ref making "stallmate" calls.

Long Bus Ride + Average Officiating
When true freshman Zain Retherford defeated OSU’s multi-time returning champ Logan Steiber at Rec Hall in 2013, Tom Ryan blamed his boy’s loss on the 10 hour bus ride to State College and average officiating.

[insert name] is beating Nico in the room
Excessive rumors (mostly from Spyker) about incoming PSU freshman Nick Suriano beating national champ and 4-time AA Nico Megaludis “in the room” led to a running joke about anyone and everyone beating Nico in the room.

George’s Barbershop references
The announcers of an early season away dual against Clarion repeatedly plugged “George’s Barbershop” and urged listeners to go in for a haircut and a shave.

Lisa Morales
Circa 2024, a new poster named GIAPet appeared on Iowa’s wrestling board to speak truth to power. At the time, the name of the board was GIA for Go Iowa Awesome. This poster, widely understood to be our own johnstownsteel, called out the egregious examples of nonsense posted on GIA and was promptly banned. Shortly thereafter, a new poster named “Lisa Morales” appeared on GIA like a vision, and took up the torch for GIAPet and carried forward his noble missionary efforts in the GIA dumpster fire. Many assumed that Lisa Morales and GIAPet were the same person, but that remains an unsolved mystery, as does the identity of the poster that showed up here several months ago named MisaLorales.

Midwest
Posters will refer to something being in the Midwest that isn’t. This goes back to Mark Hall stating in a recruitment article that he wanted to wrestle in the Midwest. Shortly thereafter he announced his commitment to PSU.

Mike Evans is not impressed
During the 2012 (?) season, Iowa wrestler Mike Evans was asked during an interview to size up David Taylor and Kyle Dake as competitors in his 165 lb weight class. He said he was not impressed with either of them. The line then made regular appearances as poll options and other posts on the board.

“Not how we would’ve handled it”
In a 2018 tweet, OSU coach Tom Ryan (aka Tan Tom/TaTo) whined about the PSU/OSU dual being held at Rec Hall rather than the BJC, suggesting it was a strategic move to ice out OSU fans rather than the actual reason that there was a conflict with a basketball game at the BJC. Here’s the tweet: “PSU does a lot right... but not with this dual. A bit confused why this dual is being wrestled in a small venue & no @wrestlingbucks fans had a chance to get tickets. Not how we would have handled it.”

Oranges
During a podcast with Jason Bryant in 2016, Kevin Dresser called the Brands brothers “oranges” (a euphemism for “pussies” that Dresser said he uses because his wife doesn’t like him using the “p” word). He accused TnT of being afraid to wrestle Virginia Tech where Dresser was coaching at the time. Iowa refused to face VT at the National Duals, even though the match was at Carver Hawkeye Arena, so Dresser publicly called Brands and Iowa "oranges." ()

Paid Iowa Hater
Refers to when Tom Brands said before the 2022 Penn State dual that "schools pay social media personalities to make up rumors about Iowa to create distraction among the team." This seems to have been at least partly directed at Pat Mineo, who had been known to frequently post critical stuff about Iowa.

"Spoiler alert” / “Ranger Dan” alert
A former poster named Ranger Dan used to get quite upset and vocal about wanting to be shielded from any spoilers about scores/outcomes from other sporting events in an unrelated thread. If people would post scores or any noteworthy info in the “wrong” thread, Ranger Dan would tell people to knock it off because he was recording the other event to watch later. His protests never gained much traction.

Tan Tom / TaTo
Tom Ryan’s nickname after the Aruba incident.

What mat Carton and Pletcher are on
During the 2017 NCAA tourney, a board poster (Spyker?) kept asking across multiple posts what mat Luke Pletcher and Topher Carton were assigned to wrestle on in their upcoming match. No one else seemed too interested in the match and the poster got increasingly agitated when no one answered his question.

😂 This was my claim to fame as the only thread I started that actually got pinned! I didn’t start many threads, but this one seemed necessary…thanks for revising and breathing life back into it!
 

Brian LB-U

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Oct 11, 2021
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@PSUbluTX, I always assumed the reference to the “paid Iowa haters” was about Justin Basch, who once called into one of Tom Brands’ press conferences and asked a tough question. I suspect Basch lost his call-in credentials after that because he hasn’t been heard from since. I wish I could find the clip. From what I remember, Brands didn’t appreciate the question. :)
 
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dicemen99

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Speaking of which: Slumlord Bob proclaiming the field is leveled.

Anybody remember the circumstances behind that? @Lil Nicky Scarfo and @dicemen99 probably know.
A couple of years ago, when he started dumping big bucks into the transfers, Bob declared "the field is now leveled," on HR and said that they would be winning championships in a year or two. I pressed him on this and asked him if he was predicting that Iowa would challenge PSU for the title the next year (which was 2024-25, I believe). He asserted they would.

Since then it seems that he's backtracked on the field being level (despite most everyone in the know including HR insiders indicating that Iowa spends as much money as any on their college team) and is also falling back onto two old excuses "PSU got such a head start because they were cheating," and "PSU is using PEDs to do this." Reminds me of my 87-year old dad who once was very open-minded and sharp, well, he's still sharp, but now he only wants to view things as he wants them to appear - he is not open to alternate theories (which may indicate you might have been wrong). A sidebar - at what age do you lose your ability to consider alternative viewpoints? I hope I never do, but my observation as I grow older is that becomes harder to do as you age which is just the opposite of what I expected.

The field is tilted. It's just that we have Cael, Casey, Cody and company. It's that easy. If Bob doesn't think so, LOL, it's now 25-26 and I'd be happy to reset it again for him and give him/Iowa another year or two (or four or five) to win one. How about it @bnicolls ?
 

LB99

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To be fair, Ryan had a valid point, but I think the blame was on the B1G Network who wanted the match for the prime time Saturday slot. The BJC was empty & available for the traditional Friday night wrestling slot the day before.
Tan Tom is the little boy that cried wolf now. He has whined so much over the years that nobody pays attention to him anymore.
 

nerfstate

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@PSUbluTX, I always assumed the reference to the “paid Iowa haters” was about Justin Basch, who once called into one of Tom Brands’ press conferences and asked a tough question. I suspect Basch lost his call-in credentials after that because he hasn’t been heard from since. I wish I could find the clip. From what I remember, Brands didn’t appreciate the question. :)
I’m pretty sure Tom accused @WillieTheBrain of being one to his face once. 😂
 
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Honcho

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Inquiring minds want to know. The only things I can recall are that it’s Iowa related and includes sticking a raccoon where the sun don’t shine. But going even further, sticking 3 raccoons up there. I’d be shocked if @El_Jefe can’t recall
My memory of the entire racoon event is blurry, but I believe it was a new thread about an Iowa wrestler and it quickly spiraled way off topic and out of control.

By like the 16th post in the thread someone made a random statement that the average adult human is able to fit up to 3 raccoons into their rectum.

As a result we created the 1, 2, and 3 raccoon scale to judge the craziness of someone's comment. 🦝🦝🦝
 
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El_Jefe

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Oct 11, 2021
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Not what you are thinking of, I know. But here is the ultimate breakdown the ultimate breakdown of Van Brill’s elite wrestler status:


@CowbellMan means the clip from B10s where the announcers said Van Brill is elite because he qualified for two Big Ten Tournaments.

Hence, Rutgers Elite.
 

El_Jefe

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mcpat

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My memory of the entire racoon event is blurry, but I believe it was a new thread about an Iowa wrestler and it quickly spiraled way off topic and out of control.

By like the 16th post in the thread someone made a random sratement that the average adult human is able to fit up to 3 raccoons into their rectum.

As a result we created the 1, 2, and 3 raccoon scale to judge the craziness of someone's comment. 🦝🦝🦝
I created that thread. I can’t even remember what it was about. But I was gone for a few hours and by the time I logged back in to check it, there were porcupines and raccoons coming out of people a$$es and something about elephants too. I think it ended with an official scale dictating how many raccoon emojis meant what.

Reilly need to pull in the old rivals threads as promised.
 
Oct 31, 2021
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My memory of the entire racoon event is blurry, but I believe it was a new thread about an Iowa wrestler and it quickly spiraled way off topic and out of control.

By like the 16th post in the thread someone made a random sratement that the average adult human is able to fit up to 3 raccoons into their rectum.

As a result we created the 1, 2, and 3 raccoon scale to judge the craziness of someone's comment. 🦝🦝🦝
+1
 

El_Jefe

Heisman
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My memory of the entire racoon event is blurry, but I believe it was a new thread about an Iowa wrestler and it quickly spiraled way off topic and out of control.

By like the 16th post in the thread someone made a random statement that the average adult human is able to fit up to 3 raccoons into their rectum.

As a result we created the 1, 2, and 3 raccoon scale to judge the craziness of someone's comment. 🦝🦝🦝
Was the scale 3? That seems like the speed limit, more like a target than a limit.
 

Psalm 1 guy

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I created that thread. I can’t even remember what it was about. But I was gone for a few hours and by the time I logged back in to check it, there were porcupines and raccoons coming out of people a$$es and something about elephants too. I think it ended with an official scale dictating how many raccoon emojis meant what.

Reilly need to pull in the old rivals threads as promised.
No doubt. They promised everything would be transferred over and said it wouldn't take too long . . . Still waiting.
 

Psalm 1 guy

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The Rachal:

Named for former Illinois HWT Deuce Rachal. Rachal was terrible and would be completely forgotten except for one massive brain fart.

Illinois led Iowa at home 17-12 going into HWT. They were going to beat Iowa! Rachal just had to avoid getting pinned by Sam Stoll. He could even stall like crazy -- no way the slow, plodding Stoll could draw a stall DQ.

Rachal resisted the urge to throw himself to his back for less than 2 minutes.


I can't believe (actually I can) that Tom Brands poked his finger on the back of the official while the official is down on the mat looking for the pin! He and Terry are nothing if not entertaining! I am amazed TnT aren't regularly penalized for their Control of Mat violations. Imagine the uproar if the official had deducted Iowa a team point in this case and Iowa lost the dual on tie breaker criteria : ) Also, Rachal should have just touched the floor with his hand to get the stoppage for being out-of-bounds.
 

Psalm 1 guy

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Deadlift Off Bottom:



Deadlift Off Bottom:


Quentin will always be one of my favorite Penn State wrestlers. I loved his easygoing personality. He didn't seem to have a mean bone in his body, but this post was savage! It had just the right amount of light-hearted snarkiness to it. It's right up there when Cenzo was interviewed by Barstool Sports:

What college team or wrestler do you hate the most and why?

I try not to hate anybody, especially somebody I am competing against. Ohio State. :LOL:
 

AgSurfer

All-Conference
Aug 9, 2013
544
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Quentin will always be one of my favorite Penn State wrestlers. I loved his easygoing personality. He didn't seem to have a mean bone in his body, but this post was savage! It had just the right amount of light-hearted snarkiness to it. It's right up there when Cenzo was interviewed by Barstool Sports:

What college team or wrestler do you hate the most and why?

I try not to hate anybody, especially somebody I am competing against. Ohio State. :LOL:
I don’t know if the sentiment is the same today, but I was told that the Penn State team really did dislike Ohio State at the time Cenzo was there.
 
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CTStall

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Oct 24, 2020
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Certainly a classic for honesty. However it comes in 2nd place to Bill O Brien being asked on the field , how the team won last game of season to secure a winning record. It was the year with all the NCAA sections.
His response was , "They are a bunch of f*ck"rs."
 
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CTStall

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Hilarious - EVERYDAY RANDOM SON OF A *****! TAKE THAT YOU RUN OF THE MILL BASTARD! DIE GAS PUMPER!
Jonathan Winters is regarded as one greatest comic minds of all time. Robin Williams said that Winters was his mentor. Watch an old Carson rerun for how quick Winters could improv.
 
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CTStall

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A couple of years ago, when he started dumping big bucks into the transfers, Bob declared "the field is now leveled," on HR and said that they would be winning championships in a year or two. I pressed him on this and asked him if he was predicting that Iowa would challenge PSU for the title the next year (which was 2024-25, I believe). He asserted they would.

Since then it seems that he's backtracked on the field being level (despite most everyone in the know including HR insiders indicating that Iowa spends as much money as any on their college team) and is also falling back onto two old excuses "PSU got such a head start because they were cheating," and "PSU is using PEDs to do this." Reminds me of my 87-year old dad who once was very open-minded and sharp, well, he's still sharp, but now he only wants to view things as he wants them to appear - he is not open to alternate theories (which may indicate you might have been wrong). A sidebar - at what age do you lose your ability to consider alternative viewpoints? I hope I never do, but my observation as I grow older is that becomes harder to do as you age which is just the opposite of what I expected.

The field is tilted. It's just that we have Cael, Casey, Cody and company. It's that easy. If Bob doesn't think so, LOL, it's now 25-26 and I'd be happy to reset it again for him and give him/Iowa another year or two (or four or five) to win one. How about it @bnicolls ?
About your comment about your father and how he became more narrow minded as he got older . Same with my father who has passed. I do think TV and Radio News viewing habits is part of that transition.
I tend to be conservative but try to be rounded on what I read and watch. I read Fox and also NY Times.
Prior to my Dad passing I on occasion would comment that I put CNN on to see a different perspective on political and election news. My Dad became very upset that I would do such a thing.
Just goes with the territory.
 

El_Jefe

Heisman
Oct 11, 2021
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Certainly a classic for honesty. However it comes in 2nd place to Bill O Brien being asked on the field , how the team won last game of season to secure a winning record. It was the year with all the NCAA sections.
His response was , "They are a bunch of f*ck"rs."
Fighters!

Cael told this joke at the 2012 Coaches Roundtable traveling show in front of O'Brien:

Knock Knock.
Who's There?
The NCAA.
Go fighter yourself.
 
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