To echo Corby, I still think we have a decent shot but SK recently told someone I know that his brother really likes Iowa
Recruiting
- Thread starter Racpack
- Start date
I’d be shocked if we don’t. Uncle has coached PK and SK since birth and it’s a tight knit family. And the Family always been about Jersey wrestling. Iowa entirely different ballgame with Brands Bros. IMO only big $$$ will open doors to other schools.
That's fine.I'm okay with it.You could break my balls. You must be from north jersey saying taylor ham, egg and cheese.
Where is Duffy ranked nationally? I wouldn't have imagined he was on Iowa's radar like that.
Think they were talking about PK on Iowa’s radar.
Duffy is ranked 7th rn at 144.
After Harer’s S32 title he will be ranked 2nd at 144 only behind Raney twin.
DeGeorge ranked 11th rn at 144. He will probably ranked in the top 4 next year once all the sr clear out.
He’s def ranked but I agree, I don’t think he’s Iowa level good. A lot of times schools will recruit capable teammates of bigger fish, in this case Paul Kenny. We did the same thing with Patrick O’Keefe, who we almost immediately stopped recruiting when his teammate Anthony Knox committed to Cornell.
Iowa recruited Owen McMullen who's Bo best friend and McMullen is still going to Iowa . Most teams will take a kid ranked in the top 10 dumb not to. Caliendo was #58 recruit in his class .
Of course. Duffy can go pretty much anywhere he wants but I think he’d get more mat time at pretty much any other school except PSU and OK St
Not sure how heavily Iowa tried to recruit Caliendo out of hs.. he transferred to Iowa after he proved he could be an AA.
McMullen was around #150. He mostly bounced around weights in hs bc he was behind some serious studs so maybe Iowa thinks he could be hidden value as a utility guy. Not sure how influential he was to getting Basset to commit to Iowa originally but it did happen.
Being ranked 7th is a good get but no where near a gtd mat time to start in d1 let alone in b10.
We already have plenty of guys on our team that were ranked top 10 in their weight class prior to RU and still no guarantee if will ever start. Our only ever Blair recruit, Robinson, was ranked top 3 or 5 in his weight and never got to start. I can name many more and that’s only just the guys on our team.
These guys are all around the same weights so something has to give especially when PK and JB both have younger bros that are lighter weights. Duffy is interesting b/c he’s had some huge wins but also has his fair share of WTF matches. Plus, Iowa has DeLuca as a career 125 so that’s an issue for these guys too.
Sean is probably the only one who will be a 125 and the overlap with Deluca is only 1 year with a RS. And if Sean wins a world medal in the next 2 years he would qualify for a Olympic RS
Thank you for clarification on this. Makes sense from the recruiting standpoint. I never even knew we courted O'Keefe to begin with,
Lot of goody haters here looks like his plan is working out
As Rutgers is only one of three teams with two top #25 recruits, that is good to see. Then add Zalota at #60. I'm guessing this is a composite score where volume helps and RU is one of the few with as many as three commits. It would be nice to remain in the top 5 consistently, year after year, when all is said and done.
This list will look very different in a few months. But I do like that the staff is targeting PA and CA more.
I wish USC or UCLA had wrestling just so we could showcase our team in CA every other year. USC in particular has a great club level team. Wish they could add field hockey or something and then add wrestling to stay in Title IX compliance.
Gotta schedule OOC matches against Stanford, Oregon State and ASU. High schools like Clovis, Buchanan, Valiant Prep, etc. could develop into a huge pipeline for RU. Plenty of those kids want Big 10 wrestling + NY metro area.
Wrestling Stanford is a borderline waste of time. We went there recently and there were 7 people in attendance and the live feed was so far away from the action that you couldn’t see anything. Would love to wrestle other west coast options though.
I hear you on Stanford but most of those schools don’t draw well - I can’t imagine Cal Poly or Cal Baptist having robust attendance. The schools with D1 on West Coast are odd to say the least who would have thought CSBU would have been a top program in the 90s.
The crowd and stream isn't why you drop a team. It's about wrestling in a state that you want to recruit heavily. On the trip you do more than just wrestle. Going to Stanford is a good move
That’s fair, I didn’t consider that. I looked at it as more of a thing where you get potential recruits to check out a match there in which case it would be underwhelming.
He's surrounded by Rutgers grads even an old coach who's now back with the club Kiss. He thanked many Rutgers grads in his announcement. Yet he still picked Iowa because kids have dreams.
I wish the kid well…but has he ever placed high in a major national tournament? What’s the highest he placed at NJ states - 5th by way of forfeit? I’m not even sure he would be an impact wrestler at RU. Look at kids like Ayala or DeLuca - Super32 champs, 3 time state champs, Prep school champ, almost never lost in 4 years, etc. Anyway no biggie…
He beat some highly ranked guys this off-season and was as high as #7 at 144 . With guys moving weights he's now #11 by both Flo and Willie.He's a late bloomer and often those kids keep improving at the next level and don't become stagnant. Time will tell
We were already stacked around the weight of Duffy.. still woulda been a nice get if not too much $..
Just hope him also going to CBA doesn’t influence PK+SK to Iowa..
Why not? Iowa also recruited Basset’s hs teammate. Not all their recruits are blue chippers.
Exactly go to Penn st roster ( not now it's not updated) use wrestlestat and you see 7-8 kids you've never heard of.
Fair point…never heard of this NJ kid:
Anthony Lavezzola - Men's Wrestling 2025-26
Anthony Lavezzola - Men's Wrestling 2025-26
""Finished 2nd at N.J. Districts as a junior and senior"Fair point…never heard of this NJ kid:
Anthony Lavezzola - Men's Wrestling 2025-26
Anthony Lavezzola - Men's Wrestling 2025-26hawkeyesports.com
Doesn't seem good enough for Rutgers, no less Iowa. With the roster limit set to hit this year, I don't know how they can keep kids like that on the roster. Maybe the buddy system works for them, but I haven't seen it in action at Rutgers, or even the "opens a pipeline" claims.
The true 30 man roster won't be into effect for awhile. Guys who were already on the roster got grandfathered in and won't count against the number. And that's valid until they graduate.
Penn St has 7-8 kids on the roster most people have never heard of . People have a big misconception about roster depth