Shane Cartagena-Walsh took 6th in regions as a junior (no districts due to Covid) and took 2nd in both districts and regions as a senior. Now he’s ranked as high as 11th in the country.
Recruiting
- Thread starter Racpack
- Start date
Yes he did. What does that mean other than rare exceptions are possible? Do we recruit expecting that? Of course not, neither does Iowa. It's like saying you've found a 5'10" Pigmy and expect that to be proof they're not short.
Of course you don’t expect it but the fact that it happens from time to time shows that there’s little harm in taking shots on under recruited prospects. I don’t know the particulars of the Iowa kid but the fact that he has the guts to try and stick with one of the best programs in the country (presumably for no scholarship money either) speaks volumes about his mental makeup.
You also made a backhanded comment towards Rutgers (go figure) about the buddy system. Kyle Kiss is an Ocean Township grad who’s still heavily involved in shore wrestling. His connections are probably what got SCW, also an Ocean Township grad, a chance here and it’s paid off to this point.
You addressed me without calling me a name, good for you. I suspect my back-handed comment was that Iowa's recruiting standard is higher than Rutgers. That's factually correct, and if it wasn't, we'd be plenty disappointed with our recruit acceptance rate. Well, we are anyway. Although I'll admit that Goodale still tries to recruit the big talent in spite of very low percentages. I suppose he has to. The only Iowa-level recruits we have are Brandt Harer (#2 @ 144) and possibly DeGeorge #20 @ 144). DeGeorge has a chance to be top 10 next year. The unusually high number of 113lb recruits is surprising and overly optimistic. Look at the ranking and you'll see none of the elite programs have recruited that weight. Those programs occasionally take chances on 120lb guys. I'm big on Ayden Smith, but I see that he hasn't grown enough or gained enough weight to be as good as his talent would allow. However, recognizing that there will always be a taller Pygmy, I did see that Olivieri started high school as a 113-pounder and grew to 138 before graduating. These guys we have are 113 in their junior and senior years. Unless Smith's skills compensate for his size disadvantage, we're going to see a draught at 125 similar to what we had at 165 for years.
Walsh is a pleasant surprise. I do look forward to seeing him and Soldano meeting up and hope neither side dodges it.
Olivieri actually started at 106 where he was a state champ as a freshman. Nick Suriano did the same. Anthony Ashnault and Mike Grey won titles at 103, and Frank Molinaro was a state placer there. They were all freshmen at the time. However, Sebastian Rivera won a title at 113 as a senior and went on to be a 5x AA and Olympic medalist.
There’s obviously going to be trends and exceptions. The elite programs may not be recruiting those guys, but let’s not forget Penn State who we all agree is the best program in the country just ended a decade-ish long streak where their 125 pound job was a mess.
Kinda wild Seabass wrestled 113 as a sr then went on to wrestle 25,33,41 in college. He was a true diamond in the rough type of recruit coming out of hs.
Bj Futrell was the same he was 112 as a SR and ended at 141.
Not even an eentsy, teensy, wittle bit? Didn't two buddies from Malvern Prep, the 7th ranked team in the nation, just commit to Rutgers? How about the Olivieri brothers buddies? Or the Ashnault brothers buddies?
Edit: I forgot about the buddies from South Plainfied who produced multiple AAs, B1G titles, and one natty. Devecchio and Ashnault. Suriano, Lipari, Grello from BC all competed for RU at the same time?
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Not to mention the current era of Rutgers wrestling began because Scott Winston committed to a school where his high school coach was hired
Didn’t we just get to malvern prep kids that are both in the class of 27’ and did the recruiting trip together?
That’s wild. I know north Jersey wrestling pretty good and I never heard of this kid. just read he went 0-2 at regions as a senior for Westwood at 113. I can’t imagine how he ended up on the Iowa roster
is it me, or does it seem like our recruiting has been up-leveled?
It definitely has leveled up. Current staff is doing a fantastic job. While we can't get all of the NJ studs, they're doing a great job at getting kids elsewhere. If everyone committed actually commits then they should have just about every weight covered with good depth, although they'll still need to get a HWT in the portal after this season.
I don’t think the new AD coming in this summer is a coincidence
Damn.. losing PK going sting… I guess Iowa getting both sets of brothers too..
Surprisingly, some here really expected Kenny to come.
Yeah I heard the same thing recently. His brother was telling people that Paul loved what Iowa was selling him even before his visit.
Hate that these kids grow up training at our facility just to slap us in the face time and time again.
Feels like yesterday….looking at pics of a Ash next to a pre-highschool PK.. I remember thinking wow his curly hair reminds me of Ash.. he’s going to be a big time stud recruit one day… wonder if he will build on Ash’s footsteps and be a scarlet knight… and now he’s about to announce his commitment.. time really does fly..
I could never be a college coach. The amount of time wasted cultivating relationships, training potential recruits, and then ultimately recruiting is insane and not worth it. Too much sacrifice with not enough payoff. Training recruits for many years and prioritizing that over your own family, only to see them go elsewhere is just not worth it.
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Borge Dad is a psychopath. Good luck to the Brands Bros managing all these families and egos. There will be a ton of logjams. Transfer portal will be busy.
Nothing like being immediately negative. You think Tom & Terry haven't dealt with crazy parents. Most wrestling parents would be considered crazy to the rest of society
Yeah, they did real well with Bo and Melvin…I can tell you Cael won’t touch some of these kids for a reason.
And then you still gotta hope the recruit even pans out… cultivating relationships is important but the continuous training of potential recruits should only be done if there’s some sort of commitment...otherwise not worth it at all.. ROI seems much better in the transfer portal…
It’s probably worse in high school honestly. NJ now has a one-time free transfer rule for underclassmen and the state has turned a blind eye to recruiting even for public schools. At least college athletes have a completely free choice of where they want to go. High school coaches spend years on the ground level training future students and then often other schools reap the benefits, often illegally. Almost impossible now for public high school coaches to build a true program because if they position the youth programs correctly, then some perochial school is going to swoop in.
Is that what Cael told you ? News flash penn St is loaded at the weights of all these guys. Penn st 2027 won't have many kids because they don't need them.
We've landed 1 recruit who we trained for a long time and developed a really close relationship with over many years.
I don't know how you even stay friendly with these folks after they go elsewhere when you invested so much. I know I couldn't.