Why is Penn State not going to the National Duals Invitational, and why does one Big Ten coach say that it's a 'shame'?

Penn State will open its 2025-2026 college wrestling season on Friday night when Oklahoma visits the Bryce Jordan Center. The Sooners are not among the teams invited to participate in the National Duals Invitational, which is Saturday and Sunday in Tulsa, Okla. The event has a purse of $1 million. The Nittany Lions were invited to go and unsurprisingly declined the opportunity to go. For starters, the idea of a dual national champ has never interested Cael Sanderson. And, as he noted Tuesday, a number of his starers are just transitioning back to folkstyle wrestling after competing at the U23 men’s freestyle world championships in late October.

“Just not really interested,” Sanderson said. “We’re always going to do what’s in the best interests of our kids and our team, and that’s my job and that’s what we’re going to do and that’s what we did. Create big events, that’s cool, but I think they knew right away when they were putting it when and where they were putting it, we’re probably not [going to participate] because we’re pretty consistent. We haven’t really changed a whole lot in that regard.

“We love the national tournament the way it is right now. There’s always been kind of a push to move the team championships to a dual format, which we’d be fine at. We do fine at duals. But we just love the format that it is now.”

Rival coach calls Penn State not going to the National Duals ‘a shame’

The Lions not showing up at the event has irked one coach who will be there: Tom Ryan of Ohio State. Speaking on a media call for the tournament, he said it was a ‘shame’ that Penn State was not in the field.

“I think it’s a shame that Penn State’s not here,” Ryan said. “We can stick to the positives, but I think the fact that they’re not here is a bit of a sign of how they see things and do things. They should be here. They’re not.”

Sanderson, clearly, disagrees. But, he also did not rule out the idea of Penn State participating in it down the road. But, at least for the inaugural one, the Lions chose to sit it out.

It’s been a discussion since we got here and even before,” Sanderson said. “We’re going to do what’s in the best interests of the kids on our team. We just had seven guys wrestle in the [U23] World Championships maybe three weeks ago. But maybe in our future.”