Here’s why Penn State wrestling’s future, even without its seniors, should concern opponents

Penn State wrestling coach Cael Sanderson didn’t want to think about life after his seniors on Sunday. It’s hard to blame him.

With two legends in Jason Nolf and Bo Nickal having just wrestled in the final Rec Hall dual of their careers, in a 47-3 win over Buffalo, Sanderson isn’t facing an easy transition after his seniors move on. Not only will those two defending national champs graduate, but as many as three other potential All-Americans could leave with them.

Penn State is currently the King of the NCAA, the program every college wrestling team aspires to become. But glancing forward at the next match in Rec Hall wasn’t something Sanderson was, understandably, willing to do.

“I’m not going to talk about next year,” Sanderson said Sunday afternoon. “I don’t even want to talk about next year, next year. It’s going to be one match at a time, and we’re just going to keep doing what we do.”

Sanderson hasn’t had a Senior Day like this in five years. That was the last time he lost two national champs in one offseason, in David Taylor and Ed Ruth. And that following season, after a series of redshirts, was the only time over a seven-year period that the Nittany Lions didn’t bring home the national title.

But, for as valuable as Nolf and Nickal are — and for as talented as Anthony Cassar and Shakur Rasheed can be, if the NCAA doesn’t approve their sixth years — this program is set up much stronger than five years ago.

The seniors saw to that.

“We have freshmen in the lineup, and I think it’s a huge blessing for them to be on the team with Nickal and Nolf,” Sanderson said. “We hope .... they’ll eventually be able to step up and compete in that same manner.”

The talent in 2014 was tremendous; the skill in 2019 borders on unprecedented. Five years ago, when fans rose and clapped for Taylor and Ruth, zero champs and five NCAA qualifiers returned to Happy Valley the next season. This time? Two returning wrestlers are ranked No. 1 and favored to repeat as national champs in Mark Hall and Vincenzo Joseph, and three others are set to qualify for NCAAs in sophomore Nick Lee (No. 2), redshirt freshman Brady Berge (No. 11) and true freshman Roman Bravo-Young (No. 11).

Neither Berge nor Bravo-Young were 100 percent this dual season, and they missed almost as many combined matches this calendar year as they wrestled. Still, they’ve managed to impress.

Every season, it seems, Sanderson mentors at least two breakouts: Lee and Shakur Rasheed last season, Anthony Cassar and Roman Bravo-Young this year — and, in 2015, Jimmy Lawson and Jordan Conaway. Next season, maybe it’s incoming signee Aaron Brooks and one of the other talented freshmen such as four-time California champ Seth Nevills.

That’s all to say, no matter how strong the senior class that’s leaving is, the program has become much stronger than that exciting four-national title group from five years ago. It’s transformed from one of the nation’s most-feared programs into one of history’s greatest college wrestling dynasties.

Penn State said good-bye Sunday to a legendary duo, the No. 1 and No. 2 wrestlers when it comes to all-time pins in Happy Valley. For just about any other program, that — along with the potential loss of several other All-Americans — would be the final chapter in a book full of a rich tradition, or at least a sizable pothole on the path to continued greatness.

For Penn State, it just seems like it’s time to take a deep breath and keep going.

On Sunday, Nolf pinned his opponent and caused a domino effect that led to four teammates after him also coming up with pins. “You feed off each other,” he said Sunday, “and that’s definitely a real thing.”

That doesn’t just hold true for what happens on the mat during the regular season but what happens in the offseason. Iron sharpens iron, legends beget legends — Sanderson did compete under Hall of Famer Bobby Douglas, after all — and true greatness leads to more greatness. In Sanderson’s first six seasons at Penn State, he produced nine individual national champs. In the past two seasons, he crowned nine more.

And that’s not about to end with this Penn State senior class, no matter how great it is. Sunday wasn’t the end of Rec Hall dominance — just a preview at the recasting.