Penn State wrestling notebook: Cael Sanderson, NCAA champs talk NIL, lineup questions and more
Penn State wrestling’s four defending national champs were brimming with confidence on Monday during the team’s first virtual media availability of the 2021-22 season, ahead of the Nittany Lions’ opening duals with Sacred Heart and Oregon State on Saturday in Manheim.
“I think this is the most talented team Penn State’s ever had,” 184-pound champ Aaron Brooks said.
Super senior Nick Lee, 141 pounds, struggled to name just one up-and-coming teammate for fans to be on the lookout for, highlighting underclassmen Beau Bartlett, Alex Facundo, Shayne Van Ness, and his brothers — Joe and Matt Lee.
Brooks and Lee, along with fellow NCAA champs Roman Bravo Young and Carter Starocci, all have their eyes set on a higher finish this year for the Nittany Lions, who, despite those four national champs, finished second last year to Iowa in the NCAA Championships in St. Louis.
Because the NCAA extended an extra year of eligibility to athletes last season amid COVID-19, Iowa is returning all of its starters. Lee, too, is back for his fifth year.
“I think it’s exciting,” Lee said. “You get a really competitive field like we did last year, and bringing everybody back plus some new faces, I think it’s going to be more exciting for us and even more exciting for the fans. Everyone should be happy about that.”
Nittany Lions taking advantage of NIL
When Pennsylvania passed legislation in June to allow student-athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness, it didn’t take long for Bravo Young to start taking advantage.
He launched an online raffle, became a Barstool Athlete, partnered with chicken wing joint Wings Over and recently released his own jersey.
“Roman’s done a really good job, and he’s done a great job building his brand,” head coach Cael Sanderson said. “And he was building his brand before this, obviously, so he kind of got a head start. But I just want him to go compete with some enthusiasm because his following will just continue to increase.”
Bravo Young is certainly not a wrestler who needs any extra motivation to go out on the mat and put on a show for fans. With his quick footwork and explosive athleticism, he’s been making highlight reels since his freshman year when he hit the “flying squirrel” against Lehigh.
And that’s what he plans to do this season — in what he says will be his final year of collegiate wrestling — NIL or no NIL.
“My goal is just to go out there and have fun,” Bravo Young said. “I already got a monkey off my back by winning last year, so I just want to go out there and be the best me and enjoy it. It’s my last year, I’m going to graduate, and (I’ve) pretty much came a long way. So I’m just gonna go out there and just have fun every match and just let it fly. Try to get those highlight reels like I always do.”
Bravo Young, however, isn’t the only Nittany Lion to have taken advantage of NIL opportunities. Lee did a commercial for a local car dealership in his home state of Indiana, and Starocci said he also has some deals in the works.
While Lee has taken some advantage of NIL, himself, he said he’s mostly enjoyed watching his teammates and fellow NCAA wrestlers blossom and grow in other areas beyond the mat.
“It kind of shows some skills that you might not know that wrestlers have: business skills, marketing skills and stuff like that,” Lee said. “I think it’s really cool. And as someone who’s not as skilled with that stuff, it’s kind of cool to see different wrestlers and the way they deal with that stuff. It’s pretty awesome. It’s a really awesome thing for the sport, for sure.”
Who will be in Penn State’s starting lineup?
With the Nittany Lions’ first team action of the season set for Saturday, Sanderson wasn’t willing to reveal too much Monday about his starting lineup. However, he did give a few hints.
The weight classes Sanderson singled out as being the most competitive are 157, 165 and 125 pounds.
“We’ve got a long but exciting season ahead,” Sanderson said. “So we’ll kind of work through the lineup issues as we as we go along here.”
Sanderson said the weight that might have the most competition for a starting spot is at 125 pounds, which has been a weaker spot in the Nittany Lions’ lineup since 2016.
True freshman Robert Howard, who was coming off a major surgery following his senior year of high school at Bergen Catholic, held down the weight for Penn State last season, going 2-2 in his first NCAA tournament. Sanderson confirmed Monday that Howard had another surgery after the end of last season, and isn’t yet back to full health.
Other wrestlers who Sanderson mentioned could be competing at that weight were Penns Valley graduate Baylor Shunk, Bucknell transfer Jake Campbell, junior Brandon Meredith, freshmen Marco Vespa and Gary Steen, as well as Howard. Sanderson also didn’t rule out dipping into the transfer portal to fill that position.
One weight where the Nittany Lions have already added a transfer is at 197 pounds, where two-time All-American Max Dean transferred in from Cornell. Penn State, however, already has an All-American at that weight class in sophomore Michael Beard.
Sanderson expressed confidence in both of those wrestlers on Monday, but did not go so far as to publicly name a starter.
“Max is just a really, really good dude and works really hard, brings a lot to the table, a lot to the team,” he said. “Michael Beard has definitely elevated his game. I think this will be a blessing for both of those guys to have that competition and having to compete at a higher level in practice, even just to make the team, having two of the best guys in the country.”
Could changes be coming to Big Ten wrestling?
In addition to not counting toward NCAA eligibility, there were some other unique aspects of last season.
For one, the Nittany Lions’ season didn’t start until January, and they only wrestled Big Ten opponents in duals. That won’t be the case this year, as Penn State is set to take on nonconference opponents Sacred Heart, Oregon State, Army, Penn and Lehigh before heading to Florida for the Collegiate Duals to end the calendar year.
Last year, teams were also allowed to wrestle extra bouts in addition to the main dual to give less experienced wrestlers more opportunities to compete and not burn their eligibility, as the Big Ten didn’t compete last season in open tournaments.
Sanderson said every coach in the conference said they are in favor of continuing to have those extra bouts, but that there are still some kinks that need to be worked out and questions that need to be answered — such as how many wrestlers can travel and whether to have those bouts before or after the main dual.
“I think it’s great to give kids an opportunity to get more matches in and compete, when they maybe wouldn’t before, and it cuts back on the need for them to travel on their own,” he said. “But most sports don’t provide opportunities for their backups to go play in different games, right? So, I don’t know how far that will go. In wrestling, it’s easier for us to do that than football or basketball. But I think we’re all in favor of it, and if it goes through, that would be great.”
Iowa head coach Tom Brands echoed a similar sentiment at his team’s season-opening media availability on Oct. 27, confirming that there have been discussions about this topic in the Big Ten, and that the coaches would be “very much in favor” of returning the extra bouts and of following the college football model where freshmen would get limited competition without triggering a year of eligibility.
“It only makes sense,” Brands said.
Can Penn State close the gap on Iowa?
While the Nittany Lions won Saturday night of last season’s NCAA championships, going four-for-four in the finals, while the Hawkeyes went one-for-three, Iowa still won the team race fairly comfortably, 15.5 points ahead of Penn State.
The reason for that, as Sanderson pointed out, was that the Hawkeyes turned in the better all-around performance. Penn State failed to score any points at 165 pounds and didn’t qualify a wrestler at 149.
This year, the Hawkeyes are returning all of their starters from last season. The Nittany Lions are returning most of their starters, as well, with the notable exception of Brady Berge at 157, who medically retired from competitive wrestling after suffering yet another injury last season at the NCAA tournament. Berge is now a volunteer assistant coach at South Dakota State.
So, how can this year’s NCAA result differ from last year’s?
“Yeah, maybe it’s a repeat, but you know, national titles were won last year, team titles and individual, but there’s a whole new set of championships and opportunities this year,” Sanderson said. “So, we just want to be in a place the best we can to help our kids reach their goals and get what they want.”
Questions still remain about some of those gaps in the lineup. Lee confirmed that he’ll remain at 141 pounds this year, and Sanderson insinuated that it would be promising freshman Bartlett who will slot in at 149 pounds this season. Bartlett competed at both 141 and 149 last season as a true freshman, before winning the starting spot at 149 at the end of the season, but coming up just short of qualifying for the national tournament.
Joe Lee went 0-2 at NCAAs for the Nittany Lions last season at 165 pounds. Also listed at 165 on the Nittany Lions’ roster are Mason Manville (165/174), who had been taking an Olympic redshirt, and Facundo. Facundo was ranked fifth overall in the Class of 2021 by FloWrestling when he committed to the Nittany Lions in February 2020. The true freshman went 6-1 to place fifth at the Clarion Open over the weekend.
“I think really highly of Alex,” Starocci said. “He has a lot of a lot of potential, and I see a lot of me in him. And, and when I say that, I haven’t met too many kids that kind of walk the walk. You can tell by his aura and his energy that he brings to the room that he really wants to achieve all those goals. And he’s in the room constantly. I know that he didn’t win the Clarion Open this past weekend, but I know that’s not going to faze him and his mindset is still going to be sharp. I believe that he’ll be a national champ.”
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 5:43 PM.
