How Penn State wrestling proved the gap between it and the rest of the country is only widening
Penn State coach Cael Sanderson sat stoically next to the raised floor in the middle of the Bryce Jordan Center for most of Friday night. On occasion he would lean forward in his seat, peering over at the bout in front of him, and then he’d lean right back, patiently waiting for his wrestler to take over. And occasionally he would stand up to get a better view.
But there was little need for any extra coaching, and very little happened on the mat to warrant a reaction from the greatest wrestling coach of all time. Most of the reactions came from Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft, who sat a few feet behind Sanderson and leaped out of his seat at every big moment in the dual.
Otherwise, it was a run-of-the-mill night for Sanderson and his Nittany Lions.
Penn State took the mat at around 7 p.m. and proceeded to, for most of the next 131 minutes, dominate the No. 2 Iowa Hawkeyes in a 30-8 victory.
That is now the norm for the Nittany Lions. They show up. They dominate. They leave.
That’s what happens when you’re one of the greatest dynasties in all of college sports, led by one of the greatest coaches this level has ever seen — one who has led the program to 11 national titles since the 2011 season, along with producing 91 All-Americans and 38 individual national champions.
What Sanderson has created would be difficult to imagine if it weren’t playing out every time his teams take the mat. And it’s created an expectation for him and his program. But even though they have ascended to the top of the ladder, they haven’t spent much time thinking about it — yet, at least.
“No, no,” Sanderson said. “We don’t think about that stuff. We’re just trying to think about our next match and trying to get better. Just doing what we do. Maybe at some point you do, but that’s not something — I mean we don’t really worry about that stuff. This team is not worried about anything that happened in previous years. They’re just doing what they do.”
To say there is little question who will win the NCAA team title in wrestling is an understatement. It’s unfathomable for anyone other than Penn State to take that crown home in March. Especially when the Nittany Lions just terrorized the team that is supposed to be their biggest challenger.
When going head-to-head, Iowa stood no chance. And it’s not as if that road gets easier for the Hawkeyes at NCAAs — a tournament format that favors the bonus-point machines that PSU trots out at nearly every weight class.
That’s because of the aggression Sanderson has ingrained in all of his wrestlers.
“It’s just our style,” Sanderson said. “We’re going to move forward and we’re looking to score points.”
But Friday night is the kind of dual that is supposed to present some resistance for Penn State. The Hawkeyes had several wrestlers who were ranked higher than their respective Penn State counterparts but, time after time Friday, the Nittany Lions pulled off the upset — if you can even call it that.
Iowa’s higher-ranked wrestlers came out with only two wins for the Hawkeyes, when 133-pounder Drake Ayala defeated Kurt McHenry, who usually wrestles at 125 pounds and has not been a starter for PSU, and when No. 1 Stephen Buchanan at 197 pounds defeated No. 4 Josh Barr by decision. Outside of them? Nothing. No. 2 Kyle Parco fell to PSU No. 4 Shayne Van Ness. No. 1 Jacori Teemer fell to PSU No. 3 Tyler Kasak. And all of the favored Nittany Lions took care of business.
But it was each upset that drew a boisterous reaction from the sold-out BJC crowd, like when Kasak lifted Teemer into the air, nodding his head. (He said after the dual that he blacked out in that moment.) But the crowd seemed to expect those wins like Kasak’s, waiting to explode at the right moment each time a Hawkeye was about to go down.
The Nittany Lions made statement after statement. But ask Kasak, and you’ll find out that this was more the expectation for him when it came to his team’s success.
“I feel like we kind of already knew, or I felt like this team was pretty special,” Kasak said. “When you go against the No. 2 team in the country and you kind of handle them pretty well — it felt like not even the scoreboard, but as far as effort and attitude. I felt like everyone was pumped up. Everyone was just having fun. I feel like the bigger the matches, the more fun we end up having.”
Despite their lower rankings, it will likely be the Nittany Lion in each of those matchups that is projected to make a deep run at NCAAs. Because that’s what Penn State wrestlers do under Cael Sanderson.
And at some point, maybe that will come to an end — maybe he and PSU have some fresh competition in former PSU wrestler David Taylor’s Oklahoma State team — but it doesn’t look like it will any time soon.
And as long as Sanderson is at the helm, national championships will be the expectation. Not just for the team, but for each wrestler.
This year is no different. Neither is next year. Or the year after that. Or any other for the foreseeable future.
