2012 Lineup Prediction

Part of the fun of a new wrestling season is attempting to predict what the starting lineup will be. Usually this is complicated and frustrating as it is, but all of the off season drama has at least doubled the head scratching. For the sake of not driving myself completely insane, I have made the following assumptions about the eligibility of certain Penn State wrestlers.

1) Ed Ruth will, at the very least, not be able to start the 2012 season. Even if his legal problems turn out for the best, with the season so close it is unlikely that things will be cleared up before the season starts.

2) Frank Martellotti was in academic trouble last year and I'm assuming he is out of it now.

3) Sam Sherlock, James Vollrath and Nick Fischer will be available at the start of the season. Cael has stated that two of those three were already in trouble before they were cited for underage drinking this summer, so the outcome is unsure, as well as who those two are. Since it happened in the off season, popular belief is that they will get brutalized for a while in practice as a lesson (but who really knows what goes on in the head of the greatest NCAA wrestler to ever live?).

4) I think it goes without saying that Long is out. He has already left the program, and even if he is completely acquitted of the charges I have a hard time seeing a scenario where he comes back to Penn State. For anyone that has followed the story, there are some giant holes and the story makes little sense in general. Personally I won't throw him in the trash until it is proven that he is actually guilty of a crime and I hope it is true when he says that he wasn't even in the house. He was a Penn State-er for a short time, but we should show him our support anyway.

In Memory

Now for the lineup. Following the list will be comments for my choices at each weight.

125: Frank Martellotti
133: Bryan Pearsall
141: Sam Sherlock
149: Frank Molinaro
157: Dylan Alton
165: David Taylor
174: Dirk Cowburn
184: Quentin Wright                                                                                      
197: David Crowell (who?)
HWT: Cameron Wade                                                                                     

125: The log jam begins at 125lbs. The Penn State faithful figured we would be fine at 125lbs for some time to come with freshman standout Martellotti as well as PA high school phenoms Megaludis and Gulibon. Things got much more complicated when Jordan Conaway (pictured left, can you believe he is 112lbs in the pic?) committed to Penn State. Conaway had committed to Liberty before defeating returning PA AAA champ Connor Schram 10-4 to win his only state title. Jordan's stock skyrocketed after he defeated #1 Evan Silver at the Dapper Dan. Shortly thereafter Liberty degraded it's wrestling team to a club sport (boo) and Conaway was thrust back into the recruiting world. WIth his stock at a premium, a variety of respected division 1 programs wanted him (Nebraska, Virginia, Virginia Tech, etc.) but Cael believed he had talents which could not be coached. Conaway decided to walk on at Penn State and earn a scholarship, stating that if he wanted to be his best he needed to train with the best. Coming in at 112 with a small frame makes him an ideal candidate to stay at 125lbs through his Penn State career. He has stated that he will red shirt the 2012 season, but I believe he will be the face of 125lbs for the next few years. Both Martellotti and Megaludis are capable of moving up to at least 133lbs. Derek Reber, the transfer from Bucknell, plans on going to either 133 or 141lbs. In order to keep a spot in the lineup I believe Martellotti will keep himself at 125lbs for now and beat out the competition while Megaludis takes a red shirt year.

133: Martellotti, Reber, Pearsall and Sherlock are the obvious candidates for the huge hole at 133lbs. As stated above, Martellotti will stay at 125. Also Sherlock will move up to 141 to vie for that spot in the lineup. If Reber stays at 133 he will still be beat out by Pearsall who also will stay at 133 and take the spot in the lineup. After the leap in improvement that Pearsall made between his first two campaigns, expect an even better Pearsall that will easily crack the top 20.


141: Most likely Sherlock will take 141 uncontested. There is the possibility that Martellotti shifts to 133 and both Pearsall and Sherlock bump to 141, but that is not the path I have chosen. Luke Frey and Andrew Alton are possible contenders at this weight, but I believe they will both red shirt. Cael has promised that the Alton twins will graduate together, and I would think it would be better to red shirt earlier than later. Frey has a wrestling style that will work very well in college (better than in high school I believe) and a red shirt year of open tournaments will prepare him very well to crack the lineup at some point. I wouldn't be surprised to see Frey fight for this spot, but I think it is unlikely.


149:

                                                        Gorilla Hulk. Enough Said.

But if you wanted to say something...3x All American, Big Ten Champ, National Finalist

157: David Taylor has made it abundantly clear that he is moving up to 165. This leaves a ton of guys available: D. Alton, Fischer, Vollrath, English, D. Church and Beitz. Some of these guys are capable of going up to 165, but the thought of eliminating against Taylor isn't very tempting. Alton did very well wrestling unattached during his red shirt year which should make competition at this weight fierce. I am bias on the matter having watched the Alton boys in high school, but I believe this will only be the beginning of Dylan showing that the Altons should be labeled as phenoms in college as well.

Wait there are two of them? And they can both wrestle!?

165:

The Wunderkind will fill the 165lb hole with much wonder.

174: With Ed Ruth out of the picture there is a giant need at 174. Luckily Matt Brown transferred in and Dirk Cowburn is coming off a fantastic unattached red shirt season. Andrew Church will be in the running but won't be able to stand up to either Brown or Cowburn. Brown went 22-6 as a freshman at Iowa State before leaving on a mission, and has decided to follow his coach to Penn State. It should be an exciting battle, but ultimately Cowburn wins and fills the void at 174 for now.

184: As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke don't fix it. With Ruth out of the lineup Quentin will stay at 184lbs instead of everyone shifting up.

197: Quentin will most likely not move up to 197 without Ruth taking over 184. Morgan McIntosh has apparently been bulking up some, supposedly to get ready for 197 but you have to imagine that Cael wants to red shirt him. This leaves strange options for 197. Ortega is still around but I don't think most people want to see him back in the starting lineup. Ruggear is around but their intentions were always to try and develop him into a heavyweight although they have 3 heavyweights now. This leaves Crowell, Syrek and Steadman. Syrek is an incoming freshman so I label him as an unknown. Steadman has been consistently mediocre at best through his career. Crowell transferred from Pitt and then was off the team for a year (I wasn't able to figure out why). Crowell's record is 17-14 while at Penn State, but working out with Q, Cael and Casey has most likely had it's benefits. I look for Crowell to win this weight so McIntosh can take his red shirt.

HWT: Wade will undoubtedly be the man here. Not much else to say about it.

I have no real sources of inside information. This lineup is pure speculation on my part. I will not take responsibility for anyone who gets harmed while trying to say this is what it will be. Feel free to let me know what your lineup is.

Welcome

Hi everyone. Oddly enough probably only a handful of people will read this so by "everyone" I mean those of you who got tired enough of me emailing you wrestling news and yelled at me to start a blog instead.

The name of the blog should sum things up. My primary focus will be Penn State wrestling but I also like to follow what's going on in the rest of the wrestling world. I will try to post links as I go to sources that may be more in depth with their information than I am providing, as well as videos, interviews, etc. I won't cover much of high school wrestling in this blog, at least I don't plan on it for now. As Penn State picks up recruits I will track them.

Above should be an image we are all familiar with. I think it would be appropriate to call the 2011 season one that was full of surprises. The national title was a surprise for most PSU fans (including myself), especially after the spanking Iowa laid down in the dual season. Coming into the season all eyes were on Ed Ruth and David Taylor to be the dynamite wrestlers. Ruth and Taylor proved to be as good as expected. Andrew Alton was a pinning machine just like in high school. The 197 weight class continued to be non-existent. Cameron Wade still wasn't sure if he liked winning or not. Brad Pataky was on the team for about the 12th year and Molinaro still looked like he was from Jersey. Finally, Wright got hurt again which didn't come as a surprise. However the year held seven surprises for me. The first two should be obvious: national title and Big Ten title. But the biggest surprise of all...

Spending a lot of time talking about Wright's amazing run to a national title would be like beating a dead horse with another dead horse. I don't think this awesome story got the attention it deserved since Robles, the man with one leg and the body of a 165lb wrestler, manhandled a bunch of tiny 125lb wrestlers. Kudos for doing it with one leg though. Moving on to the next surprise..

 Everyone expected Ed Ruth to be good, but I had no idea he would be good enough to knock off the then #1 and #2 guys in the same tournament (Lewnes and Henrich). After seeing Ruth tear apart the field it was clear that the 2011 team was going to be a lot better than expected.






 Frank who? You must mean Molinaro right? That may have been the feeling at the beginning of the season when Frank Martellotti stepped into the lineup for the injured Pataky, but that quickly changed as he went 7-0 in dual meets and 18-3 overall. He even started to crack the top 20 at 125lbs. So again, Frank who? Frank Martellotti of course, and don't forget it. Hopefully he can crack the top 20 of his academic class.

Pearsall was one of those guys in the 2010 lineup that made you groan when he took the mat. Nothing against him personally, he just always lost (3-23 record in 2010). Yet he came out every match and gave it everything, and apparently that hard work paid off. The collective sigh turned into head scratching disbelief as he stormed to a 13-6 record in 2011. No doubt this was a proud moment for the coaches (why couldn't Ortega do this?) All moot by Long coming into the team, but still awesome to see the improvement.

 The final surprise was the Alton/Marion incident. Was it a surprise that Alton had 18 pins on the season as a true freshman? Not really for me. Watching him through high school I had no doubt he would eat college wrestlers that were lacking in skill. What was a surprise was Alton's ability to just as easily throw the best wrestlers around if given the chance. By time Alton faced top tier wrestlers, you could see they wanted nothing to do with him in the clinch and instead exploited the weaknesses in his game to win. Along comes Montell Marion after getting released early from his DUI punishment (an entire other discussion) and apparently hasn't caught wind of the news that is Alton. Would Tom Brands really send a wrestler on the mat who hadn't studied? I guarantee the Iowa wrestlers have to watch more film than football players. So there is no doubt that Marion knew what Alton was capable of but figured he was athletic and talented enough that he didn't have to worry about it. This attitude lead to the throw that was heard through the Big Ten. Marion looked like any other two bit wrestler when Alton threw him down (only problem was Alton didn't hold him long enough for the ref to see he was pinned). The bout took a very different look from then on.

It should be another exciting season on the horizon. With Long leaving the team and Ruth being potentially unavailable (as well as three other alcohol offenders), the opportunity is there for new wrestlers to step up to the plate and be the 2012 surprises. Before the season begins in November, I will release my version of a brief Big Ten preview and my predictions for the Big Ten tournament team results. If anything else comes along I will update on here, but I'm not expecting much. As a final word, check out the below link for one of the most awesome Greco Roman takedowns you will ever see (it has been named the flying squirrel takedown).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW8Mf3IL4zA

 Thanks for reading, leave feedback if you want.