What has happened to this program? Seems like its been on the decline the past couple years.
There's some good individuals but other than that, not much has happened.

Anyone on the board follow the program closely?

I don't follow it closely but i have seen a decline as well in the program. This used to be a top 25 team but the last few years we've been getting owned in our non-conference and conference schedule. Ohio beat us by a lot a few weeks ago. Also, has anyone noticed we seem to play AT Northern Iowa every year. Why don't they ever come to DeKalb for a meet?

I agree that the program is falling to pieces. The departure of Coach Grant should improve the stability. For whatever reasons many coaches in this amazing wrestling state are not letting their athletes attend NIU. College wrestling has a high attrition rate as it is, but NIUs is just awful. Many talented wrestlers have came and not panned out. The Athletic Department needs to put out a national search for a dynamic young coach to get this team back to where they once were, or else I fear it will be dropped.

It seems like there was never that pivot from being good to being able to top CMU and make it to a higher level.

Obviously, I defer to people who really know wrestling, but has the Big Ten invested more in the sport? It seems like they're almost all ranked in various rankings I just read, but I don't think Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc were anything much 10 years ago. But I could very easily be wrong there.

(01-30-2011 12:20 PM)DogTracks Wrote:  It seems like there was never that pivot from being good to being able to top CMU and make it to a higher level.

Obviously, I defer to people who really know wrestling, but has the Big Ten invested more in the sport? It seems like they're almost all ranked in various rankings I just read, but I don't think Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc were anything much 10 years ago. But I could very easily be wrong there.

I'm not sure if they really invest more in the sport, but wrestling does seem to sort of be Midwest-centric (kind of like lacrosse on the East coast). Combine that with schools cutting their wrestling programs in other areas of the country and I think it has funneled most of the top wrestlers to those programs (same goes for the Big XII). They've just continued to exist while the sport has died out around the country at the college level.