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There have been too many changes within the coaching staff. More than anything else, the turnover has caused the recruiting issues. First and foremost was Moore’s desire to leave for a head coaching position. That bungled move cost us 2 recruiting classes. Also, Hill never moved here from Pennsylvania and was waiting for the Edinboro job to open. That cost us a recruiting class. We also lost Clint Musser who was a volunteer coach between 2012-2014. No one outside of wrestling or MMA knows who he is, but he was a huge contributor to the program. He’s an assistant at American University now. All 3 leaving in the past 5 or so years is HUGE. We HAD a coaching staff that rivaled the big schools for a couple of years. Jimmy has done a good job replacing them with Mitcheff and Scott and the current recruiting classs reflects that fact. We have a couple of studs coming in that will bolster the program immediately. Now if only we can keep the coaching staff intact...

Rumor has it that Conel is going to transfer.

Conel transferring is not surprising. In fact since a majority of wrestlers red shirt this will probably become the norm. They only have to graduate in four years, nothing heroic, to be able to do it. A school like Kent might want to red shirt less or all our good wrestlers will never stay for their senior year. Of course if they don’t red shirt they might not be as good anyway. I’m old enough to remember when the Kansas City Athletics (aka Oakland) were the pseudo farm team of the Yankees in the 50’s and early 60’s. That’s us now. Even though we are Division I we are becoming a feeder for the REAL Division I teams. It looks like in all sports not just the revenue generators.

Shame to see such a storied program fall before our eyes.

(02-04-2019 06:21 PM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Shame to see such a storied program fall before our eyes.

It’s a little early yet but I think the same thing might be happening in gymnastics. For years our team would score 49 out of 50 on floor exercise. Girls start working on that event when their six years old. This year we have been lucky to score 47. A huge difference. Also although it hasn’t happened at Kent yet I’ve noticed some MAC gymnasts going to schools like Florida and Georgia for their senior years. They claim to have a super class coming in next year so I’ll wait and see but it hasn’t been great the last few years and it seems to be getting worse. In this case, unlike wrestling, the coaching has been stable. We also finished 11th in the nation as recently as 2011. Instead of launching an improvement it seemed to start the downturn (kind of like what happened after Kilgore won the national title). Probably a coincidence but kind of weird.

Conel is close to Coach Hill and Edinboro is less than an hour away from Ashtabula so that’s my guess.

(02-04-2019 06:21 PM)GFlash68 Wrote:  Shame to see such a storied program fall before our eyes.

The last 3 seasons have been tough and my optimism has been premature. However, the turmoil should be behind us now. College wrestling is a small community and I imagine prospective recruits knew all about our coaching issues.

Tweet from Conel last Friday:


@KyjorRL

As of last night, I am on the NCAA transfer portal. As I was only given a partial release, I am taking time to wait on and weigh my options. At this point, my number one concern is getting healthy.

Lost to CMU 23-12. Had a chance to take a 15-14 lead going to the last match but lost it right at the end. Probably wouldn’t have mattered too much as their HWT was too good. Gymnastics team was much improved and almost nipped CMU but did not. One thing obvious was CMU is also having a down year in both sports (not as bad but enough so that we were competitive).

The meet Friday vs NIU was really bad. NIU jumped out to a 19-0 lead with ease. McNally won his match and then Mast won in overtime (NIU guy had only one win all season). Finally at HW there was some excitement as we won by pin. The crowd actually woke up. Ferri then lost a close match at 125. All in all a poor performance. I can’t wait for the Bloomingdale (or is it Macy’s) match on Saturday.

On a more positive note the gymnastics team posted an impressive score on the road at BG (195.800). Those early scores are still killing them as they are only ranked 48th (need 36 to make NCAAs) but since only their best 6 meets count if they keep it up (they’ve been good for 2 weeks now) and can drop off those early disasters they might squeak by. Only one gymnast competes in 3 events with no all arounder this year. Lot of one and two event gymnasts. We need Stypenski back!! or Case or Lenny or maybe the infamous Jesse James (great name) from way back.

(02-18-2019 01:02 PM)burden Wrote:  The meet Friday vs NIU was really bad. NIU jumped out to a 19-0 lead with ease. McNally won his match and then Mast won in overtime (NIU guy had only one win all season). Finally at HW there was some excitement as we won by pin. The crowd actually woke up. Ferri then lost a close match at 125. All in all a poor performance. I can’t wait for the Bloomingdale (or is it Macy’s) match on Saturday.

On a more positive note the gymnastics team posted an impressive score on the road at BG (195.800). Those early scores are still killing them as they are only ranked 48th (need 36 to make NCAAs) but since only their best 6 meets count if they keep it up (they’ve been good for 2 weeks now) and can drop off those early disasters they might squeak by. Only one gymnast competes in 3 events with no all arounder this year. Lot of one and two event gymnasts. We need Stypenski back!! or Case or Lenny or maybe the infamous Jesse James (great name) from way back.

Knowing that it was going to be bad, and with an invitation from my daughter, I went to Pittsburgh to watch Pitt vs Duke instead. My guess is that we won’t see 5 of the current starters wrestle next year. I hope that Monico and Barreiro receive redshirts for this year.

Lost to Binghamton, 22-15. With only 1 senior, this season may have been worse than 2 years ago. Rooney (133) and McNally (184) were the only 2 healthy wrestlers with winning records this year. McCracken (197) and Wallace (184) had strong redshirt campaigns but which one of the three upperweights is going to not be a starter next year? I hope the recruits are ready to contribute next season. We will only have 1-3 seniors so the youth movement will continue.

It’s hard to not be young when your seniors are transferring. Let’s hope Tutolo and probably Conel are just a one time thing. I’m concerned programs like ours will have this happen quite regularly.

What’s crazy about this year’s senior (Bast) class is that it was nationally ranked at 24th for recruiting purposes. Bast wasn’t mentioned as a reason for the ranking, but he’s the only one to graduate from KSU. The recruiting classes with Miller and Kilgore weren’t ranked as high.

http://d1collegewrestling.net/Recruiting...s2014.html

The names that were listed did pretty well. They all were at least watchable.

The February MAC rankings came out and McNally at 184 was the only Kent wrestler in the top 4 (of 8).

https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/63...llocations

We have a legitimate shot at just 133 and 184. Unfortunately, the MAC only has 2 automatic spots at 184, but McNally has a rpi of 13 so he should be in. Rooney is at 23 so he should be safe as well, plus 4 spots went to the MAC.

(02-25-2019 07:04 AM)burden Wrote:  The names that were listed did pretty well. They all were at least watchable.

Across the board, however, the class didn’t come remotely close to resembling the ranking. The best finish was 3rd at Nationals. Is it any wonder that the 2 best wrestlers from the class left the program?

Last place with only McNally in championship bracket.

https://www.trackwrestling.com/opentourn...&pageName=

I read an article in the Kent Stater about the wrestling program. Learned a couple of things. Sparkman could have wrestled this year but did not have enough credits to remain academically eligible.

Of more concern were some comments by Andrusky about the merger. He basically said the MAC did it to help boost some fairly weak programs in the EWL. Also said the two leagues combined would have earned less bids than they did as separate entities. With the MAC down to 5 base teams adding 7 weaker programs can’t help too much. I have to believe Missouri and Old Dominion are looking elsewhere as Northern Iowa did. Missouri will find it difficult as I’m sure the Big12 won’t take them back and the SEC wouldn’t want them to go to the ACC or Big 10. They might be stuck. Old Dominion though should be able to go to the he ACC.

I hear some alumni saying wrestling should be dropped due to high costs and limited MAC participation. All sounds a little ominous.