Last time we saw the wrestlers take the mat it didn’t go great. They lost 9-23 to Oklahoma State and Dresser called the team out in his post-dual press conference for not living the lifestyle they need to be champions. He threatened to start treating the team like high schoolers this week and appears to have followed through on that with daily weigh ins and greater off the mat oversight. I’m also told that they are required to have Metcalf chaperone all dates, allow St. John to see their location in Snapchat, and tag Dresser in any and all TikToks. Today we’ll see how the team is responding to those new restrictions.

Where: Fresno, California

When: 9:00PM CST, January 31, 2020

Stream: FloWrestling ($$)

*Rankings from 1/24/20 Coaches Panel

Key Matchups

165

Last year in the final month of the season Chase Straw took advantage of a weak 157 weight class. He won most of his conference matches, got a good seed at Big 12s, and then rolled through the bracket in Tulsa to be a conference champion and take the lone allocation the Big 12 was allotted at the weight. 165 in the conference is a lot tougher this year than 157 was last year so that route isn’t viable this time around. The conference is likely to get five spots at the weight, with two top twenty ranked guys but the other three coming from guys in the 20-29 range. This is great news for Straw. Because he doesn’t have to beat one of those top two guys to steal an allocation. He just has to beat one of the marginal qualifiers.

So how does Straw put himself in position to get a match against one of those guys? He does it by getting himself a good seed at Big 12s. And right now he’s a little behind the eight ball on that with a 1-3 record against conference foes. However, it isn’t all bad, all three of those losses were to wrestlers likely to earn an allocation. and in his 5 remaining conference matches he only has two tough opponents left - #25 Nick Kiussis of West Virginia and Andrew Fogarty of NDSU, who, like our own Jarrett Degen, was unranked in the last coaches panel due to an injury induced midseason layoff but ranked in the top ten by Intermat. This gives Straw a great chance to improve his conference record to 5-4 or 4-5 and with that get a seed that gives him a clear path to the 3rd or 5th place match. To do that Straw needs to get wins against every single unranked conference opponent left on the schedule. No more room for error. He has to get a win over Padilla to have a reasonable path to Minneapolis.

HWT

This will be the marque match of the dual with #12 Gremmel taking on #11 Hokkit. Hokkit, an All American at 197 last season, is also a running back on the Fresno State football team so has just been getting in to wrestling shape after rejoining the team in late December. As you’d expect from a dual sport guy he is extremely strong and athletic - exactly the kind of wrestler who tends to give Gremmel trouble. A win would be a great sign that Gremmel has made in season progress and taking steps towards being an All American this season. A loss would be a sign that, for this year at least, Gremmel is likely to top out with a run to the Blood Round even if he gets a good draw at NCAAs.

Prediction

Even though I didn’t include it in the projected lineups, the lineup sheet that Iowa State put out had a lot more “or”s listed than usual. And based on Dresser’s comments after the Oklahoma State dual, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of those are real to reward guys who are doing the right things and/or send a message to guys who aren’t. Assuming that the full lineup goes I think think Iowa State wins 7 matches for a meet score of about 24-9. But if Dresser messes around with the lineup things could shift considerably.

Next Up

The wrestlers will be back on the road next weekend to take on Oklahoma in Norman at 2:00PM on Sunday, February 9th.