Hawkeye Wrestlers need Big Effort from New Names

As we turn the table towards winter, the Iowa Wrestling program gets ready to warm our hearts with intense takedowns and hardnosed pins. This season is going to be one of the most interesting for Iowa wrestling fans, as the team is no longer the overall favorite to win a national title. Hell, they’re not even the favorite to win the Big Ten.

According to most rankings, the Hawkeye’s aren’t even a top 5 team.
First of all, let me explain that wrestling has more polls than Tom Brands has top recruits. Well…maybe not that many.

Here is a brief list of the preseason rankings for the Hawkeye wrestling team:
Intermat -8
NWCA/USA Today - 7
AWN - 8
TOM - 5
W.I.N. – 11

This is a sharp difference from last year, when the Hawkeyes returned a stable of All-Americans like Brent Metcalf, Jay Borschel, Daniel Dennis and Ryan Morningstar.

Now, the only returning All American is 2010 national champion Matt McDonough. McDonough is also the only wrestler to be a preseason individual #1.

By the end of the 2010 season, the Hawkeyes had a virtual head lock in the first four weights, now they have graduated Metcalf (149), and Daniel Dennis (133); and lost Montell Marion (141) to a bad case of being an idiot.

The shelf seems bare at the upper weights too, as the Hawkeyes lost national champion Borschel, All American Ryan Morningstar, and heavyweight Dan Erekson, who finished 7th at nationals and won a Big Ten title last year.

Basically, the class of wrestlers that brought home the last three national titles is gone. But the shelf is not, in fact, bare.

Guy like Nate Moore (133), Luke Lofthouse (197) and Derek St. John (157)and Jake Kerr (165) will have to start forging a legacy of their own. Moore, Lofthouse and Keer we saw in limited action last year, St. John was redshirted.

If they don’t, you can bet your ass Tom Brands will find someone who will.
But the guy I almost feel sorry for is a freshman wrestler Dylan Carew. (Who most likely wants neither my pity nor yours) He is slotted to fill in at 149 after the loss of Brett Metcalf, arguably the most dominant wrestler over the last three years.

Everytime Carew takes the mat at 149, fans will inevitably compare him to Metcalf, fair or otherwise. It is just a fact that over the last three seasons the Hawkeyes have been able to pencil in a victory (and usually domination) at 149 before the match even started. The most shocking events over the last three seasons were the rare times when Metcalf actually lost. It happened thrice.

Now…we shall see. Hold on to your singlet, 2010-11 could be a wild ride.