Ranking Cael Sanderson’s top 10 wins as Penn State Wrestling coach
By Chris Snyder
No. 4
March 6, 2011
Evanston, IL
B1G Championships
Penn State 139.0
Iowa 138.0
Minnesota 109.5
Prior to 2011, do you know how many times the Penn State Nittany Lions, nestled smack dab in the middle of the fertile wrestling recruiting grounds of Pennsylvania, won the B1G Championship? Zero. None.
The 2011 B1G Championships told the collegiate wrestling world, Cael Sanderson is a master of his craft and he is a master at teaching others. In only his second season as head coach of Penn State, Sanderson had done what no other coach had done at a school who widely had varying degrees of success prior to his employment.
Now varying degrees of success may mean at top 10 team ranking nationally, but surely doesn’t mean knocking off Michigan, or Minnesota, or Iowa in the B1G Championships. That’s just what the 2010-2011 squad did. Five Penn Staters ended up making the finals and all five took home individual B1G Championships. Andrew Long, Frank Molinaro, David Taylor, Ed Ruth, and Quentin Wright took home the titles and helped Penn State grab the B1G Championship crown in 2011.
Impressive doesn’t begin to describe how fast Sanderson was able to turn Penn State from a good program to an elite program.