3 reasons No. 1 Penn State Wrestling will beat No. 3 Iowa

No. 2 – Bonus points

To clarify what I mean by “bonus points”, it’s namely Iowa’s ability to earn them in a handful of matches during each dual meet. Winning bonus points is a staple for good teams who have good wrestlers. It’s not rocket surgery.

Here is a list of Iowa’s toughest tests so far this season and how many matches they won earning bonus points.

11/19/21
Iowa 32 Princeton 12
Falls: 0
Tech Falls: 3
Major Dec: 2

12/5/21
Iowa 23 Iowa State 11
Falls: 0
Tech Falls: 0
Major Dec: 2
Other: 1 (stalling DQ resulting in 6 points)

1/21/22
Iowa 21 Ohio State 12
Falls: 0
Tech Falls: 1
Major Dec: 1

12/21/21
Iowa 19 NC State 15
Falls: 0
Tech Falls: 0
Major Dec: 1

The largest contributors from this list are No. 3 Austin DeSanto (2 tech falls and 1 major decision), No. 2 Jaydin Eierman (2 major decisions), and No. 5 Tony Cassioppi (1 stalling DQ and 1 major decision).

And here’s my main point, if Iowa is going to beat Penn State Wrestling this Friday night they are going to have to win several matches and earn bonus points. And if you think DeSanto is going to win bonus points off of Roman Bravo-Young (let alone win the match outright) and Eierman is going to major decision Nick Lee, then you need to stop drinking the corn flavored Kool-Aid.

Unless one of the top wrestlers gets stuck and suffers a fall, I don’t see many opportunities for bonus points for either team.

Which leads us to the main reason Penn State Wrestling is going to leave Iowa City with a signature victory …