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

No. 3 – Toss up matches

What separates elite wrestling programs from really good wrestling programs is their ability to win a majority of the toss up matches. This comes down to a combination of scouting, a good game plan, and the wrestler’s ability to execute the coaching staff’s game plan.

And if there’s one thing that Cael Sanderson and his coaching staff have proved over the years, it’s their ability to come up with good game plans and have wrestlers who are capable of executing the game plan. This results in Penn State Wrestling winning an awful lot of toss-up matches.

Most dual meets featuring top teams will only have a handful of toss-up matches. But when it comes to Penn State and Iowa, things are always going to be different.

This is why I have highlighted the following matches I deem as “toss-ups”.

No. 7 Drew Hildebrandt vs. No. 11 Drake Ayala
No. 1 Roman Bravo-Young vs No. 3 Austin Desanto
No. 1 Nick Lee vs No. 2 Jaydin Eierman
No. 19 Beau Bartlett vs No. 10 Max Murin
No. 11 Brady Berge vs No. 5 Alex Marinelli
No. 1 Carter Starocci vs No. 2 Michael Kemerer
No. 2 Max Dean vs No. 4 Jacob Warner
No. 3 Greg Kerkvliet vs No. 5 Tony Cassioppi

Here was have a whopping eight matches that essentially could go either way. So let’s be honest with ourselves, how many matches do you see Penn State winning and how many matches do you see Iowa winning?

That’s what I thought.

#championshipbrisket