Marcus Blaze decision preview: Will he pick Penn State wrestling? Lions are among 3 finalists

coastfan

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Oct 26, 2021
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David Taylor: A generational Ohio high school wrestling prodigy who went to Penn State to advance his wrestling legacy. Sounds like a similar story line.
Yep. Went to a high school which has pumped out quite a few Div 1 wrestlers: St. Paris Graham. That's kind of amazing when one looks where St. Paris sits on the map and how small the town is. Guess like David, a good number of the wrestlers "transferred" in.
 
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Tom McAndrew

BWI Staff
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David Taylor: A generational Ohio high school wrestling prodigy who went to Penn State to advance his wrestling legacy. Sounds like a similar story line.

We can hope. DT was all-in on CS. In fact he was set to wrestle for Iowa State until CS surprised most people by becoming PSU's coach.

Wrestling recruiting is not followed, or reported, nearly as closely as football or men's BB. That said, most of the time, hints, leans, etc. leak out about elite wrestlers. Blaze is an exception to this rule. As best as I can tell, he has not offered any tidbits about his thoughts on where he's leaning. It's possible that Willie, or some of the others that follow college wrestling recruiting, have a good idea/know where Blaze will end up. But if they do, they must have agreed to not post anything about it over the past year, as there has been a near vacuum of info about him. About the only exception I can recall to that was Pyles talking about Blaze on a FWR show, and indicating that he thought (not sure if it was a guess or based on real info) that Blaze was leaning toward PSU.

Hopefully, he'll pick the good guys.
 

manatree

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We can hope. DT was all-in on CS. In fact he was set to wrestle for Iowa State until CS surprised most people by becoming PSU's coach.

His parents also schlepped him to work with Cael's dad in when they lived in Wyoming before they moved to Ohio.
 

Tom McAndrew

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I don’t think we have landed a kid from Ohio since DT, have we?

Off the top of my head, I think you're correct. Before DT, I think (without checking) that Cam Wade was the last wrestler before DT from Ohio, and his recruitment pre-dates CS at PSU.

Hopefully, @El_Jefe can pipe in on how many prospects from OH, since DT, PSU has recruited. I believe they were involved with a 1 or 2 of the Jordan kids. I believe PSU was involved a bit with Logan Stieber, but I seem to recall Stieber being an early verbal (in terms of where he was in HS) to tOSU, so perhaps they weren't that involved with him. (Again, I really don't recall the details; just some fragments.)
 

GregPickel

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We can hope. DT was all-in on CS. In fact he was set to wrestle for Iowa State until CS surprised most people by becoming PSU's coach.

Wrestling recruiting is not followed, or reported, nearly as closely as football or men's BB. That said, most of the time, hints, leans, etc. leak out about elite wrestlers. Blaze is an exception to this rule. As best as I can tell, he has not offered any tidbits about his thoughts on where he's leaning. It's possible that Willie, or some of the others that follow college wrestling recruiting, have a good idea/know where Blaze will end up. But if they do, they must have agreed to not post anything about it over the past year, as there has been a near vacuum of info about him. About the only exception I can recall to that was Pyles talking about Blaze on a FWR show, and indicating that he thought (not sure if it was a guess or based on real info) that Blaze was leaning toward PSU.

Hopefully, he'll pick the good guys.
Only thing I've ever been able to find about his recruitment is a FLO video from May when he cut his list to six. Nothing since:

 
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coastfan

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Off the top of my head, I think you're correct. Before DT, I think (without checking) that Cam Wade was the last wrestler before DT from Ohio, and his recruitment pre-dates CS at PSU.

Hopefully, @El_Jefe can pipe in on how many prospects from OH, since DT, PSU has recruited. I believe they were involved with a 1 or 2 of the Jordan kids. I believe PSU was involved a bit with Logan Stieber, but I seem to recall Stieber being an early verbal (in terms of where he was in HS) to tOSU, so perhaps they weren't that involved with him. (Again, I really don't recall the details; just some fragments.)
Speaking of David Taylor and Logan Stieber...Here's an oldie but goody.

 

lionlover

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I believe PSU was involved a bit with Logan Stieber, but I seem to recall Stieber being an early verbal (in terms of where he was in HS) to tOSU, so perhaps they weren't that involved with him. (Again, I really don't recall the details; just some fragments.)
Well my friend, as we age, this phenomena becomes more frequent.
 
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El_Jefe

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Oct 11, 2021
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Off the top of my head, I think you're correct. Before DT, I think (without checking) that Cam Wade was the last wrestler before DT from Ohio, and his recruitment pre-dates CS at PSU.

Hopefully, @El_Jefe can pipe in on how many prospects from OH, since DT, PSU has recruited. I believe they were involved with a 1 or 2 of the Jordan kids. I believe PSU was involved a bit with Logan Stieber, but I seem to recall Stieber being an early verbal (in terms of where he was in HS) to tOSU, so perhaps they weren't that involved with him. (Again, I really don't recall the details; just some fragments.)
Sorry for the late response -- I was out of the country on vacation and just got back last night -- Happy Thanksgiving!

Anyway: Cam Wade and Dan Vallimont were both from OH, and overlapping with Taylor. I don't think we've had anyone else from Ohio enroll at PSU until Blaze arrives.

Bo Jordan visited PSU and famously declared that Cael's practices weren't serious enough. I don't recall PSU recruiting MIcah; maybe we did, but it was always a long shot with Bo having gone tan.

We made Carson Khachla's list, but he was widely expected to go Tan.

Cael went hard after Lucas Byrd when he flipped from Maryland, but he chose Illinois. Pretty sure we were his runner-up.

HWT Carter Neves gave a "soft verbal" a couple years ago, that everybody knew at the time meant nothing -- Cael was gonna continue recruiting heavies, and Neves was free to pursue other schools if Cael found someone else. When the twins committed, Neves committed to Stanford -- and when Koll left for Chapel Hill, Neves flipped to Tan Tom. He's now a shirting true freshman.

The only other guy who maybe we dipped a toe in the water for was David Carr. Certainly he's been on very good terms with PSU since enrolling at Iowa State -- but we did not make his finalist list.

Without going thru the rosters, I don't think we've had any Ohio depth guys since Cael arrived.
 

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