Keegan O'Toole explains how losses to David Carr led to second national title

Keegan O’Toole captured his second national title for Missouri, this time against Iowa State’s David Carr.

But recently revealed his mentality through the back half of the season, which included two losses to Carr, a 2021 national champion at 157 pounds. Up at 165, Carr took down O’Toole in a regular season matchup and the Big 12 finals.

In an exclusive conversation with On3, O’Toole opened up about the adversity and mental improvements he went through to finally beat Carr for his second national title.

“I found myself making such large gains in my wrestling, my faith and my mental game,” O’Toole said of the time between his second loss to Carr and the national finals. “In wrestling, far more jumps in that month and a half than I did probably in the past four or five months of the season prior to that. So that was so important to me. I’m so happy because I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

O’Toole agreed it was as simple as fighting through adversity, saying he and other champions should go through something like that.

“100% and I think when you look historically at great champions of sports, I think that all of them, there’s not one person who never had a loss, you know, regardless of what their professional career record is,” O’Toole said. “But everyone’s taken loss at some point. I think what separates great champions from average or you know, even people who only maybe reach the top once and then they fall off, is that adversity and knowing that if you’ve made it there one time, you don’t have it figured out. That was a big mistake that I, in the beginning of the year, why I stumbled so hard. Not only losing, but winning close matches that I felt like shouldn’t be close and going through mental struggles in practice, and outside of the wrestling room.

“But it was thinking I thought that I was like, Oh, I know what the formula is. I know what I need to do. But then I got slapped in the face with so many different challenges that I hadn’t encountered yet. That came along with being a national champion. And so that was super important for me to learn.” 

Basically, if O’Toole didn’t face adversity, he might’ve been a one-and-done champion for Missouri.

“If you don’t have that adversity, you’re never going to be great in my opinion,” O’Toole said. “And also you have to be able to handle it right. If you just start playing the blame game and all like this is unfair. You know, my back was hurting this day or like you know, I was tired, I didn’t eat enough, granted those may be small factors, but overall it’s like, no, I gotta take ownership for my own faults, my own mistakes.

“It’s like, am I going to be open to listening to the people that are willing to help me and really let what they’re telling me sink in and make these changes? Because if not, then I’m just going to be where I am. And I thought that I did a very good job of that because I was just checking them out, trying to soak up everything and try to really dig down deep and it was tough. Like I had a lot of practices where I almost started crying. You know, it’s never easy, but those are the things that make you a better man.”

CLICK HERE to subscribe to the On3 YouTube channel today for all of the latest news on college football, recruiting, NIL, more!