Penn State wrestling media day takeaways: RBY's last ride, Cael Sanderson on lineup questions, more
Penn State wrestling starts its 2021-2022 season this coming Saturday at the Journeymen Duals in Manheim, Pa.
Before that, the team held its annual media day, via ZOOM, prior to the competition getting underway.
Head coach Cael Sanderson and the Nittany Lions’ four returning national champions — Nick Lee, Roman Bravo-Young, Aaron Brooks, and Carter Starocci — spoke with reporters on Monday.
Here are the top eight takeaways from those conversations.
1. Sanderson talks Penn State lineup questions
Many Penn State wrestling fans were hopeful that head coach Cael Sanderson would open up his bag of secrets and make definitive statements about various lineup questions.
Those who have long followed the Nittany Lions and their leader, however, knew that probably was not going to happen. And, for the most part, it didn’t.
“I’m not gonna specifically say who’s starting and who’s not,” Sanderson said. “Some of the weight classes, obviously, you know, just from returning starters, and guys that were All-Americans and national champions from last year.”
What about the ones we don’t know about?
“[125 pounds] is a little bit more competitive this year, I’d say. [149 pounds] is Beau Bartlett. [157 pounds] is a weight that’s a little bit more competitive. [165 pounds is] also, and then kind of the usual suspects at the rest of the weights.
“Some of those weights, we’ll kind of play with that as we kind of go along,. It’s still November, obviously, and we’ve got a long but exciting season ahead. So, we’ll kind of work through the lineup issues as we go along here.”
2. Diving deeper on Penn State at 125
Robbie Howard, who wrestled for Penn State at 125 pounds last year, is not ready to go yet after offseason surgery. Where will the Nittany Lions turn?
A battle continues at that spot, and probably will for quite some time.
“You got Baylor [Shunk],” Sanderson said. “[Jake] Campbell was a transfer from Bucknell. [Brandon] Meredith has been working his way back to 125. Obviously Robert Howard. Marco Vespa is a freshman. We got some freshmen in there, you know, Gary Steen.
“That’s a good chunk of guys trying to prepare and be the person at that weight class.”
3. Portal possibilities?
Sanderson was also asked if a midseason transfer portal addition could help address the 125-pound spot.
“Well, I think every program probably checks the transfer portal every day,” he said. “Right? So I mean, I would never, or anybody, I don’t think, would ever say that, you know, the transfer portal was not an option. But, you do what you can with what you have. Right now, we’ve got some kids that are working hard, and are looking forward to competing, and some of them haven’t competed in a long time, even last year, some of these kids didn’t get matches in for whatever reasons.
“We’re excited to see how they do, and we’re going to make the most of it. What I do know is the kids that we wrestle are going to give their best effort, and that’s what you want.”
4. Lee looks to be staying put
There was lots of chatter this offseason about Nick Lee possibly bumping up from 141 pounds to 149. From the sounds of it, those conversations hardly took off, though.
“I mean, it’s obviously up in the air, right?” Lee said. “But, you know, I’m a 41 pounder. Kind of [at the] beginning of the year, we floated it, but just where my weight was, I don’t think I was gonna be 49.
“So, I think it’s always for the most part been 41, aside from, you know, ‘Hey, do you want to go 49?’ ‘Ah, maybe,’ in the summer but never really got into too deep of a discussion about it.”
5. Penn State excited for Journeymen, National Collegiate Duals
The season begins this coming Saturday when Penn State takes on both Sacred Heart and Oregon State at the Journeymen Duals at the Spooky Nook Sports Complex in Manheim. Later this year, the Nittany Lions will also travel to the National Collegiate Duals in Florida. They are expected to wrestle at least three matches there, if not more, Dec. 20-21.
“Just looking for matches, and it’s fun to kind of change things up a little bit and see some new faces,” Sanderson said. “We’ll see Oregon State, and then obviously, Sacred Heart on Saturday, two teams that we we don’t see a lot.
“I know we’re going to wrestle some really marquee dual meets in Florida, and that’s something that we’re looking forward to. We try to get some kind of a big event that the student-athletes look forward to around that Christmas time, and this makes a lot of sense. So, we’re excited to go give it a shot.”
6. RBY’s last ride at Penn State
Roman Bravo-Young believes this will be his final college wrestling season, even if he could return for another one thanks to the free year of eligibility the NCAA gave all athletes because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Yeah, I’m thinking this is my last year,” Bravo-Young said. “We’ll play by ear, though.”
The defending 133-pound NCAA champ later tweeted that this season is his “last ride”.
Bravo-Young, who overcame a bout with MRSA, is focused on winning another national title.
“He’s good to go, and a guy like Roman, he’s training year-round,” Sanderson said. “He’s another guy that you got to kind of get him to slow down because he’s training all the time. If you come in on a Sunday night, it’s not an unusual thing to see him in there getting extra work. He’s a very hard-working kid.
“I don’t think the timing of it would be that big of a deal. If not for social media, it’s not something people would be aware of. He’s a tough young man, and he’s firing on all cylinders.”
Added RBY:
“It was pretty intense. I spent a couple of nights in the hospital, but it only set me back for like, three, four weeks. It’s just scary, you know, if you don’t take the right, proper hygiene after practice and stuff, it could be deadly. But, I learned a lot. It was definitely a scary time.”
7. Dean enters the mix
Penn State brought Cornell transfer Max Dean into the program this offseason. How did that come to be?
“Yeah, that was a situation where, I think they were just leaving where they were and, and he was restricted in the transfer portal,” Sanderson said. “So, we didn’t know there was any interest in Penn State. I got a text from Coach Gabe Dean, and we talked, and he said Penn State is one of the programs he’d be interested in, and I’d say the rest is history.”
A competition is underway now between Dean and Max Beard for the starting job at 197 pounds.
“Max is just a really, really good dude, and works really hard, brings a lot to the table, a lot to the team,” Sanderson said. “Michael Beard has definitely elevated his game, which I think is just a blessing for both of those guys, to have that competition and just having to compete at a higher level in practice even just to make the team, having two of the best guys in the country.
“Obviously, we got some wrestling to do there, and we’ll see how things play out throughout the year. But, we’re very confident and comfortable with both Max and Mike at this point.”
8. Quotes of the day, part 1
“This summer was a blessing being able to travel with David and being at the Olympic games. That’s somewhere I envision myself, so to see how the training works and going to Toyko was a great blessing for me, and I got a lot better at wrestling. It was a good summer.”
—Aaron Brooks on working with David Taylor at the Olympics.
“It was a good offseason. I was out in Toyko with Franklin Gomez and coaching with team Puerto Rico, and I got to learn from those guys, and when we go to Toyko, I was with Team USA, in the village, so I was writing notes and visualizing every step of the way. I’ve also been doing my own training camp and focusing on my mind and just being free when I wrestle. I want to win really bad but focus on having fun, because having fun will lead to wrestling free, and when you wrestle free, that’s when you’ll dominate guys. I put in all the work that is needed.”
—Carter Starocci on the work he put in during the offseason.
9. Quotes of the day, part two
“I think our team is really hungry, just with everything, the pandemic, last year’s results, our team has been working hard. Seeing the work these guys are putting in is really motivating for me. I try to lead by example. We’re blessed to be able to come do this, so for me as a leader, I think for me, my actions, coming in with a smile, and being myself, I’d say that way. If guys need me, they can reach out. I just want to be that guy on the team.”
—Brooks on being a leader and the team’s outlook this season.
“He has a lot of potential, and I see a lot of me in him. He really wants to achieve all of his goals and he’s in the room constantly.I believe he will be a national champ.”
—Starocci on freshman Alex Facundo.
“I think you got a lot of fresh faces coming in as well, just like younger wrestlers that haven’t really been there yet, and that could be really cool, I think. I think one factor that you got to throw in there is just kind of like a fatigue just from the last couple years, especially with older wrestlers. So, you get some young freshmen or even, you know, redshirt freshmen, sophomores coming in from some different programs that could really shake things up. So, it’ll be exciting.”
–Nick Lee on why this year will still be exciting in college wrestling even though all 10 national champs are back.
10. Final thoughts
Another wrestling season is finally here, and Blue-White Illustrated will have continuing coverage all season long, starting with this weekend’s tournament.
“I feel guys on our team, [and] I don’t know what it is, I think maybe us getting four champs last year kind of put some energy into these guys’ hearts a little bit,” Starocci said. “I kind of feel, as guys on this team, they kind of believe a little more, and they believe we’re the best, and they believe we’re supposed to win. Last year, we kind of still had that from a lot of guys, but I kind of felt like some guys were just kind of going through the motions and things like that. But, that’s not the case anymore.
“I feel our team is really good, and obviously we’re going to get a lot better as the season carries on. We’re a very young team. We have a lot of solid freshmen. I think we’re going to keep getting better every single day. As matches go on, we get better. You see other teams, they start to get worse, and we just keep getting better. That’s what’s it’s going to be. It’s the same story every year. We’re going to win the national title, and we’re going to carry on on our journey.”
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