Fire now and risk losing our best two recruiting classes in the last decade. Unless you can get a big time coach to fill the void, which is highly unlikely, you have to give him 3 years to see these classes come to fruition.
Poll: KJ's Status
- Thread starter crablegs
- Start date
This year's recruiting class is literally the only thing he can cling to at this point.
He finally realized he has to recruit to win at this level. And we have to give it a chance because we arent going to get anyone better to lead this team. I'm sorry but guys like Gabe Quean and Larson were never going to get us back to the level this program SHOULD be at. He got lucky with Mike Moreno and Kyven as legacy guys. But other than that it has been a complete failure so I completely understand why nearly everyone voted the way they voted in this poll. But KJ has finally put a couple dang good recruiting classes together and to cut ties with KJ now would not be smart IMO. And really, what do we have to lose by waiting a few years?
I haven't really followed wrestling a ton because of the struggles, but going to school with both Mike and Gabe, there isn't really a talent difference. Gabe has had injury issues which have hurt, but he should be better than he has been. IMO that is on coaching.
I agree, it really is too bad the luck that Gabe has had with injuries. Even so, I don't remember Gabe and Mike being coveted high school recruits. My point is that KJ appears to have finally accepted that he cant just develop "3 star" guys into national champs. You need blue chips.
I surely don't know much about wrestling recruiting but these are what they did in high school
Gabe
Mike
Mike isn't showing his description from when he wrestled since he is now a GA.
Whoa, well I was wrong there. Regardless, those recruits appear to have been few and far between for KJ throughout much of his 8 years here. A couple of the guys that follow recruiting more closely than I do could probably speak on this.
I'm with you on that. However where I'm not on board is that guys like Larson and Pestano who weren't great recruits but develop in to solid, if not elite, contributors should be the rule, not the exception. If the whole season was just the weekend of the NCAA tournament Jackson would be one of the best coaches in the country. But the season is a lot more than that. And to be honest I think a lot of people have expectations for the program that no coach could meet. But "not going 1-3 against teams that average less than 1 ranked wrestler per school while you have multiple guys missing weight, and forfeiting multiple matches, and pulling a redshirt because you did a bad job managing your lineup and deciding who to bring on road trips" is not a high expectation.
Like, I'll never say "Iowa State should never lose to team X" because there are lots of preconcieved notions about what teams are good and what teams are bad that don't always match up with reality. But I'm 100% comfortable saying "Iowa State should never lose to any team that has 0 or 1 ranked wrestler in the lineup". And we've done that 3 times this season.
D1collegewrestling (the only place I know of that keeps old recruiting rankings posted) had Gabe as #47 and Mike as #60. So I'd say Mike overperformed his recruiting ranking and Gabe was on track to more or less meet it until he got hurt.
No, crablegs is just here because they've been rooting for Jackson to fail since he was hired. I'm not voting in their poll.
I fully understand why Jackson can pull in elite recruits. He can go in to the living room of a top ranked guy and honestly say that he can turn them in to an NCAA champion. The problem is he has to be the coach of a full wrestling room, not just a couple of elite guys.
There is more behind the scenes that what the casual fan knows. Some of the stuff I hear, makes the decision clear, but some of the stuff I hear doesn't make any sense. But be cautious of making judgement based off assumptions.
As far as forfeits and missing weights, a team can only travel with 13 or 14 guys and when on a 2 meet weekend sometimes the best plans don't work out.
I know Gabe and Meeks were always traveling. I know with Harrington and Downey both injured, it makes a mess at 184 & 197. I do think Teague is a 197 pounder, not 184.
I don't think there was any doubt in the coaches mind that Simmons was not going to make 125 for the 1st dual especially. I do hear other things that muddy the picture.
I think we are going to have some hiccup with Dane at 165 from time to time. That has to be brutal both physically and mentally and cudos to him for doing it. But who else do we have at 165? It was DiBlasi and he is trying to secure 157 and I think that is the right move. Not sure what is up with Breitenbach. I assume injured.
Also do not know if Harrington or Downey traveled with the team.
As far as forfeits and missing weights, a team can only travel with 13 or 14 guys and when on a 2 meet weekend sometimes the best plans don't work out.
I know Gabe and Meeks were always traveling. I know with Harrington and Downey both injured, it makes a mess at 184 & 197. I do think Teague is a 197 pounder, not 184.
I don't think there was any doubt in the coaches mind that Simmons was not going to make 125 for the 1st dual especially. I do hear other things that muddy the picture.
I think we are going to have some hiccup with Dane at 165 from time to time. That has to be brutal both physically and mentally and cudos to him for doing it. But who else do we have at 165? It was DiBlasi and he is trying to secure 157 and I think that is the right move. Not sure what is up with Breitenbach. I assume injured.
Also do not know if Harrington or Downey traveled with the team.
This is an outright lie. It's his 8th year and I gave him a good 5-6 before becoming upset. I think 7 is long enough when you keep trending in the wrong direction.
This is not KJs first good recruiting class. He has had several good classes with top recruits in them. Sure, this is the best yet, but the track record is not good at developing top recruits.
2010: #6 class. 2 top 50 p4p recruits (Finch, Cozart) 0 AAs from those 2
2012: #11 class. 3 top 50 p4p recruits (Gabe Moreno, Destin McCauley, John Meeks) - 0 AAs out of those 3
2014: #12 class. 2 top 50 p4p recruits (Boston, Rodriguez-Spencer) Still early in their career but neither can even make the lineup. Does not look promising.
2016: #5 class. This class was ranked #5 overall, but still had only 2 top 50 wrestlers. Previous results for developing these guys doesn't look promising for Mr. Colbray or Storr. KJ already through Colbray to the wolves up a weight in his first ever match. Who knows if he'll ever bounce back.
2017: best class yet, possibly #1. What makes you think they'll fare any better then all the rest of the top recruits from the KJ era.
Well you should take kindly to my opinion then since I'm a wrestling fan. Attended every ISU home dual since I moved to the area 4 years ago. One of the best moments and loudest I've ever cheered at a wrestling event is when Moreno stuck Jordan. I'm as much of an ISU fan as an Iowa one.
For an ISU fan you sure spend a lot of time **** talking ISU wrestling over on Hawkeye Report, where you use words like "we" and "us" a lot to describe the Hawks.
