Many winter sports ended abruptly due to COVID-19, and wrestling was left in a particularly odd place, having yet to announce All-Americans due to the NCAA Tournament getting shelved.
Ohio State’s Tom Ryan is not ok with that, and it’s anything but an act of selfishness.
He just wants his players recognized for their hard work. A top-five wrestling program in the nation, Ohio State, if Ryan’s concept would have been adopted, would have numerous All-Americans.
“There’s a possibility that you simply do like college football did before there was a playoff: whatever you were ranked in the last ranking, that’s where you finish. If you were ranked 1, you finish the season No. 1; if you were ranked 2, you’re No. 2; if you were ranked 7, you’re No. 7,” he noted on The Eleven Dubcast, an Eleven Warriors podcast.
For Ohio State, that’s like naming them the third-best team in football, although that really wouldn’t do much given the structure of their All-American selections.
It would matter greatly for wrestling. If Ryan’s ways were adopted, the program would have three first-team nominations, Luke Pletcher, Kollin Morre and Sammy Sasso. They’d have a second-team and third-team All-American as well in Kaleb Romero and Ethan Smith respectively.
“If you were ranked from No. 1 to No. 4, you’re considered first-team All-American,” Ryan continued. “If you’re ranked from No. 5 to No. 8, you’re second-team. And 9 to 12, you were third-team.”
Not giving winter athletes another year of eligibility is bad enough, but also not giving them the proper appreciation when they’ve worked their entire life for it is a completely different matter.
Ryan wants that to change, but who knows if he’ll get his way anytime soon.
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