By Jordan Hansen
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Iowa and Penn State have wrestled a dual against one another for the last 33 years.
This season, they won’t.
There isn’t a good reason for it, either. While the Big Ten did add two more teams in Rutgers and Maryland, meets with those historically weak teams shouldn’t come before an Iowa-Penn State dual.
If so, then there is something wrong with the conference.
Iowa has been involved in 24 of the top 25 dual crowds in NCAA history and has led the nation in attendance for the last nine years. The Nittany Lions haven’t done so shabbily, either, and because current Penn State head coach Cael Sanderson took over in 2010, duals between Iowa and Penn State have averaged 11,150 spectators.
As a point of reference, Iowa State had 14,216 spectators in six home meets last season.
There are two fan bases who love wrestling more than anyone else, and they’re at Iowa and Penn State. A deep culture of prep wrestling is noticeable in both states, and it translates to love for the sport at a college level.
Wrestling is a sport that sometimes struggles to gain a following, and nothing good comes from simply not having one of the marquee rivalries.
What, then, is the point of not permanently scheduling against one another each season?
Iowa’s wrestling schedule for next season likely won’t be released until next summer, but Sanderson and Iowa head coach Tom Brands shouldn’t wait that long to take this issue straight to the league office.
There are protected rivalries in football, and there’s no reason the same couldn’t happen in wrestling.
If the two coaches do decide to barge into the league office, it wouldn’t be the first time the pair worked together for the benefit of the rivalry. In September 2013, Sanderson tweeted at Brands that something was missing from his schedule. Iowa and Penn State weren’t on each other’s calendar, and they wanted to do something about it.
The ensuing back-and-fourth eventually led to a nonconference dual between the two schools.
Rumor has it they tried to do the same thing this year but couldn’t get the dates to work. Which, of course, is understandable. Both Bryce-Jordan Arena (where Penn State has its big meets) and Carver-Hawkeye are not the sole property of the wrestling teams. Basketball, gymnastics, and other events also need time in the facilities. Of course, if Penn State and Iowa were officially scheduled, this wouldn’t be an issue.
After all, the Big Ten is responsible for each sport’s conference slate, and it worked for the most part since 1982.
Rivalries are fairly rare in wrestling. Iowa has solid ones with Oklahoma State and Iowa State, but the one with Penn State is something different. It’s a conference dual against wrestlers who will probably see each other again at the Big Tens and perhaps nationals.
It’s a recruiting tool. It’s a battle between two of the best programs in college wrestling. It’s entertaining. It’s exciting. It’s fun.
And it shouldn’t go away.
