Videos: John Smith, Wrestlers Preview Upcoming Season

Originally published at: Videos: John Smith, Wrestlers Preview Upcoming Season | Pistols Firing

Smith spoke for a half an hour Wednesday.

So nice to always be able to hear John Smith’s down to earth candor about his team.
Tells like it is. It’s scary when he stated very clearly what we can expect this coming season. A team needing to develop in order to be successful. Yikes! No real surprise there, especially with the super tough schedule, but we were hoping to have more success than last season. But it is what it is, to use a cliche’.
We all wondered toward the end of the season what could explain Whittlake’s drop off in performance other than his injuries. Now we know. He was at too low of a weight so he was dehydrated and ran out of gas in those matches. 184 will require ranking matches since Hass is really good, but Whittlake at a more reasonable weight might also be good. Have to feel sorry for Surber again. Last season he was always the underdog because of his smaller size. Now he has to go against two of the top guys at 197. It won’t be pretty, but he’s still young and we’ll see what he turns into in a few years from now. Relieved to hear Carter Young has hit the weights, he looked so frail last season, and not strong enough to get off bottom.
We could hear the urgency in coach Smith’s voice about what is needed to be able to compete for all the marbles. That’s why I said, yikes!
But three really enjoyable and informative interviews. I have to make sure that I remember to tune into the John Smith radio show each week once the season starts. Great to hear him comment on each match during the season. And he was right on talking about Daton Fix needing to show more offense against strong competition, because we have seen that need each season so far. He’s been too cautious against guys who are his equal in talent, and then when it’s too late in the match, he becomes more aggressive when he has less energy to work with.
So the take away from John Smith is that this will be a work in progress team. I guess there just was not much available talent via the portal for him to cover the 2 weakest weights. I really liked John Smith saying that in order to win, Cowboys have to be able to win at every weight. I’ve been stating that for a number of years, complaining that we go into a season with a few super stars and too many weak weights. But, I guess every team is like that, except for PSU. I wonder if we might see Gfeller challenge Sheets for a starting spot? I’ve seen potential in Sheets, but he’s never reached that potential so far. Looking forward to see Voinovich in some matches. Another truism from the coach, you build attendance by winning home duals. Michigan on the schedule, wow. But that’s what we should shoot for. Having more Big 10 duals, not just Iowa and Minnesota each season. We need to go against Ohio State once in awhile.