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Straight outta West Virginia, WVU will begin their 2023 season with incoming Matthew Dolan and Erick Brothers.

In 2024, committed Gage Wright will be heading to Virginia Tech.

Recently committed Luca Felix is destined to NC State.

What are your thoughts?

Don’t forget Dom Parker from University to WVU.

Add to the list of D1 commitments: Patrick Jackson of Spring Mills to Lock Haven.

WVU is not able to attract enough of the really, really good in-state wrestlers. ( Humphreys, Amos, Raike , Wright for example).

Doyablameme? wrote:WVU is not able to attract enough of the really, really good in-state wrestlers. ( Humphreys, Amos, Raike , Wright for example).

Maybe Coach Flynn should start allowing the team to hang out with Bob Huggins a little more often, he seems to know how to have a good time.

Jon Perkins wrote:

Doyablameme? wrote:WVU is not able to attract enough of the really, really good in-state wrestlers. ( Humphreys, Amos, Raike , Wright for example).

Maybe Coach Flynn should start allowing the team to hang out with Bob Huggins a little more often, he seems to know how to have a good time.

I'm guessing you didn't mean to and weren't thinking what you were actually saying, but is that a slam on the 4 wrestlers mentioned, because I'm not sure how else to take it? If not one would think a retraction would be in order.

KDunbar wrote:

Jon Perkins wrote:

Doyablameme? wrote:WVU is not able to attract enough of the really, really good in-state wrestlers. ( Humphreys, Amos, Raike , Wright for example).

Maybe Coach Flynn should start allowing the team to hang out with Bob Huggins a little more often, he seems to know how to have a good time.

I'm guessing you didn't mean to and weren't thinking what you were actually saying, but is that a slam on the 4 wrestlers mentioned, because I'm not sure how else to take it? If not one would think a retraction would be in order.

No, this was not to meant offensive to any of those wrestlers whatsoever. It was my attempt at humor, implying that if the Coach Flynn would allow the team to hang out with a big-time partier like Bob Huggins it would attract a lot more wrestlers not only from WV but from other states as well.

The truth is, this is the exact reason why at least two of the mentioned wrestlers chose other schools over WVU. I know for a fact that at least two of these individuals did not want to be around that atmosphere so they could put more effort into their studies and would not have the distractions and temptations. I think the bigger issue is that WV doesn't turn out the number of quality athletes to be able to compete on a D1 level. Most of the high school wrestlers cannot compete on that kind of a national level. If the state could produce four or five Division 1 wrestlers each year and WVU obtained two of them on a yearly basis, then it might give other graduates more incentive to go and compete with their former teammates or rivals.

NOTE: I know that there are several wrestlers that go to D1 schools, I am talking about the kind of athletes like Peyton Hall, Josh Humphries, Braxton
Amos, and Gage Wright. These guys were/are on a different level than the rest of the state.

Do I wish more of these great WV wrestlers stayed home and went to WVU? Of course I do. However, realistically a percentage will go elsewhere simply because they desire to go elsewhere. Some of that is due to WVUs limited success (for instance you cannot say with Gage Wright that VT is not a better option when it comes to prestige of program), and I am not defending their successes with this post. What I am defending is these are not weight classes of need for WVU. Patrick Jackson is in the same ball park weight as income Ty Waters, Gage Wright is in the same ball park weights as 2024 commit as Rune Lawrence (and they currently have WV standout Ian Bush in that upper weight category that was just a redshirt freshman).

Again while I wish every wrestler from WV would attend WVU it is unrealistic. And with limited scholarship dollars it makes little sense to recruit on top of high caliber incomers that committed prior to the WV kids making any decisions. This isnt an answer to all of the lost recruits (Raike to Ohio U. over WVU was odd to me). However, the answer isnt as easy as recruit WV kids harder or even WV kids desiring to go to WVU.

Pottstd wrote:Do I wish more of these great WV wrestlers stayed home and went to WVU? Of course I do. However, realistically a percentage will go elsewhere simply because they desire to go elsewhere. Some of that is due to WVUs limited success (for instance you cannot say with Gage Wright that VT is not a better option when it comes to prestige of program), and I am not defending their successes with this post. What I am defending is these are not weight classes of need for WVU. Patrick Jackson is in the same ball park weight as income Ty Waters, Gage Wright is in the same ball park weights as 2024 commit as Rune Lawrence (and they currently have WV standout Ian Bush in that upper weight category that was just a redshirt freshman).

Again while I wish every wrestler from WV would attend WVU it is unrealistic. And with limited scholarship dollars it makes little sense to recruit on top of high caliber incomers that committed prior to the WV kids making any decisions. This isnt an answer to all of the lost recruits (Raike to Ohio U. over WVU was odd to me). However, the answer isnt as easy as recruit WV kids harder or even WV kids desiring to go to WVU.

I believe Patrick Jackson defeated one of WVU's top recruits at Super 32 last fall. Upon this happening, I contacted my friend "TrueSouthFanInMartinsburgAKASpringMillsHood". He indicated that WVU had not been in contact with Jackson. This was probably fake news.

Another friend of mine, "TrueSouthFanOnThePatriotsClubWall" told me WVU recruited Gage Wright pretty hard. This also could have been fake news.

In other news....................that is not fake, somebody at some school needs to nail down Matthew Mcafee. He has the killer instinct to scrap out wins at all levels. He has the toughness to survive D1 practices, win matches and pick up some bonus points here and there.

You can go back and review his performance at last season's Super 32. He didn't place, but hundreds of wrestlers didn't place. He had an early tough draw and lost to the eventual third place winner. The eventual third place wrestler bonused everybody except Mcafee. Mcafee also hurt the said opponent and required him to take injury time. Somebody will figure all this out.

Are you running an Athletic Agency out of the Bear Tracks Head Quarters, trying to get these WV guys recruited and NIL deals? Yes, it is true that Patrick Jackson beat Shawn Taylor, but it was a less than impressive match by either guy. There was exactly one meaningful offensive takedown attempt in the entire match taken by Shawn Taylor and the match was won in the UTB period on a questionable locked hands call. This is the exact reason why they use numbers to keep score and don't draw pictures because it was not pretty. In the end Mr. Jackson did win the match and advanced in the tournament and that is all that matters. I wish him the best of luck at Lock Haven, this mid-level team has a really good recruiting class coming in along with a couple of good transfers.

Now lets get to Mathew McAfee and his two losses. His first match was against a Top 10 guy committed to Penn State. He did get bonused in the match because he lost 9-0. His second loss was against a pretty darn good TN state champion. In both matches Mr. McAfee attempted one meaningful takedown and earned 1 escape point. He has trouble coming off the bottom and he knows it because in both matches when it was his choice he chose to start in the neutral position. When he is in the offensive top position, he can hold the better guys down for a while but was not close to getting any nearfall points and eventually gave up escape points in both matches. In both matches he did stay in good position at all times and did not give up any easy points, he just got beat by better wrestlers on that day. He is a good wrestler and will continue to wrestle in college somewhere, I am just not sure that it will be at the D1 level. And for what it is worth, I did see him on a recruiting trip at WVU last fall when they held their wrestle offs.

Jon Perkins wrote:Are you running an Athletic Agency out of the Bear Tracks Head Quarters, trying to get these WV guys recruited and NIL deals? Yes, it is true that Patrick Jackson beat Shawn Taylor, but it was a less than impressive match by either guy. There was exactly one meaningful offensive takedown attempt in the entire match taken by Shawn Taylor and the match was won in the UTB period on a questionable locked hands call. This is the exact reason why they use numbers to keep score and don't draw pictures because it was not pretty. In the end Mr. Jackson did win the match and advanced in the tournament and that is all that matters. I wish him the best of luck at Lock Haven, this mid-level team has a really good recruiting class coming in along with a couple of good transfers.

Now lets get to Mathew McAfee and his two losses. His first match was against a Top 10 guy committed to Penn State. He did get bonused in the match because he lost 9-0. His second loss was against a pretty darn good TN state champion. In both matches Mr. McAfee attempted one meaningful takedown and earned 1 escape point. He has trouble coming off the bottom and he knows it because in both matches when it was his choice he chose to start in the neutral position. When he is in the offensive top position, he can hold the better guys down for a while but was not close to getting any nearfall points and eventually gave up escape points in both matches. In both matches he did stay in good position at all times and did not give up any easy points, he just got beat by better wrestlers on that day. He is a good wrestler and will continue to wrestle in college somewhere, I am just not sure that it will be at the D1 level. And for what it is worth, I did see him on a recruiting trip at WVU last fall when they held their wrestle offs.

Opinions vary. When you are behind, going neutral puts you in better position to score 2, 4 or 5 points.

Bear Tracks Headquarters will be launching a new initiative soon.

I apologize to anyone that I may have offended

I know when I was graduating high school, I wanted to get away and see the world, not stay in my home state/area. Can’t hold that against any kid wanting to get away (IMO)