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Next up: the exploits of Okie Lite's table tennis program.
December 2, 2007
100 times better than OU
Justin Wilmeth
STILLWATER – It's always big to have the all-time edge in a series against a major rival.
And in the case of the Oklahoma State wrestling program, having a 100-dual advantage over a top-five program historically means a lot. Especially when that top-five program is Bedlam rival Oklahoma.
In front of 4,144 fans at Gallagher-Iba Arena on Sunday afternoon, the Cowboys (5-0) won Bedlam for the 124th time, 21-9, making the advantage over the Sooners an even 100 dual meets. The all-time series now stands at 124-24-9. It's not like the Sooners have a bad wrestling program – after all, OU has seven national les to its credit – it's just that the Cowboys have just that much of a better one. Since 1995, the Cowboys are 25-0-1 against the Sooners, even while the Sooners won two Big 12 les during that period.
Those historical figures aren't lost to current members of the Cowboy program, who take pride in the dominance over a solid Sooners program.
"It means a ton to me," 157-pounder Newly McSpadden said. "I remember coming whenever I was little and watching this dual stuff and it's still a battle every time. But having this advantage, I feel that they come to try and keep it close and win a close one. They know that they've got to keep it close and we need to open it up and we have a chance to."
A departure from the recent past, this installment of Bedlam was pretty mundane. The Cowboys jumped out to a quick 9-0 advantage on the team scoreboard with wins in the first three weight classes, which included a 1-0 win by No. 2 Coleman Scott at 113 pounds and a 9-4 win by No. 4 Nathan Morgan at 141 pounds.
From there, OSU slowly built up a commanding lead over the Sooners (4-1), who only won three matches in the dual. Even so, Cowboy head coach John Smith wanted to see more out of his group.
"Those four Northeast Duals, three of them weren't really a test, Hofstra was," Smith said. "I thought we did a little bit of the minimum in the first periods, I thought we let it just click away without any real offense. All of a sudden, you're in a tough match. I guess the one positive I can take from this match other than winning is when it was time to pick up an important takedown, we got it. I'm looking at 57, I'm looking at 165, those particular weight classes where they went scoreless in the first, we broke it open, even at heavyweight picking up an important takedown."
While the team victory was never really in doubt for OSU, there were some exciting individual matches toward the end of the dual, including an upset at 165 pounds, where Jake Dieffenbach posted a 3-2 decision over No. 16 Max Dean of the Sooners. That was the first time Dieffenbach competed for the Cowboys on the orange mat inside Gallagher-Iba. He is a former two-time NAIA champion from Lindenwood University, who transferred to OSU to go to graduate school and use his final year of eligibility with the Pokes.
"It was a good win for (Dieffenbach)," Smith said. "I was pleased with the fact he did get a little more aggressive to pick up that takedown in the second. I didn't like him shutting it down a bit, but that was an important win for him and make no mistake, the OU wrestler transferred from Indiana, won three matches and lost two at the NCAA Championships, a top 10-12 kid in the county, so it was against a quality opponent too."
While the Cowboys won the overall dual, they didn't come out strong in the first period. Only four of the ten Cowboy wrestlers managed to score takedowns in the first period, with only five scoring points of any kind in the first frame.
"I want more, as far as when the whistle blows," Smith said. "It's not that I'm just that demanding, it's that I understand what this team is going to have to do to be successful, or at least I think I know. It's just not enough in this particular dual meet, it wasn't enough in some of those early periods. Especially the first. You set the pace. You've got to hit people in the nose and keep hitting them.
"I thought we had two or three wrestlers – including (Jake) Rosholt – out there not wanting to make a mistake rather than taking an at ude of 'I'm going to beat this guy, and I can beat him bad and if I get taken down one time I can still beat him bad.' I think it's a matter of us dropping our level, coming down to the level we're competing against. I'm not taking anything away from the OU wrestlers, they did a good job of what they needed to do to give themselves a shot to win. Overall, we'll take a win for now and we'll have to get a lot better before next Sunday with maybe the best team Penn State's ever had."
The Nittany Lions are the next challenge for the Cowboys. That dual is set for a 2 p.m. start next Sunday.
Next up: the exploits of Okie Lite's table tennis program.
It's much like OSU is to OU in football....not much of a rivalry due to one teams dominance.
OSU has pretty much owned wrestling in the Big 8/Big 12.
you've got to be kidding...
And this joker has blocked MY posts?
More Olympians than any other school in the Big Twelve, with 6334 NCAA Team Championships; 132 NCAA Individual Champions
The winningest program in College Athletics
It ranks right up there with Notre Dame football and UCLA basketball. Few schools in the nation have a tradition in any sport as strong as the one Oklahoma State has built in wrestling. That tradition began in 1916 when Edward Clark Gallagher, one of the men for whom Gallagher-Iba Arena is named, first took the reins of the Oklahoma A&M wrestling team and guided the Aggies on a rapid march to national prominence, leading them to their first NAAU le in 1925.
In 1928, the NCAA sponsored its first national tournament, and A&M shifted its emphasis toward winning that meet. Oklahoma State won the first NCAA wrestling championship and has won 32 such trophies since — more than any other school in the country. The Cowboys have won 912 dual meets, lost only 91 and tied 20 in 91 years of varsity compe ion. O-State clinched or shared an impressive 25 Big Eight les out of a possible 38 while a member of the league from 1958 to 1996. Since joining the Big 12 in 1996, OSU has claimed seven of the nine les. In the early years under coach Gallagher, the Oklahoma A&M squads won seven NAAU les, six Southwest Conference les and four Missouri Valley Conference les.
Coach Gallagher passed away with pneumonia in 1940, leaving a legacy of 11 team championships behind, the most of any OSU coach, but his absence did not mean a decline in O-State’s wrestling fortunes. Six other coaches have worked hard to keep OSU at the top of the national wrestling charts. Art Griffith, the successful mentor at Tulsa (Okla.) Central High School, succeeded Gallagher in 1941 and captured two straight national les before the war forced the Aggies to take three years off from the mat. Griffith resumed his winning ways in 1946, taking six more championships in his remaining 11 years of coaching.
A young Myron Roderick was named head coach in 1957, taking over for Griffith, who resigned due to health reasons. At 23, Roderick became the youngest coach to win a national collegiate championship when his 1958 Cowboys won the first of seven for him. He stepped down in 1970 and took an executive position with the U.S. Wrestling Federation, making way for former Stillwater (Okla.) High School coach Tommy Chesbro, who captured eight Big Eight les and a single NCAA championship in 15 years. From 1985 to 1991, Joe Seay, formerly at Cal State-Bakersfield, had five conference team champions and two national les.
In 1993, a new era began as John Smith became the seventh head coach in Oklahoma State school history. In his first full year on the job, coach Smith once again led the Cowboys to the le, claiming OSU’s 30th NCAA national championship. Smith has now led the Cowboys to the last three team les, and they now have 34 championships. That’s more national les than any other school has in any other sport. During the remarkable history of OSU wrestling, unbeaten streaks of 70 (1921-32 under Gallagher), 73 (1996-2000 under Smith), 76 (1937-51 under Gallagher and Griffith) and 84 (1959-66 under Roderick) duals were reeled off by the Cowboys.
SUMMARY OF NCAA CHAMPIONS
Eighty Oklahoma State wrestlers have won 132 individual NCAA championships. The Cowboys tied an NCAA record by crowning five individual champions in 2005. Six other times in the NCAA, the Cowboys produced four individual champions in eight possible weights, an unparalleled record (There are now 10 weight divisions in NCAA compe ion). OSU has finished first as a team 34 times in the 75 years the NCAA Championships have been held, including the tie in 1933. The NCAA did not keep team points in 1928 and 1930-33; therefore, the team championships are considered “unofficial” by the governing body during those years. The Cowboys have finished second 11 times and third 11 times. At least one individual champion has been from Oklahoma State in 61 of the 75 NCAA tournaments.
participants and 25 medals. A Cowboy has wrestled in every Olympic
Games since 1924, winning 17 medals which is higher than 33 of the 51
countries that have produced a medalist. This includes Yojiro Uetake, a 3-time NCAA Champion at OSU, who won Gold for his native Japan in 1964 and 1968.
I bet there are more spurstalk posters on the college sports board then there are people that care about college wrestling in the entire nation.
The NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in St. Louis March 17-19 brought in more than 95,000 attendees, beating expectations, the St. Louis Sports Commission said.
The 94,459 attendees was the second highest total attendance in the 75 years the tournament has been held, placing only behind the event held in St. Louis in 2000, which had 96,994 attendees. St. Louis also ranked No. 5 in total all-time attendance for 87,676 attendees at the 2004 championships.
Congratulations. So you get some bored people on a weekend to show up to see what the 'fuss' is about. Show me TV ratings. Oh wait, it probably isn't even televised.
Hey CaptMike, know how I know you're gay?
I think that simply shows how boring life in the Midwest is: 95,000 white people would take their lives into their own hands and actually enter St. Louis.
Yeah, Cartman, because when I was sleeping you pulled down my pants and took a picture of my weiner in your mouth.
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