It’s the typical Penn State cult mentality, it’s ok to poach other schools but not ok to leave or be poached.
Recruiting
- Thread starter Ryno53
- Start date
He is considering a move up to 285 based on his interview. Would make a stacked ACC HWT group even deeper
Based on his history, he'll be heading somewhere else next year.
For potential transfers: At 184 Dean went to Iowa State, hearing Soldano to OU. Bouzakis is registered at the US Open for 61kg, Davino also in that bracket could be an early wrestle-off. Tallmadge in that bracket as well. Gill is the one to watch IMO, simply because he is a WPIAL boy who was a really good recruit, outside of him nobody in the portal I see connections to
100% guarantee. He ended up at UNC as default. No top 5 schools wanted him.
He’s fun to watch, Gavin could help him improve
I think they are happy with what they have currently, don’t think it would be an actual upgrade. If they’re going to upgrade they will bring in an upperclassman or a grad student. I’m obviously a little biased but they also have other needs. With 3 125’s under some kind of scholarship you don’t want to tie up too much $ at one weight class
Calling wvu Pitts little brother is comical considering West Virginia has had more AA’s the past two years..
Some of us are old enough to remember more than the past two years, friend
WVU has a better coach than Pitt and are investing in the program
I’ve heard nothing but good things about Gilman as a coach. Look at his success with spratley. The problem is Pitt doesn’t have the $$ for a hot commodity like Gilman.
MatScouts' final senior big board has dropped, will round up Pitt's class.
Facts:
Pitt had 5 recruits in the top 250, same as NC State and Stanford. 1 more than Lehigh. WVU and UNC had 6, UVA and VT had 7.
However, Pitt had 1 top 50 recruit (Bouzakis) which was the same as Lehigh, Stanford and UVA, behind NCST and VT who both had 3 top 50s (VT did have the 51st, 52nd and 55th ranked recruits to be fair, their class is very, very good). WVU and UNC had 0 top 50.
VT and NC State had 2 top 25s recruits each, with Stanford having 1 top 25 and Pitt having 0.
NCST had the only top 10 recruit in the ACC/among our other rivals (WVU and Lehigh).
Ranking:
Pitt's class:
#41 Vince Bouzakis (Major drop from last update, was inactive for a lot of his senior season, which helps explain this)
#65 Bode Marlow (Another big jump for Marlow, who is looking more and more legit as time passes)
#87 Carson Walsh
#93 Evan Petrovich
#181 Nico Fanella (Ranked 81spots behind Willochell who he went 2-0 against this year? but recruiting rankings are projections, not retroactive, so only time will tell).
NR Tristian Steldt
Overall, this is a solid class that has a chance to be much better if Bouzakis lives up to his potential from early in HS and if Marlow continues to make the massive jumps he's been making throughout HS. When compared to the rest of ACC and our main recruiting comparison/rivals (WVU and Lehigh) our class is clearly behind VT's and NC State's. I would place our class around the same tier as Stanford's, UNC's and UVA's but ahead of Lehigh's and WVU's. Obviously we need to be in the VT and NCST range long term but this is a solid class in terms of progression and hopefully 2026 and 2027 are even bigger.
Facts:
Pitt had 5 recruits in the top 250, same as NC State and Stanford. 1 more than Lehigh. WVU and UNC had 6, UVA and VT had 7.
However, Pitt had 1 top 50 recruit (Bouzakis) which was the same as Lehigh, Stanford and UVA, behind NCST and VT who both had 3 top 50s (VT did have the 51st, 52nd and 55th ranked recruits to be fair, their class is very, very good). WVU and UNC had 0 top 50.
VT and NC State had 2 top 25s recruits each, with Stanford having 1 top 25 and Pitt having 0.
NCST had the only top 10 recruit in the ACC/among our other rivals (WVU and Lehigh).
Ranking:
Pitt's class:
#41 Vince Bouzakis (Major drop from last update, was inactive for a lot of his senior season, which helps explain this)
#65 Bode Marlow (Another big jump for Marlow, who is looking more and more legit as time passes)
#87 Carson Walsh
#93 Evan Petrovich
#181 Nico Fanella (Ranked 81spots behind Willochell who he went 2-0 against this year? but recruiting rankings are projections, not retroactive, so only time will tell).
NR Tristian Steldt
Overall, this is a solid class that has a chance to be much better if Bouzakis lives up to his potential from early in HS and if Marlow continues to make the massive jumps he's been making throughout HS. When compared to the rest of ACC and our main recruiting comparison/rivals (WVU and Lehigh) our class is clearly behind VT's and NC State's. I would place our class around the same tier as Stanford's, UNC's and UVA's but ahead of Lehigh's and WVU's. Obviously we need to be in the VT and NCST range long term but this is a solid class in terms of progression and hopefully 2026 and 2027 are even bigger.
One more school I see us being compared to, or referred to as competing with for the 2nd best team in PA is UPenn. They had 7 recruits in the top 250, but only one in the top 100, #90. The rest fell within the 100-250 range. They had #32 Eren Sement committed, but he flipped to Michigan in December. They are a school with a much better RTC than us and with the Ivy League prestige, but we can out-recruit them as we did this year, since they will face the Ivy League challenges that all the Ivies do when it comes to redshirts/cost/getting the kids in and simply not having as well rounded of a team since they can't rely on transfers at all.
This has been a rumor for awhile but saw it again today so just bringing it back up; sounds like Nic Bouzakis is going to test the waters at 125 over this offseason, however if he can't make the weight that is when I could see him leaving tOSU and hopefully coming to Pitt.
He would make a ton of sense if he wants to do it but I don't think anyone outside of JB knows if he even wants to coach at either level.
The lack of recruiting is killing my interest in Pitt wrestling. I was looking for a continuation of excellence in area wrestling from the high school level to extend through Pitt. Sadly that hasn't happened ever though it did improve more than Peters' reign.
