Per Flowrestling's senior class rankins Pitt has the 11th ranked class in the country. This is led by Jake Wentzel and Austin Bell from WPIAL. In addition Christian Dietrich from Wyoming Seminary. Its a good class with wrestlers to fill spots of need. I realize there is a vocal group on this site that says we can't get decent recruits. These guys are quality wrestlers that will help us. In addition, our early commit for next years class is Nino Bonacorsi who is ranked 22 in the country and won Flo nationals this year. He will be very good for us in future.
Wrestling with the 11th ranked Recruiting class in the nation
- Thread starter vabeachpanther
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With Pitt's location and resources that a pretty mediocre class. Pitt coaches don't even have to drive 50 miles from campus and could still land a top 5 class. The second tier kids in PA will get you a top 15 class. This is like a Florida State or Texas getting excited about landing a class ranked #26. Even worse they do nothing once they get to Pitt. Pitt had the #2 or #3 ranked class depending on the publication in 2013. Three years later half that class is gone and not a single all American.
Your 1st sentence proves you have no idea what you are talking about. Everyone that is associated with division 1 wrestling knows Pitt has no resources. The geography is true, but what is put into Pitt wrestling from a facility stand point, financial stand point, limit on # of guys on the team, recruiting budget, is way behind every one we compete against. The ability to build a strong wrestling club to support off season training was even discouraged by the former athletic director. We are so far behind in all of those program building aspects. We are just now getting the ability to build a wrestling club that had a chance to compete and help bring in kids. Iowa and Penn State have wrestling clubs to support there wrestlers with a 500k a year budget. We weren't even allowed to solicit donors under our last AD. We worked on a shoe string 20k per year until last year. You have no idea what Pitt wrestling had been up against. A former 2 time all American and former division 1 coach told me last year "it's a miracle Pitt had a competative team the last couple years. Miracle with no resources". We will get better with better support. You have no clue what we recruit against. Go take a look at the support and facilities VA Tech and NC State. No clue. Go back to Penn State.
Vabeach, your post could have been twice as long and, unfortunately, it still wouldn't affect the naysayers on this site. Because of a handful of loyal alums, I've learned about what goes on behind the scenes and how far behind we are. Wrestling clubs are fully funded by alumni donations. They employ full-time coaches to work with their school's wrestlers year round. This is a must for top-rated wrestlers that have a goal of competing for national and Olympic teams. The top schools have as many as five paid coaches on staff. We were able to hire our first last year, Tyler Wilps. He's moving on to med school so we're currently interviewing candidates. Hopefully donations increase this year and we are able to hire two coaches.
One other important factor. Schools like Penn State and Ohio State have gotten their facilities designated as Olympic Training Sites. This is another very important behind-the-scenes factor in attracting the top wrestlers. With the change in Pitt's administration, we are now very close to getting that same designation for our facilities as well. Things are never as simple or as evident as they seem. Rather than just complaining about our head coach, if all those on here could help us build the infrastructure that we've sorely lacked, we can start to change the future.
One other important factor. Schools like Penn State and Ohio State have gotten their facilities designated as Olympic Training Sites. This is another very important behind-the-scenes factor in attracting the top wrestlers. With the change in Pitt's administration, we are now very close to getting that same designation for our facilities as well. Things are never as simple or as evident as they seem. Rather than just complaining about our head coach, if all those on here could help us build the infrastructure that we've sorely lacked, we can start to change the future.
Pitt has far more resources then most schools. Do you think Edinboro has more resources yet they were able to finish in the top 5 of nationals. Pitt has resources that this schools will never have. The academic support, medical and educational. How big of a recruiting budget do you need when the majority of the top wrestling talent is within a day's drive? Do you think Northern Iowa, Edinboro, South Dakota State, Buffalo, Kent State, Old Dominion and Northern Colorado had more resources then Pitt who all finished with higher ranked classes than Pitt in 2015 and 2014? Do you think Kent State, Wyoming, Rider, Norther Iowa, Ohio, Old Dominion, American, Cal State Bakersfield, Bucknell, Central Michigan, Utah Valley, South Dakota State who all finished ahead of Pitt at Nationals have more resources?
How do you explain the failure to develop the wrestlers in the 2013 class? It not all about funding.
I would buy that excuse if Pitt was just finishing behind those schools. In reality they are finishing behind schools with less.
Why do u care so much about Pitt? You are a cult member based upon your responses on your own board and the football board here.
I agree. In Peters' first year, he recruited a class which Flo Wrestling ranked as #2 nationally. It takes great recruiting to have a great program, but it also takes great coaching. That class has been a dismal failure: Racciotto and Bright no longer are with the program; Zanetta doesn't even start; Wiercioch continues to be a wrestler with great natural ability who loses more than he wins. Solomon probably is wrestling a weight class higher than he should because there is no 225 pound class in the NCAAs. Rizzo, who transferred in from Temple where he was playing FB, doesn't start and I don't know if he is any longer with the program. Those guys won 10 PIAA championships in HS among them. Bright was an Ohio champion or runnerup; Zanetta lost in the PIAA and WPIAL championships in close matches to a wrestler who walked-on at PSU because there was no scholarship for him, and was an All-American this season. And Zanetta doesn't even start. That is a massive coaching failure.
Better facilities and a well-funded wrestling club certainly would help. But other schools do far more with less. I am sure NC State has thrown a lot of money at wrestling in the past 3 years. Prior to that, it had no tradition and no local recruiting area. In three years, they have become the top ACC school, overtaking VT, finished third in the NCAAs, and had the #1 class in the country this year.
And while on paper this is a solid class, consider this, which I posted previously: None of our recruits is the top recruit in the ACC at his projected weight class. Wentzel is #2 at his weight; the others are #3. In other words, this class is unlikely to get us out of being the doormat, along with Duke, of a very weak conference on a national scale.
Until about 4-5 years ago, we didn't even offer a full complement of scholarships for wrestling. So yes, we did not have the resources that Edinboro offered for wrestling. That is changing thanks to the new ACC money.
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Peters' seat has to be warm. I can't imagine him being here more the the next two season unless there is surprising improvement. I'd be floating feelers out there already. No reason that Pitt shouldn't own the ACC.
This is year 4. I think the only question is if you make a move after this season or the next.
From what I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, when they did move them up to a full allotment, they gave them a restricted amount that, for instance, would prevent them from fully funding a complete complement of out-of-state scholarships...not that would typically matter as much in PA, but it was still restrictive because they didn't have full freedom and as you know it is an equivalency sport. It was also my understanding that Pitt was more restrictive on the number of wrestlers the team could carry compared to peer programs (this obviously includes partial and non-scholarship wrestlers that you obviously aren't regularly entering in tournaments and meets). Peters tried to get this bumped up when was hired but didn't get what other programs have. Don't know if this has even been corrected yet.
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