I truly believe Robie and Co. are doing great things with this program; however, dual scoring can be very deceptive for fans used to football or other typical team sport scoring methods. I feel like the last couple years we’ve had some newcomers see our team ranking for duals and immediately assume we’re on the brink of a team national title and anything less is a disappointment.

That becomes a problem when we have less than ideal team results against UNC and NC State in duals- or in the ACC or NCAA tournaments. Wrestling is very different from typical team sports in that every single one of these events is unique. We can go undefeated in ACC duals, finish 4th in the ACC tournament, and then finish top 10 at NCAAs and higher than any other ACC team. Match ups play a huge part in team scores in duals but that doesn’t necessarily translate to success in the tournament formats. Even the ACC and NCAA tournament are extremely different as a result of the ACC being a small conference (6 teams) with extremely variable competition across weight classes while at NCAAs you need a combination of championship contenders and depth with All-American (top 8) wrestlers across the majority of your weight classes. Guys might win their weight at ACCs yet not even score points at NCAAs while another weight has a guy finish 4th at ACCs yet be a NCAA All-American.

What I’m getting at is that I highly encourage new fans not be too reactionary with results and invest in the wrestling program for the long term because even as we have some ups and downs, the program is in good hands and continuing to move in the right direction.