When the Robie promotion was announced, I felt there were three things I felt he needed to do to keep our program's momentum in a positive direction. I'm going to review and grade them:

1) Prevent attrition- A- - So far we've lost Epperly and Kevin Norstrem..both which would have occurred regardless of the coach. There's been chatter on other board that Degens may go to ISU. But it appears our roster and incoming recruiting class is well intact.

2) Hire well- A -This worried me a bit at the outset, I was afraid we'd migrate from the Iowa tree to the (not as internationally experienced) Edinboro tree. Dresser caught a bit of grief about loyalty when he upgraded the coaching staff (Hoffman and Jeremy Johnson) with Zadick and St. John, but it was the step we needed to take. It would have been a shame to take a step back, staff-wise. Losing those guys was tough, However, getting Molinaro, Frayer, Walz and Graff aboard is HUGE for the program, and has sent the program in new direction I thought hard about giving this an A+, but heald back that I'd like to see an resident athlete at 174.

3) Don't lose SERTC donors- A+ -This was my greatest concern. Dresser marketed this sparingly and I was afraid the loss of his brand would impact SERTC funding. Had I been paying attention, I would have been less concerned. While Robie was still interim, he decided to pull our backups from the National Collegiate Open and ramp them up for the post-tourney freestyle season. This should have shown me that SERTC was key to his strategy, and he wasn't content to run an Edinboro-style program. However, hiring Molinaro (Frayer and Graff) caught everyone's attention, as did a strong University Nationals field. But we're also doing the little things right, the SERTC webinars and new website clearly explain what SERTC is and the tweets from the wrestlers thanking SERTC donors are a nice touch.

Of course, now the work begins.. Here's a few things I'm looking for early in the season (until Christmas).

1) Make a recruiting splash- We need a big name. That's something we couldn't do well in the past. We recruited well and developed the guys we recruited, But the Snyders, the Pletchers, the Verks.went elsewhere.

2) We have to improve our mat wrestling, especially on bottom- This almost goes without saying,,,but it's been a problem for too long. Was thrilled that Robie acknowledged it in his last email.

3) Keep the energy up- We're going to lose some matches early on. If you recall DMF's first year, it was discouraging at times..as he really was schooled. He kept his confidence and had a big tourney.

4) Continue to build SERTC. I think we need an 165/174 athlete to train with Lewis/Bolen, DMF and Hughes.


[Post edited by HokieLifer2 at 07/08/2017 12:27AM]