wyosports said:I find it funny when people voice their opinion and then throughout names to try and back up it up. I never talk with high school coaches, so I will not speak to that, but the former wrestler from Cheyenne that you say didn't like Branch made me laugh my ass off. (I just texted his dad your comments and will be happy to share his response.) I guess depending on the high school program you would get different thoughts on Branch. However, Gillette seems more than happy to send kids to wrestle for him, and unless things have changed Hastings seems to have a good relationship with him, just based on what I saw last week in Tulsa. It is tuff to compare wrestling with the other sports at UW when the Big 12 has 3 to 4 top 10 programs, and 3 to 4 more in the top 20. The MWC in football and basketball might have two legitimate top 20 teams in a year and both would be at the bottom on list. As someone pointed out in a different thread, UW admin had better start thinking outside the box or it will not matter what sport it is UW will have trouble keeping the top end players. The schools that have contracts with NIL companies use them mainly to help with their star players. (Football-Neyor, Basketball - IKE, Wrestling Buchanan) They find national companies to sponsor these types of players and pay their NIL contracts, and then help the University find local businesses and companies to help with your average starter. There are more and more schools that we compete against using these NIL companies to gain any advantage possible. Since we can't seem to beat them, then maybe we should join them!
I did say that it was "in my opinion". I don't know Bryce at all, so if you have spoken to his dad then you would know better than me by a long ways. He was and still is an awesome ambassador for UW. I wouldn't expect him to come out and say he didn't get along with a coach at any level but especially at UW. He transferred from NC state and he never spoke bad about anything there. He is too classy to do that. I just said in my opinion after watching him celebrate with coach Kyle and barely give Coach Branch a high five after each victory. After seeing their interactions throughout the years before and after press conferences, it gave me the vibe that they really didn't get along. Maybe that was just their relationship and I read to much into it. I guess I was wrong. I assumed too much and should not have mentioned his name in this conversation. I really would like to hear his Dad's comments though. Maybe it would change my mind about Coach Branch in general.
The point of all of my post is that I just don't see much improvement since 2019. I see a downward trajectory and it is very downward this year. I am not saying we have to Compete year in and year out with the Oklahoma State's of the world but I would think we could compete with NDSU, SDSU and Norther Iowa. This year we didn't. We lost 3-33, 3-32 and 3-42 to those 3 schools. It wasn't competitive. Oredigger's comment "However, what is giving me hope is the way the team competed at the Big 12s compared to the rest of the year. " gives me some hope as well. I hope that is a sign of things to come. Also, I think Gillette has sent 1 kid since 2019 to UW wrestling. I don't know if they had more that they could send to a D1 school so maybe they still like sending kids to UW. I am not sure but that isn't some overwhelming amount to prove your point. I think that might be the only Wyoming kid recruited since 2019 to UW.