Filling WI Weight Classes: The Data

[aarons23]

Those would likely be better at a local establishment.

Maybe over some fishbowls?

[MNbadger]

Absolutely I do as do the other coaches you speak of.

You may not have used those words and I never said you used those specific words.  Your many posts on the subject makes my paraphrasing accurate though to be sure.

Only in your mind do you look in the mirror when you type this stuff? 

[Handles II]

Top o' the mornin'!

Big weekend, more teams participating state-wide than any thus far. 279 teams wrestled this weekend. Conference tournaments on Friday and Saturday had some excitement going on. That's fun.

This post is just the team numbers, I'll hopefully have the breakdown by weight classes completed later but, in all honesty, looking at them it's not going to change much. A few shifts in weight classes, perhaps to best help an individual get that elusive Conf Championship, or to test the waters for Regionals.

Looking at our team numbers (279), I added up all the teams that had 10 or more varsity wrestlers this weekend.
The breakdown is this:

14 weights filled - 41 teams
13 weights filled - 23 teams
12 weights filled - 20 teams
11 weights filled - 20 teams
10 weights filled - 16 teams

Total - 120 teams were able to fill 10 varsity weight classes.  That equates to 43% of our teams. Houston, we have a problem.

While I don't say that 12 weight classes will fix this problem, obviously 12 weight classes would have the same teams filling them as this weekend, what it can do is improve the competition, which can breathe life into an otherwise struggling program.

Through these weeks I have yet to see a team with fewer than 10 wrestlers place top 4 at a quality tournament (say 12 or more teams). I haven't seen a team with fewer than 10 wrestlers winning any duals with consistency unless it's against other teams with similar numbers of forfeits. If we drop weights, teams without hope will be able to compete. Maybe they can bring back a trophy and set it on the A.D.'s desk. Get some fans talking about the great 3rd place finish when at the cafe or the grocery store, or in study hall. Give the local paper a headline. Everyone on here seems to agree that success breeds success. Currently over 1/2 of our teams simply can't be successful, fewer weights gives them a shot, gives them hope, and might turn away a possible cut and/or co-op.

[DocWrestling]

I will be honest those numbers amaze me when only 120 out of 279 teams can put out a team of more than 10 wrestlers for conference tourneys.  I think there are only like 335 total teams?

That means even if you dropped to 10 weight classes we would still have many forfeits. 

My only comment here is that if this continues the sport will just continue into being an individual sport especially at the D2 and D3 levels unless we somehow can see co-ops as the answer.

[Handles II]

We'll see how Regionals turn out, but yeah, I was quite surprised at the numbers (and double checked them).  There were quite a few conference tournaments where 3 or fewer guys made up the weight class, and I'm not just talking 113 and 220. Seeing 3 kids in a 152lb bracket in a 10 team conference kinda blew my mind!

Percentage wise, the Badger Conference did the best with 10 of 13 teams having 11-14 wrestlers (76%).

[littleguy301]

still waiting for a weight class for me

I would support the idea of the XXXXL class, or simpley put the 4X class

[Oldtimer]

First off we are blessed to have qualified coaches in our area, most are teachers with collage wrestling backgrounds and great asst coaches.
   

Can we see the pictures in your collage pf qualified coaches??

[ChargerDad]

Reducing the number of weight classes will do absolutely nothing to grow the sport of wrestling..   It won't make dual meets longer that people say are too short because of forfeits..  The numbers say that we have some weight classes with only a few participants.. Saying that is very different than saying that fewer weight classes will have a positive impact on the sport of wrestling.. In some cases what you are to have are teams that can fill 7 weight classes now, that can only fill 5 or 6 because of where the new weight classes are and what kids fat test for or want to cut too..  You are also going to have kids squeezed out if your reduction of weight classes includes spreading the weight classes out.  It's definitely not a simple matter of saying a team with 7 wrestlers filling 7 weight classes will fill 7 with new weight classes no matter how you reduce, or even change weight classes.

What's for sure??  Without a doubt, reducing weight classes will reduce the number of wrestlers..  That's inarguable.. you are going to take away opportunities from kids at schools who can currently fill 14 weights, and you are going to take it away from the wrestlers I mentioned before that are squeezed out.  Is that a good thing for wrestling??    Rather than reduce the number of weights, why not move them a little to more align with the number of wrestlers at weights??

106,113,120,126,132,138,145,152,160,170,182,195,220,285

becomes something like

106,118,126,130,134,138,142,146,152,160,172,189,215,285

you gain 2 weight classes between 126 and 160 were obviously the numbers are better, taking 1 away from either end where the numbers are less..

[Handles II]

I'd like to be with you Charger. I understand there are teams out there that easily could fill two (or more) squads. If there was a reduction in weight classes, to be sure those coaches would need to find ways to keep a couple more kids happy with being in the back-up role. Not easy. On the other hand, if many other teams had a couple more kids on JV, then we would expect duals and JV tournaments could be more exciting and worthwhile, so there is a silver lining.

If we look back to the days of yore, say around 1984, we saw that statewide teams would average close to 45 kids per team (obviously some lower and some higher) and there were 12 weights. 45 kids per team is what a few of the very top teams have now. Tweleve weights worked then, why couldn't it work today? Most certainly making some teams more competitive, having fewer forfeits in duals, and perhaps saving some teams from the chopping block isn't bad for the sport, is it? Wrestling on JV isn't losing the opportunity to wrestle. Losing programs is losing the opportunity to wrestle.

Looking at this weekend's Conference numbers, we simply can see that very few teams (15%) are at that 14 weight threshold. Of those it is even a much smaller number, probably 5% (?)  that is dealing with 45+ members on the team. So 5% are working with the numbers of wrestlers that 50% were a couple decades ago. Working with too many kids is a great problem to have. 

At per-weight, again last weekend, our most populous weight classes of the year, on average, were 145 and 152. This weekend 145 brackets were filled at 64%. 152 at 61% We have room in the middle weights.

I'd rather see a few teams struggle to keep the kids they have out because there are so many, than to lose entire entire teams. Most conferences had zero, one, or two teams that filled 14 weights. The Badger, Fox Valley, and Little 10 were tied at the most with 4 teams that filled 14 weights.

[DocWrestling]

Nothing would ever stop a team from having 2 varsity squads competing.  That would be a great thing.  Stoughton is doing it this year with sending their "JV" team to varsity tournaments.  Many of the top programs have done this in the past which is why they stay on the top.

Technically nobody ever has to wrestle JV in a tournament.  You can send your JV's to a varsity tourney any time you want.  Duals would be another story but then great teams could split the matches if they had two studs at same weight and keep them fresh.  No opportunities to wrestle are lost.

I think it would be great with 10 weight classes and having near full varsity, varsity reserve, and JV squads.  Plenty of options if guys are hurt, ineligible, etc.  I know this will never happen.

Basketball is successful and starts with a lot more popularity and more youth players and then by the time they get to varsity it is 6 maybe 7 kids that play.  Wrestling does not need 14 varsity starters

[littleguy301]

I like the idea of shifting the weights around to maybe fit more needs with some of the teams.

I know of at least 2 teams that dont fill out lineups but have JV kids that are very good sitting right in the area of adding weights or reshuffling. That would actually make those teams maybe fill out the line ups a tad.

[Jimmy]

I recommend looking both ways before crossing the street.

[Handles II]

10 million for MI vs about 6 million for WI and MN? That might help the numbers?

But rather than just some word of mouth Getyourpoints, why not post the data?

I did a very quick trackwrestling search of various duals and tournaments in MI, clicked on random events and easily found lots of forfeits, empty weight classes, and teams that weren't able to fill 14 weights. Just look up Kenowa Hills Invite. 14 teams, five had 14 or more (using JV to help fill brackets) 9 couldn't. These were mostly big suburban schools around the Grand Rapids area. Or alphabetically below it, the Lakeland Invite, 14 teams, again using JV to help fill brackets, 6 teams had 14 varsity guys.

I guess that's why in my subject heading I wrote "The Data". This "numbers and forfeits" talk has been going on and on for years. Nobody liked to see Ghetto's numbers, and probably even more dislike mine. Sorry boys, but those are the numbers. By team or per weight class we can't fill 14.

Feel free to post MI's numbers on this thread. It appears their Regionals or similar start this weekend so you will have lots of tournaments to add up. It's ton's of fun!! Then you will have something concrete to discuss, otherwise it's just conjecture. Right?

[Handles II]

You can look up state numbers on NFHS website to see changes or trends. Enjoy! 

[DocWrestling]

I believe MI has a Dist. that qualifies you to move on to regionals which seems to be the equivalent to our sectionals.

After going through 7 of last year's Dist. 50% were at 12-14

12-14 roster numbers is a huge range.  14 is full, 12 is giving up 12 points at a dual.  i think we are most interested in % of teams able to fill all 14, % of teams able to fill 13, % of teams that fill 12, etc.