No more waiting!!!

[Ty Clark]

Say a team is up 33-30 going into the last match of the dual... would they a) wrestle the match or b) forfeit? Forfeits must be equal to the highest possible bonus points, otherwise it provides an incentive to forfeit matches when outmatched (or even not favored).

[DocWrestling]

Forcing coaches to wrestle kids instead of forfeits is not a great solution. 

Forfeits happen for two reasons
1) They do not have enough kids and have nobody at that weight
2) They have a wrestler but it is a beginner and never should be wrestling in a varsity match.

Reducing weight classes decreases the chances of not having a kid at a weight-  It will not eliminate them but will decrease the percentages

reducing weight classes will create a JV system to develop depth for wrestlers to develop into varsity wrestlers and learn to score team points, make weight, etc.  Not a system like know where it is the same as a 3rd grade tournament.

You cannot improve varsity until you improve JV.  You cannot improve JV by sending so many freshman right to varsity.  Sports with only varsity programs are destined to die.  Heck they even lack legitimacy amongst other sports.  Many mock our varsity wrestlers because they know you can be varsity simply by weight the right amount.  A good freshman basketball player has to play a year of freshman ball, then a year of JV, then gets to varsity.  He is not going to give respect to a freshman wrestler that is on varsity and letters because he weighed the right amount!

Wrestling cannot focus just on varsity so reducing weight classes is not about just changing varsity duals but is also about creating a JV division. If a team has 25 wrestlers there is good chance that they can wrestle scoring duals for both varsity and JV with 10 weight classes.

[littleguy301]

2 things I have to bring up.

First, you cannt make FF worth nothing for the guy getting them. The kid made weight and showed up and you cannt punish them for the other team not having a kid.

Second, Ty hit it on the head, making FF worth 2 points, well then you could move guys around alot and have some real interesting meets. Like he said, if your up by 3 on the last match and the other team sends out a kid and you can FF and still win by 1. That shouldnt fly at all.

basically it should come down to 2 divisions. One with 14 and the other with what ever is decided.

I like 2 divisions for individual and 4 for team. I think that would be a great fix!

[ramjet]

I am just trying to find a way to make Dual meets for engaging and fun so many of them are just pathetic.

[Oldtimer]

College has 10 weight classes starting at 125 and goes to 285.  There is no 106, 113, 120 or 220.  There's 4 weight classes right there that account for 14 vs 10.  However, in high school there are numbers in the 106, 113, 120 and 220 weights that are extremely competitive.  Not a lot of 195 pounders can handle the strength/size difference up to 285 so I'd leave the 220 in there.  I wouldn't touch the light weights either.

I base this entirely on statistics and fact  but my biggest beef isn't that we have forfeits with the small schools.  It's the reward to the team that fields the wrestler.  An unearned 6 pt team victory is ridiculous.  I don't have a solution but this is where I see the problem more so than how many weight classes we have.  Wrestle what we have, take away the big bonus points for forfeits and maybe we don't have a problem.

So in this situation I bring my two studs to each dual meet, leave the rest of the team home win those two matches every week. 10 minute dual. Sounds like a great way to build our sport.

Do you really think it's in anyone's best interest to do this?  Let's not get extreme.

[Oldtimer]

I second the thought of prematch lineups set.  If there is nobody weighing in at that weight for one team there is no match.  Simple as that.  No forfeit points.  If a coach chooses to strategize by moving a wrestler he can't move the wrestler to the "no match" slot to take a forfeit win.  If he vacates a prematch weight for strategy it is a scored forfeit but the kid that forfeits the match must wrestle at another weight.

Just some ideas

[BDbacker]

BDBacker,
You may or may not recall that many youth programs in the past didn't even start until 4th grade or later. Many schools didn't even have them. Youth wrestling would last 1 month rather than 7. There were 1 or 2 tournaments around, no "state" series, etc. So perhaps kids didn't quit as often because they were older and more mentally/physically ready for it? And there were certainly fewer other options for kids in yesteryear.  If youth wrestling was the same animal then as now, would we have similar levels of retention?

Things to ponder.

Good point!

[thequad]

 Ram, I think you came with that without  thinking about it very much. If you look at all the ways it wouldn't work you can see how many ways there is to work around it. I Know that you know better that.

No I don't an answer.

[Handles II]

FYI
A thought that I have heard from a few on the topic of dropping a weight class or two, is that the great teams will benefit from this more then anyone else. Every great team has a whole or two but by dropping a weight class they will only be more dominant.

This may be true, but it could certainly close the gap between the have's and the have not's. example  Currently two fairly equal teams as far as wrestling ability goes but not as far as participation numbers meet in a dual the  A team forfeits 4 weights and gives up 24 points. The stud team B beats them handily 44-33.  Subtract 12 points for two eliminated weights and our dual (given all wins and losses end up the same) is now is 33-32 in favor of the A team.
Lets say these two teams are conference rivals. Team A has a student population of 250 fewer students than team B. Team B's coach was able to recruit fewer kids by school population % but still won the original dual. If we limit our number of starting varsity to a number that more than 60% of our teams can fill, we would have much closer, competitive duals as well as better JV situations.  Win/win?

[gablesgrip1]

If you want 14 weight classes, how about two divisions and a few more co-ops.  Consider this:

I've gone to a few matches down here in the Chicago area and been impressed.  Many of the teams appear to have 40 or more kids on the team.  There are very few forfeits.  Most varsity wrestlers look like good varsity wrestlers.  (Disclaimer:  For as long as I've been off the mat, most wrestlers look like good wrestlers these days  )

So I looked up a few statistics on number of schools, number of wrestling teams, total participation and some enrollment data for a sample of top teams in each division between Wisconsin and Illinois.  Both states have three divisions for wrestling.  Illinois does allow smaller schools to wrestle in a higher division based on past success.

As of the 2014/2015 school year there were 334 teams and 7,074 participants in Wisconsin (21.17/team).  In Illinois there were 15,036 participants on 434 teams (34.64/team).  Basically you have 1.5 wrestlers/weight on the median Wisconsin team and just short of 2.5/weight in Illinois.

Illinois has the 5th most number of high schools and the 5th most number of high school students.  Wisconsin has the 12th most schools and 19th most students.  Wisconsin apparently has a lot of small schools.

The 100th largest high school in Illinois (Normal Community High School) has 1,945 students.  The 100th largest in Wisconsin (Wauwatosa West) has 1,031. 

Comparing enrollments at some of the top wrestling schools by division:

Illinois 1A (smallest)
Coal City (2016 runner up) - 646
Dakota (2016 champs) - 405

Wisconsin Division 3
Stratford - 282
Fennimore - 320

Illinois 2A
Marian (Runner up) - 1125
Washington - 1533

Wisconsin Division 2
Wisconsin Lutheran - 758
Ellsworth - 510

Illinois 3A
Marmion Academy (runner-up) - 513 (all boys)
Oak Park-River Forest - 3225

Wisconsin Division 1
Stoughton - 1056
Kaukauna - 1110

I don't know that there's a perfect answer, but when only a small percentage of your pool of teams (mostly in Division 2 and 3) is truly in the running for the state championship, something should probably be done.  Forfeits aren't beneficial to any wrestler either.     

Recon,
You have any numbers from California.  I just don't think wisconsin has enough political power to change to many wisconsin wrestling situations.

[ramjet]

Ram, I think you came with that without  thinking about it very much. If you look at all the ways it wouldn't work you can see how many ways there is to work around it. I Know that you know better that.

No I don't an answer.

Trying to get to the answer via different ideas but maybe there is no good answer?

[Recon]

gablesgrip1

For California, which has a single division for wrestling:
For the 2014/15 school year there were 848 teams with 26,374 participants (31.1/team)

California has the most high school students and greatest number of high schools in the nation (4,495 according  to the website http://high-schools.com)

California's 100th largest high school, Franklin High School, has 2,729 students

This year's runner up, Clovis High School has 2,973 students
This year's champion, Buchanan High School has 2,601

I could only find the results of the individual tournament, guessing they don't have a dual championship?

Maybe a better comparison would be a state like Indiana, which is also in the Midwest, has a decent tradition and a similar population to Wisconsin.  Unfortunately I'm out of time and have to pick up the kids...

If the problem is too few weight classes filled, we could look at data for different states' corresponding "regional" tournaments and see what % of their teams' rosters were less than 12. 

If you're in a rural district in Wisconsin and your student population has been shrinking over the past decade, I can see how it would be difficult to fill out 14 varsity spots.

[woody53]

gablesgrip1

If you're in a rural district in Wisconsin and your student population has been shrinking over the past decade, I can see how it would be difficult to fill out 14 varsity spots.

I know this personally,  In the 15 years I coached, our school fell from 425 to 225 in high school numbers. We lost our program, not from effort, but by numbers.

[Handles II]

gablesgrip1

If you're in a rural district in Wisconsin and your student population has been shrinking over the past decade, I can see how it would be difficult to fill out 14 varsity spots.

I know this personally,  In the 15 years I coached, our school fell from 425 to 225 in high school numbers. We lost our program, not from effort, but by numbers.

Another great reason for JHI! A H.S. with 200 kids can use the 7th and 8th grades to supplement their program but it doesn't change their division, which is still based on H.S. enrollment. So in theory, that school with about 25 boys per grade, would get a pool of 50 more boys (25 7th, 25 8th) to recruit from.  Time to get it going Wisconsin.

[Numbers]

Ghetto,
Once again a very well crafted and thought out post, just like every year at this time. But once again I 100% disagree with you on cutting kids out of wrestling just so we don't have a FF. (who cares)
What does 14 weight classes get us?
1. Different kids opportunity's in the sport (more sizes and shapes)
2. Less weight cutting
3. Bigger wrestling rooms
4. Support from other coaches (football)
5. Small kids that might not excel in other sports can excel in wrestling
I can tell you as a father of a future 195 or 220 pounder I don't want to see either cut, and as a friend of a bunch of kids that may wrestle around 105 I Don't want to see that cut either. Two weeks ago would any of us wanted to see a state championship night with out the Koontz twins or Raschka or Stokke? With out 220 weight class Stokke who most consider one of the top 5 pound for pound kids in the state is home getting ready to play football for the Badgers instead of inspiring a ton of future athletic big kids to wrestle.
So I did a fact check to add to this bad debate topic.
Year              #of high school wrestlers               # of schools with wrestling
1970                 226,681                                       6870
1984                 248,328                                       8273
1990                 233,856                                       8416
1995                 216,453                                       8677
2000                 239,845                                       9046
2005                 243,009                                       9562
2010                 272,890                                     10,362  
2014                 284,114                                     10,688    this is the last year of the most updated data
From 1980 - 2000 we averaged 26.5 wrestlers per team, and now with the addition of 2500 more teams we have averaged 25 wrestlers per team for the past 15 years.  "Not Bad"
We need to pay coaches (in all sports) way better then we currently do in this state and hold them accountable to getting more kids out for sports. We are loosing kids to Xbox and childhood obesity so recruiting is vital.
I have a great idea bonus or cut bonuses on the WIAA leaders and have them create plans to get more kids out, the WIAA executive team ALONE is being paid 13%. I can tell you that's unheard of in business, as an owner of a mid to large company I run my entire executive team and back office support at 6-7% just like most well ran company's. Lets give some back to the guys and gal's in the field coaching our kids, inspired coaches create inspired kids.

Key Points
1984 only 12 weight classes but 30 kids per team.  So let's go to 13 weights  (numbers look to support that)  These were the days of JV duals.
1990-27.8 kids to fill those 13 weights.   
Wait-14 weights would provide "opportunity"
Now we have 26.6 kids nationally to fill 14 various weights.  (Do we have Wisconsin only numbers?) This really starts taking the team aspect out of wrestling for many schools.

With the size of high school enrollments in Wisconsin vs. other states (and our participation numbers), looks like the argument should be is 12 or 13 weight classes appropriate for Wisconsin?