Recruits

[TheWombat]

Coach Hahn seems to thing that it's a good day to be a Jackrabbit. I'm going to guess Cael Swenson, but they might have grabbed another recently graduated senior.

[TheWombat]

I would love to get one of Chad's sons here, but having the brothers already at Cal Poly might be hard to overcome. The only thing that might give us an edge is Covid. Cal-State system already had called off in person classes in the fall, might trigger a bunch of transfers.

I wouldn't be upset to hear that Brawley and Legend were transferring to SDSU. I'm sure Hahn could make room for them, it's the midwestern thing to do after all. I think we have an advantage in that we have a better team with better coaches. Also, Poly is an extremely difficult school to get into and succeed at. If he's not one of the top performers in his class, he might be looking at other options. He also fits into the SDSU lineup better (I have to think that Price will be looking to move up at some point).

[rabbits64]

Chance Lamer would be an excellent get! Chad Lamer, his dad was one of the all-time great wrestlers for SDSU. He was a three-time national champion in the 90's. Chad has five boys and it sounds like Chance may be the best of the bunch. Chance may have been the best high school wrestler at any weight this year and won his third state championship. He has not lost a high school match to another Oregon prep. He's also won over 10 national championships as a prep and has represented the United States at international meets.

Both of his older brothers, Brawley and Legend, are wrestling for Cal Poly.

I would love to get one of Chad's sons here, but having the brothers already at Cal Poly might be hard to overcome. The only thing that might give us an edge is Covid. Cal-State system already had called off in person classes in the fall, might trigger a bunch of transfers.

[GopherHole]

If twitter is any indication, they're looking at Cael Swenson (138 pound state champ from Minnesota) and Chance Lamer (a very good 126 pounder from Oregon who is the son of a former Jackrabbit) for next year's class and PJ Casale (a top 220 pounder from New Jersey) for the following year.

Chance Lamer would be an excellent get! Chad Lamer, his dad was one of the all-time great wrestlers for SDSU. He was a three-time national champion in the 90's. Chad has five boys and it sounds like Chance may be the best of the bunch. Chance may have been the best high school wrestler at any weight this year and won his third state championship. He has not lost a high school match to another Oregon prep. He's also won over 10 national championships as a prep and has represented the United States at international meets.

Both of his older brothers, Brawley and Legend, are wrestling for Cal Poly.

[TheWombat]

Eklund is headed for Chadron St.

I'm glad to see him find a home, I've never looked at a Chadron State box score before, but I'll have to start. It's great to see a descent number of wrestlers in this class going on to wrestle in college, that hadn't happened as much in the past. We have March, Voorhes, and Anglin going D1 and probably a dozen others going D2. I'm glad the Northern State was able to retain their program, they've been able to provide a ton of opportunity to wrestlers in northern South Dakota and Burkett is doing a great job of revitalizing their program. If Kadoun wrestles at Augie (or if the Jacks snatch him up), the only lost potential that I'm seeing in this class is Hutmacher and maybe Wyatt Youngclaus.

[Southeast]

Eklund is headed for Chadron St.

[TheWombat]

There were a couple of very good wrestlers who showed some skill in Minnesota the other day as well. Some that they might want to look at:

Trevor Eisfield (184) He was the first ever state champion at his high school. He only wrestles during wrestling season so he pretty much pulled it off on pure athletic ability. He finished the season as a state champ at 51-0 after taking second last year. This kid has potential. His current plan is to "try to walk on to the SDSU football team" according to this article https://www.marshallindependent.com/...r-of-the-year/. This kid is going to be on campus scholarship-free anyway and his current plan is to be a very undersized football player. Hahn needs to give this give kid a call and talk some sense into him.

Colton Krell (184) Colton has been looked at as someone with great potential since he was in eighth grade. He finally broke through and won a championship after placing second, third and fourth in previous years. He's explosive and has great feel. I could see them taking a chance on him. He also has ties to the school so they might be able to pick him up as a recruited walk-on.

Charlie Pickell (133) He's been looked at as a solid DI prospect for a while now but hasn't committed. He may not want to pursue wrestling in college but he has the credentials and the skill to pick up a scholarship somewhere. I'm not sure if he has as high of a ceiling as some others, but he's very polished and he will at minimum provide good depth.

Trey Kruse (149) He's another very seasoned wrestler who's been doing this at a high level for a long time. He was able to secure a state championship after placing twice before. He's one of those borderline DI / DII guys. He could provide some depth here.

Both with these wrestlers and the wrestlers I mentioned from South Dakota, I recognize that the roster is pretty close to full and that they have to be selective with who they're bringing in at this point. None of these guys are wasted roster spots, but they'll probably only pick up one or two more wrestlers in this class.

UPDATE:

Kruse to Purdue, https://www.hometownsource.com/still...b6a5d3694.html

Krell to NDSU, https://www.austindailyherald.com/20...estle-at-ndsu/

It looks like Colton Krell is walking on to NDSU, SDSU wasn't among the teams pursuing him per the article. It's a shame they didn't go after him, he's a hard working farm kid from close by who had a lot of room to grow, he really seemed like someone in the Jackrabbit mold. I think he would have been an easy get for them at a weight were they really need some help, even without a scholarship. But, who knows, the coaching staff, with their decades of combined recruiting experience, might just know a little more about this than I do.

I don't think they're going to go after Pickell and, if they were going to flip Eisfeld they probably would have done it by now.

For South Dakota guys, no news on Eklund or Kadoun though I did find this video on Kadoun that indicated that he was leaning towards Augustana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWfLkuHZLlw&t=1282s (he seems like a really quality human being).

If twitter is any indication, they're looking at Cael Swenson (138 pound state champ from Minnesota) and Chance Lamer (a very good 126 pounder from Oregon who is the son of a former Jackrabbit) for next year's class and PJ Casale (a top 220 pounder from New Jersey) for the following year.

[Split Rock]

https://twitter.com/colecolecassady/...259565575?s=21

Welcome to jackrabbit nation Cole!! We’re stoked to have you aboard

[TheWombat]

https://twitter.com/colecolecassady/...259565575?s=21

This is a bit of a strange pickup on paper. He's a one time Iowa single A finalist at a weight where we have three pretty good freshman backups already. With the messaging that the coaching staff is putting out there about roster limitations and being very intentional about having a small recruiting class this year, Cassedy is kind of a head-scratcher. They must see something in him that doesn't doesn't show up on his resume.

[witness]

https://twitter.com/colecolecassady/...259565575?s=21

[TheWombat]

It would be nice to get a pipeline developed from Stillwater, MN High School. They have a ton of hammers, and some young ones at that. I think their coach is former U of MN great, Tim Hartung, who was at MN just before Hahn as an athlete and then was there on staff, and I'm guessing a workout partner for Hahn while he was competing, so I assume there is some connection. Hartung obviously has close ties to the Gophers as well, but they can't recruit all of these Stillwater kids...

The Rogotzke brothers Lyden and Ballantyne are all good DI level recruits. I haven't looked to deeply into any of them but, if you're trying to start a pipeline, Roman Rogotzke would seem like a good start. I put the name Rogotzke into the trackwrestling search engine and came up with eight different profiles with ties to Stillwater. Ryder specifically is going to be very good

[jackrabbit1979]

It would be nice to get a pipeline developed from Stillwater, MN High School. They have a ton of hammers, and some young ones at that. I think their coach is former U of MN great, Tim Hartung, who was at MN just before Hahn as an athlete and then was there on staff, and I'm guessing a workout partner for Hahn while he was competing, so I assume there is some connection. Hartung obviously has close ties to the Gophers as well, but they can't recruit all of these Stillwater kids...

[TheWombat]

I always liked these rankings the theguillotine.com puts out every year: https://theguillotine.com/2020/04/th...gs-april-2020/

I've already talked about how I like Krell, Eisfield, and Pickel as late additions to this season's recruiting class.

For this coming year's recruiting class, Tyson Myer (170) and Quayin Short (182) stand out as being at areas where we could use some higher level talent though the Gophers have the inside track and everybody with the name Short. Ballentine, Berg and West are all on Flo's junior big board and they would find their way into the line-up for sure (Short is a big-boarder as well).

The Jacks did a good job of working ahead, so I don't anticipate a lot of recruiting announcements coming up here but it's always good to know who the prospects are, you never know who will transfer, drop out, get injured etc. . .

[TheWombat]

Everyone is going to have their opinion on this recruit or that recruit but the only question I have is how is NIck a high cost recruit? What is he getting for a scholly?

When it comes to scholarship, everyone is guessing. Coaches won't touch the topic in interviews and wrestlers can get in pretty big trouble for talking about it. I don't think the biggest booster for the team could give you numbers and I don't even live in the same state. That said, when I do sit down and guess at these things I have to imagine that a big board guy like Casperson demands a fair amount of money. When he was recruited to Fresno, he was recruited to be their 197 of the future and whenever you get a guy who ends up that far from home, it's easy to guess that scholarship was a factor. It's my guess that SDSU would have offered something comparable to get him in as a transfer. But, I don't know, maybe his shoulder is toast and they offered him something contingent on his being able to wrestle or something.

[JackJD]

Please: no politics. Let this board continue to be free from politics. Even attempts to be funny about politics during the weird times we're now in...probably best to just skip politics entirely.

We needed March Madness!