By Pete Ruden
While some experts might say Iowa’s football schedule isn’t exactly tough most years, the same can’t be said about Iowa’s wrestling schedule.
This year, the Hawkeyes will travel to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to take on top-ranked Oklahoma State before returning to Iowa City to compete against No. 2 Penn State just five days later.
And because Iowa is ranked third in the country, every team on the schedule will give its best against the Hawkeyes.
“Iowa wrestling is always in a unique situation with our schedule because, No. 1, we do wrestle the best every year, and No. 2, everybody gives us their best,” head coach Tom Brands said. “So you know, you talk about what’s our schedule going to look like, it’s going to be packed every year.”
Iowa has seven top-25 opponents on its schedule this year, so Brands was not lying when he said it was packed. With Penn State, Oklahoma State, and Ohio State set to take on the Hawkeyes this year, Iowa will have meets against the top three finishers at last year’s NCAA meet.
This level of competition is something that Brands embraces. When the Cael Sanderson-led Nittany Lions aren’t on the schedule, Brands isn’t OK with it.
“It’s not like when they’re not on the schedule, we say, ‘OK, they’re not on the schedule,’ ” the former Olympic gold medalist said. “When they’re not on the schedule, we work to get them back on the schedule.”
The Iowa-Penn State matchup is like a rivalry in the college wrestling world. While a lot of rivalries are traditional, such as Iowa and Minnesota, or geographical, such as Iowa and Nebraska or Iowa and Wisconsin, Iowa and Penn State are something else.
They’re two perennial powers in the Big Ten that are lucky enough to go at each other.
In addition to the intensity of Iowa-Penn State matches, Iowa also did something big with the current No. 1 last season.
Last year, Iowa hosted Grapple on the Gridiron in Kinnick Stadium, which was the first time two college teams wrestled in a football stadium. Iowa ended up taking down the No. 2 Cowboys, 18-16, while setting an NCAA dual-meet attendance record of 42,287.
Beating the top teams in the country is nowhere close to easy, and the athletes know that.
Brands often noted ownership and accountability at the team’s media day, and it seems as if his squad is taking that to heart.
“You’ve got to hold yourself accountable. You got to want to be here. You can’t just come in here lollygagging around and expect to win; that’s not going to happen,” said junior 149-pounder Brandon Sorensen, who earned All-American honors last year. “You got to put in the time, put in the effort. You got to fight every second, every minute, every hour throughout the whole practice … You got to put in a lot of time and get better.”
After finishing fifth at the NCAA meet, Iowa is trying to climb up the rankings to get to the top once again.
With other top-ranked schools on the schedule, nothing is going to be handed to it.
“It’s something where we got to take the ownership and accountability to get back on top ourselves,” said senior 184-pounder Sammy Brooks, who was also an All-American last year. “It’s not going to just happen because we’re Iowa. We got a lot of good guys coming back, but we’re not just going to win. There’s got to be a lot of self-ownership, and if we can do that and work hard, and wrestle like we can, that will get us where we need to be.”