Well, well, well – how about that afternoon/evening that we just witnessed for Iowa Hawkeye wrestling?
One minute you’re going about your usual routine with an eye toward the Memorial Day weekend, and the next you’re being bombarded with news that encompassed pretty much the entire emotional spectrum.
Over the span of roughly seven hours on Tuesday the Iowa men’s program dealt with ALL of the following:
The disappointment of a potential transfer that could’ve been (but never actually was), the return of an All-American who’d previously been left adrift by NCAA suspension, a pivotal portal addition from a proven March performer and a young man’s career cut short by injury before it ever really had the chance to get off the ground.
So yeah, crazy times indeed.
And it’s because of all those happenings – plus a trio of recent commitments for the Hawkeye women – that I’m back in full force for another edition of ‘Iowa Wrestling News and Notes.’
We’ll get started with yesterday’s chock-filled sequence of events as it’s the most recent matter at hand, then close with just the latest sign(s) that Clarissa Chun’s program is only growing more and more dominant in both its reach and firepower with every passing day.
Thanks as always for joining me. Now let’s dive right in.
Hopes for top portal prize are for naught
From the moment Northern Colorado’s Andrew Alirez entered his name into the transfer portal back on May 1 conversation/speculation ran wild as to where the 2023 NCAA champion at 141 pounds would ultimately end up.
Given the program’s stature – not to mention its recent propensity for (and success with) adding high-level transfers – Iowa was immediately at/near the very top of the perceived list of potential destinations.
Three weeks later, it turns out it was all for nothing – not just for Iowa, but for everyone.
Alirez isn’t going anywhere, as he announced on Instagram yesterday that he’d instead remain at Northern Colorado for his final year of collegiate eligibility.
A native of Greeley, Colorado – home to the very university which he’ll (continue to) attend next year – Alirez would’ve obviously been a major addition to Iowa’s 2024-25 lineup, where questions persist as to who will fill the spots at 133, 141 and 149 pounds.
No Alirez means that those questions will linger a bit longer, although another development we’ll get to shortly figures to (at least in part) answer one of them.
One final ‘roll of the dice’
Intentional or not, Hawkeye fans wouldn’t have to wallow in the disappointment of the Alirez news for all that long as 174-pound All-American (2023) Nelson Brands announced that he has officially been granted one last year of collegiate eligibility.
Now, to those of us in the weeds on this stuff, Brands’ announcement was neither all that surprising nor all that unexpected.
However, to those with actual lives of their own (maybe I’ll get there some day) it very well may have been quite a shock given both Brands’ listing as a senior on the 2023-24 roster as well as his having just served a season-long NCAA-mandated suspension for gambling violations which effectively ended the college careers of fellow well-known ‘seniors’ Abe Assad and Tony Cassioppi.
So, to be clear, this news has nothing to do with any sort of reversal of the NCAA’s ‘questionable’ gambling-related rulings on Brands and other college athletes across the state of Iowa.
Nelson served his year-long suspension during the 2023-24 season, and as of now cannot ever get that eligibility back.
Instead, what he was able to appeal/win was a medical redshirt ruling for the 2021-22 season, during which Brands only competed in six matches (going 5-1) before Tommy John surgery put him on the shelf.
Combine that medical waiver with both a traditional redshirt taken in 2018-19 and the free COVID year granted to all athletes in 2020-21, and even after missing all of last season via suspension Brands still had one more year left if he A) could successfully apply for a medical hardship waiver, and B) wanted to take it and return to the mat for a seventh year of college wrestling.
And as a soon-to-be seventh-year collegian, it’s only fair that the news is accompanied by this classic scene from Tommy Boy:
Now, aside from being great news for Nelson Brands personally, this development also figures to help shape how Iowa’s crowded collection of upperweights might unfold next season.
Michael Caliendo (165), Patrick Kennedy (174) and Zach Glazier (197) all return after having capably manned a spot in last year’s Iowa lineup. Meanwhile, burgeoning star Gabe Arnold (174/184) will enter his redshirt freshman season having already experienced top-level environments/competition in Division I wrestling.
Brands’ return further ‘complicates’ things in some ways given he too – much like Kennedy/Arnold – has found real success competing at 174 pounds.
That said, it could also answer a bit of question mark at 184, where Iowa was without an NCAA qualifier in 2023-24.
In early-April, Brands looked darn good in a fourth-place finish while competing at the Last Chance Olympic Qualifier – a freestyle event held in Fairfax, Virginia. But not only did the performance speak to his overall sharpness on the mat, it also gave an indication as to a new weight at which he can find success at this stage of his career.
Nelson competed in the 86-kilogram division (~189.6 pounds), notching a win over former two-time 184-pound Big 12 champion (and 2020 #1 overall seed at NCAA’s) Taylor Lujan – among others – while competing out in Fairfax.
If he can do that there, I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that he can compete against the very best at 184 on the NCAA level next season.
In fact, Brands is on a two-match winning streak against both the current #2 and #5 ranked 184-pounders in FloWrestling’s early 2024-25 NCAA rankings, defeating both Dustin Plott (Oklahoma State) and Edmond Ruth (Illinois) on back-to-back occasions late in the 2022-23 season (at 174 pounds).
Solidifying 184 would also presumably allow Iowa to redshirt incoming super recruit Angleo Ferrari – giving him a year of development to grow into the weight before forming a dynamic 1-2 punch with the aforementioned Arnold in future years.
All in all, this is a huge win for the Hawkeyes, but more importantly it’s a great opportunity for Nelson Brands to end his college career on a high note and on his own terms.
Parco portals in
I alluded to this while speaking about Andrew Alirez, but Iowa did not go completely without a major transfer win on Tuesday.
Four-time All-American Kyle Parco announced on Instagram that he would be relocating to Iowa City for his final year of collegiate eligibility.
Most recently an Arizona State Sun Devil, Parco, a two-time transfer after his original school – Fresno State – shuttered its program back in 2021, joins the Hawkeyes on the back of sixth (2021), eighth (2022), fourth (2023) and fifth place (2024) finishes at the NCAA tournament – all of them coming at 149 pounds.
The sixth-year senior can also count a trio of Pac-12 titles among his career accolades, along with a 95-18 overall record in (attached) competition.
Albeit in a loss, you can watch below how Parco stacked up in an early-2023 meeting with four-time NCAA champion Yianni Diakomihalis:
On the winning side of things, he also owns consecutive victories over 2024 NCAA #1 overall seed Ridge Lovett (Nebraska), besting the Husker twice late last season in both a dual and at the national tournament.
Aside from being a proven podium finisher at 149 pounds, Parco’s arrival also means that a crowded middleweight only gets even further so.
Redshirt juniors-to-be Caleb Rathjen and Victor Voinovich III (a transfer from Oklahoma State just last season) are each previous NCAA qualifiers and surely won’t just relinquish the spot to the ‘new guy’ without a fight.
Regardless of how 149 shakes out, Parco’s addition (and presumed control of that spot) still leaves Iowa with two remaining lineup holes at which it does not return a wrestler with previous postseason experience – 133 and 141 pounds.
Names like Cullan Schriever, Kale Peterson and Ryder Block offer potential in-house solutions at those weights, but it’s equally possible that Tom Brands & Co. aren’t done mining the transfer portal just yet.
If I were Hawkeye fans, I’d keep my eyes trained squarely on 133/141 moving forward.
A career cut short
The final (and saddest) news from Tuesday’s deluge comes from redshirt freshman 197-pounder Kolby Franklin – who announced yesterday evening that he would be medically retiring from wrestling.
Citing serious recurring neck injuries, the Dubois, Pennsylvania native made the decision to step away from the sport after having contested just 20 total matches in a college career that unfortunately will never get to be fully realized.
Franklin arrived in Iowa City in 2022 as a top-30 ranked recruit whose credentials included a pair of Fargo finals appearances (winning a title as a high school freshman).
As a true freshman for the Hawkeyes, he’d compile a 14-6 overall record (8-4 attached), the high-water mark being a run to the 197-pound final of the 2022 Soldier Salute, which he’d lose 4-0 to his Iowa teammate, five-time All-American Jacob Warner.
On-the-mat results aside, the most important thing is obviously Franklin’s health moving forward.
To have a lifelong dream cut short via such cruel circumstances certainly can’t be an easy pill to swallow but given the work ethic it took just for him to get to this point in his wrestling career there’s no telling how great of a success he’ll be at whatever he turns his attention toward next.
So, here’s to you Kolby. We’re all rooting for you.
‘Lightweight U’ (Part 2?)
Look, I’m not saying to be on the lookout this Friday for another high-powered addition to the Iowa women’s wrestling program.
But I’m also not ‘not saying’ it either.
If once is happenstance, twice a coincidence, then perhaps three times is a trend – because that’s been the case dating back to May 3 as Clarissa Chun & Co. have added a trio of new signees, one on each successive Friday.
First up, Indiana native Rianne Murphy put pen to paper as the latest in a rapidly growing line of dynamic lightweights to join the Iowa room.
Slotted as the fourth-best 105-pounder in the country in Flo’s latest rankings, Murphy possesses most of the high-profile credentials that a prep wrestler could desire in 2024.
A 2022 16U Fargo champ at 100 pounds, she followed that up by earning a spot on the 2023 U17 World team at 46 kilograms before returning to the states for finals appearances at prestigious high school events like Who’s Number One and Super 32.
And thanks to attending wrestling prep school powerhouse Wyoming Seminary (PA) – former home to current Hawkeye NCWWC champions Ava Bayless and Reese Larramendy – Murphy’s exposure to high-level competition wasn’t reserved to just high school either, winning the East Stroudsburg Open and finishing third at Midlands amongst collegiate fields late last year.
She’d close out her 2024 schedule to date with a fifth place (50kg) finish at the Under-20 World team trials, followed by a title in the 105-pound division of the National Girls High School Recruiting Showcase held in Las Vegas just over three weeks ago.
And as has become customary with seemingly every member of the Iowa women’s program, one can’t help but be wildly impressed with the way each of them comports themselves both on and off the mat:
As previously mentioned, Murphy joins a group of Hawkeye lightweights amongst whom you almost couldn’t toss a stick at without hitting a past/present age-level World teamer and/or medalist, if not a newly minted collegiate national champion – of which Iowa swept each of the three lightest weights this March at NCWWC’s.
She even has some experience against one of them, splitting a pair of matches with reigning 101-pound national champion Emilie Gonzalez dating back to early-2023.
But not only is Murphy a major addition in a vacuum, in many ways she’s also a signal to the rest of women’s college wrestling – if it wasn’t already apparent – that the University of Iowa is the place to be in order to become your very best, in no small part thanks to challenging yourself against the very best day in and day out at practice.
Murphy quite conceivably could’ve gone to school elsewhere – even other great programs – and been more or less guaranteed a starting spot from Day 1. Instead, she’ll be a Hawkeye and have to fight tooth and nail just to earn ‘second-string’ status on next year’s depth chart.
Talk about a scary proposition for the rest of the country, as well as huge credit to Murphy for running head on into the greatest challenge available.
Goodwin makes a dream come true
There may be more high-profile Hawkeye recruits than Virginia native Mia Goodwin, but few will experience the same full circle wish fulfillment that she did upon committing to Iowa on May 10.
Ranked 29 nationally at 110 pounds in Flo’s latest rankings, Goodwin detailed in her Instagram announcement of the commitment that being an Iowa wrestler had been a dream of hers since the age of nine.
That original dream was actually to be the first girl on the men’s team, which was the lone Iowa wrestling program in existence up until about 32 months ago.
But now, in her words, “I’ve been given the opportunity to do something better, be on the Women’s Team.”
If ever that dream had waned, it would appear it was rekindled in full last summer when Goodwin took part in the inaugural elite women’s camp held in Iowa City.
A two-time Virginia state finalist and a 2023 champ at the prestigious Beast of the East tournament held in Delaware, her final words from that post about her Hawkeye camp experience?
“Hopefully I’ll be back fall ’24.”
Like I said, it doesn’t get much more ‘full circle’ than that.
Osteen adds to plentiful upperweight options
We began this piece with transfer news, so it feels fitting that we end it in the same fashion.
A week after Mia Goodwin joined the Iowa women’s program – and two weeks after Rianne Murphy did the same – transfer Katja Osteen (pronounced cot-yuh) became the latest addition to the Hawkeyes.
A two-time NCWWC All-American (sixth in both 2022 and 2023) at Simon Fraser University – the lone Canadian participant in college wrestling – Osteen sat out traditional collegiate competition this past season, instead electing to train in Colorado at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center (USOPTC).
During that time, however, she did cross paths with the Iowa program as an unattached entry at February’s Grand View Open in Des Moines, where she lost a tight 3-2 bout at 191 pounds to three-time national finalist (and current Hawkeye starter) Jaycee Foeller.
Go back even further and Osteen has even more ties to a recent collegiate superstar.
In 2018, as a true freshman at Chaminade College Preparatory (CA) she’d become the first state champion in her school’s history by defeating future three-time NCWWC champion Yelena Makoyed (of North Central fame) via fall in the California single-class state final at 160 pounds.
(Not a bad nugget to have on your resume.)
Now, she’ll enter an Iowa room already featuring a pair of All-American caliber heavyweights – Foeller and sophomore-to-be Alivia White, the latter of whom was ranked in the top 10 for pretty much all of last season prior to being left off Iowa’s insanely competitive 15-woman postseason lineup.
That group will also happen to rub elbows with the likes of (among others) 2024 170-pound NCWWC champion Kylie Welker, 2024 Olympic Trials qualifier Rose Cassioppi and incoming freshman Naomi Simon – a four-time undefeated Iowa state champion and the current Under-20 World team representative for the United States at 76 kilograms.
How all of that preposterous competition will ultimately shake out is anyone’s guess, particularly as we shift to a new arrangement of upper weight classes next college season – from 155/170/191 pounds to 160/180/207.
Regardless, Coach Chun will have no shortage of high-level options at either end of the weight class ‘spectrum’ with which to chase a second-consecutive national team title in 2024-25.
(Oh, and in case you were wondering, yeah, they figure to be pretty darn good in the middleweights too.)
Short time
That’s all I’ve got for you guys…for now anyway.
Who knows what Hawkeye wrestling news may crop up next?
I promise to be standing at the ready for whenever it does, but in the meantime, I’d like to wish all of you a great Memorial Day weekend ahead.
As always, thanks for reading – and here’s hoping we’ll catch up again real soon.
‘Till next time.
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