Iowa Wrestling Notebook

Hello good people!

The summer solstice is upon us, which means I’ve got more daylight hours than any other time of the year to drum up a brand-new piece of wrestling content.

OK, I’ll come clean. I’d have still sat down at the keyboard to do this even if we were slogging through the doldrums of late-January 4:30 p.m. sunsets.

But in the spirit of being ‘topical’ it just felt right to somehow rope in the astronomical event into this latest edition of Iowa Wrestling News and Notes.

To those of you who feel I may have shoehorned it in here – save your breath.

(I kind of already regret it as is.)

Anyway…

It’s been a busy past few days on the Hawkeye wrestling beat, so we’ll break everything down right here to make sure we’re all on the same page as the calendar turns to July.

First up? One of the wilder ‘could-have-been-but-never-really-was’ wrestling stories in recent memory.

Ferrari (the oldest model) hits the highway out of Iowa City

AJ Ferrari won a national championship back in 2021 as a true freshman 197-pounder for the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

Since then (and arguably even before) he has been one of, if not the most controversial figures in NCAA wrestling thanks to a variety of factors both on and off the mat.

Both of these things are true.

So, when younger brothers Anthony and Angelo each committed to the Hawkeyes within two weeks of one another back in March of 2023, attention immediately turned toward whether or not AJ would ultimately join them in Iowa City.

Rumors/speculation swirled for months, sightings on campus and in the Iowa room eventually occurred, and a December official visit seemed to indicate that a move was closer than ever to materializing.

Then the 2023 Soldier Salute happened.

At an event hosted by the Hawkeyes, attended by a sizable Hawkeye home crowd, against a potential soon-to-be Hawkeye teammate (Zach Glazier) and with former Hawkeyes (Dan Dennis and Alex Marinelli) in his corner, the Ferrari made a hard ‘U-turn’ that seemingly put him on a road heading out of Iowa City for good.

At least that’s my interpretation of his finals match, a sudden victory win-turned-disqualification that included the following transgressions:

Regardless of how things may have been ‘trending’ up until that point – which legitimate questions can be asked of in terms of it being allowed to do so in the first place – the momentum never really seemed to swing back toward AJ officially competing for the Hawkeyes after that December evening.

This past Monday the lengthy saga was finally put to rest for good, with Ferrari announcing his exit from Iowa to pursue the remainder of his college wrestling career elsewhere:

If we’re being completely honest, this is probably the best resolution for Iowa men’s wrestling as a whole – particularly with an additional component I’ll touch on in just a second.

AJ Ferrari may be an exceptionally talented wrestler, but too many bridges have seemingly been burned between him and various Hawkeye parties – and many more would need to be built – for his being a member of the program to become a tenable, much less worthwhile situation.

**The same could be said for (also departing) younger brother Anthony, who has his own somewhat checkered history and also got into it with a current Hawkeye (Caleb Rathjen) at the Soldier Salute.**

However, the best news (or non-news) to come from all of this is that 2024 commit Angelo Ferrari – arguably the top high school wrestler in America – remains very much in the fold at Iowa by all indications.

The youngest of the three brothers is enrolled at Iowa per the UI Student Directory and continues to promote both his own and his teammates’ Hawkeye affiliation across social media.

Here’s hoping that his Hawkeye career goes more smoothly than those (that never really were) of his elder siblings.

I’d suspect that it will.

Miller twins join the Class of 2025

In other men’s-related news this week – actually preceding the development with Ferrari – Iowa picked up a pair of commitments for its 2025 recruiting class in the form of Ohio upper weights Jarrel and Tyrel Miller.

Competing out of powerhouse St. Edwards High School, the twins will bolster an Iowa room that’s set to lose its presumptive 184 and 197-pound starters following the 2024-25 season.

Jarrel – a three-time Ohio State Tournament runner up (157/175/190) – was the first to announce his commitment on Monday morning.

Per FloWrestling’s most recent rankings, Jarrel currently sits 18 nationally at 190 pounds (regardless of class). However, when you look solely at the Class of 2025 (soon-to-be seniors) Flo has him ranked 21 overall, regardless of weight.

Some of his past accomplishments would appear to support that more lofty ranking as well, including a 2022 Fargo 16U national title (170 pounds) and a 189-pound title at the 2023 edition of the prestigious Powerade Wrestling Tournament held in Pennsylvania.

At present, Zach Glazier is the lone 197-pounder listed on the Iowa roster, and he’ll exhaust his final year of eligibility next season.

That means (for now) Jarrel Miller projects to be the only Hawkeye 197-pounder come 2025-26 – though that can/will likely change by then via other additions/transfers/changes in weight/etc.

Tyrel would announce his own pledge to the Hawkeyes shortly after his brother.

Ranked #16 nationally at 175 pounds, the smaller of the twins was a seventh-place finisher two years ago at Fargo in the 16U division and has finished third (165) and second (175) respectively at the past two Ohio State Tournaments.

Alongside Jarrel, he gives Tom Brands & Co. another high-upside option in the 174–197-pound range.

The pair join New Jersey’s Leo DeLuca (ranked #2 nationally at 120 pounds) and Colorado’s Leister Bowling IV (a projected 174/184 pounder) to make up Iowa’s quartet of current commitments in the Class of 2025.

Welker to challenge for U23 World team spot…at 72 kilograms

Switching over to the Iowa women’s side of things, an intriguing development cropped up on Tuesday that Hawkeye superstar Kylie Welker would be challenging for a spot on the upcoming U23 World team.

The intrigue comes not from the fact that Welker (a 2024 NCWWC national champion at 170 pounds) would want to get herself on another World team, but that she’s set to do so at a weight class that she hasn’t competed at since the 2021 Senior World Championships – 72 kilograms (~158.7 pounds).

Ever since then, the Wisconsin native has competed at either 76 kilograms (~167.6 pounds) or 170 pounds, be it during the collegiate schedule this past season or as recently as the 2024 Team USA Olympic Trials in April.

So, does this indicate some sort of long-term change for Welker as to what weight she’ll compete at on the collegiate/international scene?

For now, we’d all probably do well to just hold our collective horses on this one.

USA Wrestling does a great job explaining the challenge process here, but essentially 72 kilograms was the only realistic option for Welker to get herself onto the U23 team that will compete in Tirana, Albania this October (21-27). The others were either already determined (including 76kg) or far too small for her to compete at.

So, Welker will now face Jasmine Robinson in a best-of-three series for the 72-kilogram spot. The wrestle-off will be held next Thursday (June 27) during the Olympic Team Camp occurring in Colorado Springs, CO.

Robinson is an incredibly talented/accomplished young prospect – earning spots on the U17 World team in both 2022 and 2023, winning a bronze medal for the latter.

This April she dominated on her way to 72-kilogram titles in both the U20 and U23 divisions up in Spokane, WA at the 2024 Women’s National Championships – and has been tabbed by Flo as the #4 pound-for-pound women’s high school wrestler in America.

Even so, if the weight cut doesn’t present too much of an issue, I’d expect Welker to prevail in this series and make what would be the fifth different World team of the 20-year-old’s young career to date.

As far as what this could hint at for the 2024-25 college season, that’s a bit less clear-cut.

After approving across-the-board changes to the NCAA women’s weight classes for next season, the three uppermost weights will go from 155/170/191 pounds to 160/180/207.

I’d been operating under the assumption that Welker would compete at 180 next year for the simple fact that A) she probably wouldn’t have much trouble winning it regardless of the size discrepancy and B) cutting down to 160 for an entire college season would seem counterproductive to reaching her lofty international goals at 76 kilograms – a weight class at which she has previously stated she’d worked diligently/successfully to become ‘full-sized’ at.

But if 72kg proves to be an ‘easy’ enough cut in late October perhaps the Hawkeye sophomore will carry it right into the college season and go for her second individual national title – this time down at 160.

No matter what any of this does/doesn’t indicate, Welker and Iowa will be just fine either way given her own talents as well as the deep group of high-caliber teammates that surrounds her.

Short time

That’ll do it for me.

Hopefully this Friday news wrap up can serve as a nice lead-in to everyone’s summer weekend plans.

If you’re looking for something to do over the next day or so feel free to check in with me on Twitter where I’ll be continuing to update results from Hawkeye commits competing down in Tulsa at Junior National Duals.

Or you can always stream the action live on FloWrestling for yourself.

Thanks as always for reading and enjoy the solstice!

(Yes, I’m sticking with that stupid bit.)

‘Till next time.

The post Iowa Wrestling Notebook appeared first on On3.