This week was the Oklahoma State Wrestling media day on Monday. David Taylor and wrestlers spoke with the media and gave their takes on the season. You can access all the videos here.
Here are five takeaways from what Coach Taylor and the wrestlers had to say.
1. Brayden Thompson will redshirt and travel with David Taylor for the World Championships
Not a huge surprise here, but Brayden Thompson will redshirt this season, Coach Taylor confirmed. OSU had a bunch of transfers come in around his size, he’s got the year available, he has grown a bit according to Taylor, and likely will be 184 moving forward. It’s a perfect time for him to go ahead and redshirt. He’s also going to get a great experience by going to the World Championships alongside David Taylor. So all the way around here a good move in my opinion.
2. David Taylor will retire from competition following the World Championships
Coach Taylor confirmed that the World Championships will be his final official competition. Not surprising as he’ll be turning his focus to coaching for his career, but a monumental announcement nonetheless as he’s had a remarkable career.
3. I don’t think we’ll be getting tons of direct lineup info out of Coach Taylor
As a guy that’s been doing this media stuff for a while, you learn certain tendencies and styles of coaches when it comes to interacting with the media and other things. John Smith was wide open. You really didn’t have to “pry” for information. He pretty openly said what was going on in his program at any given time when asked.
Coach Taylor may not be that. When he was asked twice about specific lineup spots and what they may look like this season, he seemed hesitant to directly say what they will be. Some of that is probably because there are still wrestle-offs and other things that will ultimately determine the spot. But some of that is just a “style” of dealing with the media. There’s no definitive answer as to what is the best way to do that as a coach. But it seems clear David Taylor will be a little more cautious about what info he puts out.
4. Orange Singlets
A little bit of an interesting wrinkle with Taylor’s style is he plans to have all lineup wrestlers wear orange. As a bit of a rite of passage within the program, starters will wear orange singlets while others will wear black singlets until they crack the lineup. So early season tournaments, you see a guy in orange. That’s the starter.
5. Cam Amine-Big Alex Dieringer fan
There were rumors out of high school that Cam Amine was really close to becoming a Cowboy. This was a little shocking as his family is very deeply tied to Michigan. I asked him about it and he confirmed that he was very close to coming to Oklahoma State and that largely tied to his fandom of Alex Dieringer. In a strange coincidence, Dieringer was on his way to Michigan not long after that and was around Amine for much of his career in Ann Arbor. It’s an interesting tidbit as there has always been that story floating around that OSU almost landed Cam out of high school and we now know that Alex Dieringer was a big part of that.
