General consensus seems to be that while Smith is a wrestling legend, and had incredible success EARLY in his head coaching career - 5 Team Championships from 94-06 - the program has dropped off to depths once unimaginable in OK. And I really studied the OSU issues a bit while I was in Tulsa (fully admitting that my studying was maybe as "in depth" as an anti-vaxxer "doing his own research.") OSU boards hammer away at Smith being too old-school in terms of (a) the type of wrestlers he recruits (he seems to love hard-nosed grinders who won state championships, without thinking enough about how (or whether) they have elite national skills; (b) trains his guys in the old school grind it out method, which doesn't translate to wins at the National level when the top guys have such amazing defensive skills. But (a) and ((b) seem secondary to him not keeping up with the developments of (c) regional training centers stocked with elite training partners and money; (d) the transfer portal; and (e) NIL money. He has basically missed the boat on those three big developments over the past 10 years and OSU fans fear he's crippled the program for years to come. This was a program with 34 National Titles. Obviously, Penn State has crushed it and led the way on those three modern developments. Even VT has done much better than OSU on (c) and (d) and I credit Robie for seeing how important those factors would be moving forward. I am less certain about how our guys are doing on NIL. I don't think we are doing enough. And make no mistake, the best wrestlers want to make money. I believe the Penn State guys are making the kind of money you could not imagine. I've heard numbers that are out there in the rumor mill but I won't repeat them because I don't like spreading rumors. "Only 9.9 wrestling scholarships" doesn't mean much at a school when a kid can make six-figures (???) in the RTC and with NIL deals. I have also heard that the Penn State National Champions have become pretty adept at using certain key terms in post-tournament interviews about maybe moving on to the next level (international or MMA) instead of coming back for another year, and then there is suddenly more NIL money so he comes back to wrestle on Saturday night again. But getting back to Smith, OSU fans want him gone. I read through a very long OSU message board and numerous people commented that it was amazing that not one person in a multi-page thread wanted OSU to stick with Smith. They finished tied with Air Force at 18. Oklahoma U is even further down the standings and I think Rosselli might be coming to the end of his run. If you go on OU's twitter page, they cancelled their post-tournament social with a simple tweet and suggested that anyone who was still in town should meet at a particular Tulsa bar. Ouch! ** Edited by vtdadingf at 3/20/2023, 1:39:55 PM