I think the consensus on this board is that conference titles and dual wins don't matter to recruits, but do matter to fans, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. Even if the 'hardcore' fans care almost exclusively about nationals, I think casual fans are drawn in by high-profile dual wins and conference championships, and those casual fans become 'hardcore' over time. And we need to be steadily drawing in more casual fans over time to elevate the program as a whole - through attendance at home events and donations for SERTC / NIL, which definitely matter a lot to recruits. Cases in point: As a fan, I think I was just as excited when Zach Epperly pinned Mark Martin to win the Ohio State dual in 2014, or when Sam Latona scored 4 points on Camacho in the final 3 seconds of the match to win the NC State dual in 2021, as I was when Caleb Henson boat-raced Austin Gomez for the national title last March. All of those things motivate me as a fan to attend events and give to the program. So, while I agree that results at nationals matter much more than individual duals or conference tourneys, I think it's short-sighted to suggest that duals and conference titles aren't important to the big picture (which seems to be what some contributors to this thread are suggesting).