Football/Wrestling

The teams in 9 Man

Football/Wrestling

Postby Wombat » Thu Nov 03, 2011 3:32 pm

I am surprised to see only 1 of 4 teams remaining in 9-man play-offs have wrestling at their school. In 2008 going into the Semi-Final weekend of football, 14 of the remaining 16 teams from 9-man through AAA had wrestling programs at their schools. Looking back this year, 6 of the 8 Eastern ND Playoff teams do have wrestling, but none from the West do.

I bring this up only because I was reading some references on these boards about basketball players who are making their mark on the football field, especially for North Star who was last year's Basketball State Champions. As a wrestling coach, I am always trying to convince football players to come out for wrestling in the winter. There are a lot of statistics that show why they should-

Top 15 Wrestling teams from last year (2010-2011) and how they also did in football: (Because of co-ops for wrestling, this actually leads to 17 football teams)
Oakes (Did not make play-offs)
Lisbon (Lost 1st round playoffs to Carrington)
South Border (won 1st round playoffs, Lost to Thompson in 2nd round. Thompson has wrestlers who compete for Red River.)
Carrington (Beat Lisbon in 1st Round playoffs, Lost to Devils Lake in Semi-finals)
Napoleon (1st Round Bye, lost to Wyndmere Lidgerwood in 2nd round)
Watford City (Made it to Semi-Finals before losing to Velva)
Killdeer (Beat Harvey 1st Round, Lost to Watford City in Quarterfinals)
New Salem (Did not make play-offs)
Central Cass (Did not make play-offs)
Rolla/Rock Lake/St. Johns (Rolla/North Prairie beat MVE 1st Round, Lost in Quarterfinals) (St. John's won 1st round by 32 vs. surrey, Then beat Richardton-Taylor in 2nd Round, lost to wells county in Quarters)
Hillsboro (1st Round bye, Beats Dak. prairie in 2nd round, Loses in quarters to W/L)
Linton (Beat Park River 1st Round, lost in quarterfinals to Milnor/NS)
Harvey (Lost 1st round playoffs to Killdeer)
Velva (Class "A" State Champions)
North Border/Cavalier (Cavalier was undefeated until Semi-final loss) (NB won 1st rd. by 30, then beat kidder cty in 2nd round, loses in quarters to Thompson)

Not sure the order of finish, but these were the 8 teams who made it to state Basketball last season:
North Star (Made Play-offs, lost in Quarterfinals)
Grafton (Lost 1st round of playoffs)
Dickinson Trinity (lost 1st round of play-offs)
New Town (didn't make Play-offs)
Minot Ryan (Didn't make FB Play-offs)
Oak Grove (Did they win a game in FB last year?)
Standing Rock (Did not make play-offs)
Linton (Also a top wrestling school- Lost in quarterfinals in FB)

So in comparison- Just 2 of 8 schools who qualified for state basketball made it past the 1st round of the playoffs and one of them was also a top 15 wrestling school. 14 of 17 of the top Class "B" wrestling schools made it past the 1st round of the play-offs or lost in the 1st round to another wrestling school.

I know through efforts I've made to recruit more kids to join the wrestling teams that I have coached, I have also done research like this in past years to show kids why wrestling and football go hand in hand and it's always overwhelming to compare the good football programs to the good wrestling programs.

over the past 10 years in Class "B" Wrestling, the top teams would be: Napoleon, Hillsboro, Carrington, Velva, Linton, Lisbon, Watford City, Killdeer, Hettinger, Central Cass, North Border/Cavalier, and Oakes to name a few. It's not a coincidence that just about every one of those teams has also been dominate in football over that same time span.

Last year (2010-2011 season) no less than 11 All-State (State place-winner) wrestlers signed letters of intent to play collegiate football. I believe there were a few state qualifiers for wrestling who didn't place who signed to play FB as well.

23 members of last year's Shrine Bowl team were state qualifiers in wrestling, 20 of them were state place-winners in wrestling, 5 were state champions, 3 were high school all-americans, and one was the Mr. Wrestler award winner.

2010-2011 All-State Football players:
7 AAA All-State FB players were also state qualifiers in wrestling.
11 AA All-State FB Players were also State qualifiers in wrestling (14 All-East Region and 13 All-West Region players were Wrestling state qualifiers)
9 A All-State FB Players were also State Qualifiers in Wrestling
8 9-man All-State FB Players last year were state qualifiers in wrestling
Grand Total = 35 State Qualifying wrestlers in 2010-2011 were named as All-State Football players.
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby Run4Fun2009 » Thu Nov 03, 2011 4:13 pm

Wombat wrote:Oak Grove (Did they win a game in FB last year?)


Just to answer this question...Nope

Oak Grove
8/27 - CARRINGTON 0 - 38 L
9/3 - CENTRAL CASS 0 - 45 L
9/10 - VALLEY CITY 16 - 40 L
9/17 - @ Lisbon 0 - 52 L
9/24 - @ Grafton 6 - 50 L
10/1 - KINDRED 8 - 30 L
10/8 - WAHPETON 0 - 30 L
10/14 - @ Shanley 8 - 51 L
10/19 - @ Central Cass 6 - 45 L
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby panthercub » Thu Nov 03, 2011 5:20 pm

Very good point wombat! Good info
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby The Schwab » Thu Nov 03, 2011 6:15 pm

Very nice breakdown! I'll venture my guess. The teams with great wrestling programs will have good football teams because I feel wrestling teaches you balance and body control, having never wrestled this is my opinion correct me if I am wrong. I would be willing to bet that if you are a good upper weight class wrestler lets say from 160 and up you will have the building blocks to be a good lineman, fair? Lower weight classes lets say less than 160 will make good runningbacks/fullbacks and maybe some wideouts. I would say some of your better qb's some backs and most wideouts would make good basketball players, fair? So I would say that a great wrestling program is the building block of a good football team, but if you add in some of your skill positions from basketball you will have a very good football team.
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby ndfbfan70 » Sat Nov 05, 2011 9:22 pm

good question difficult answer. i have played and coached in in every level of football from elementary to college. i think athletes are athletes i have good bball players that are exceptional fb players and i have seen good wrestlers that are good football players. i think an athlete is an athlete doesnt matter which sport they play. i think you have to break it down even further to win/losses in wrestling vs win/losses in the bball program and compare them to that schools fb teams. i dont have the time nor resources to do that.

a few things i have noticed through the years though. these by no means hold true for every situation.
wrestlers make better ol because they have a better understanding of leverage.
bball players typically have better feet ie run better routes take better read steps
wrestlers typically do better with individual challenges, like blowing a guy of the line or getting a sack, making a yard when their is not blocking.
bball players are usually more fluid in their body motion, quicker cuts making making a few more athletic plays.

i have a few others but i will leave it at that. like i said this not hold true for all players, but this is what i have observed through the years.
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby Flip » Sun Nov 06, 2011 3:15 am

ehhh....what about tackling?
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby winner-within » Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:21 am

This isnt coming from "winner-within" but there was and old saying in a town up north here, that Wrestlers were "basketball rejects"......it usually caused a little friction...Ha ha.....reality was, they had a better Wrestling program overall than they did Basketball...........!!
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby defensewinsgames » Mon Nov 07, 2011 11:45 am

I think that the Dakota Bowl matchup makes this thread a lot more interesting. Having a traditionally good wrestling school going up against a good basketball school could possibly help one side of the argument for this discussion. I don't think you can base it off of this one game but it could help.
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby Wombat » Thu Nov 10, 2011 10:30 am

Winner-within-
I've heard the "Basketball Rejects" line before... There was another saying from a wrestling team up north that went "It only takes one ball to play basketball, but it takes two to wrestle."


Defensewinsgames-
I agree you can't base everything off of one game, but what better teams to have squaring off for the state title to fuel this topic. In today's Grand Forks Herald there is a write up comparing Northstar's Basketball team to this year's football team. Talks about Hagler and Grande's passing abilities on the basketball court translating to success through the air on the football field. I also noticed in the 9-man game capsules that 2 of Napoleon's offensive threats were Jared Reis who leads the team in rushing and Steven Weigel who is third in rushing and 2nd in receiving yards. Reis is a 2X State Wrestling Champion and is ranked in the top 20 in the country, Weigel placed 3rd at last year's state tournament. I've also heard that Andrew Beine who placed at last year's state wrestling tournament is a force on the line for Napoleon.


When I started this topic, I was not in any way trying to imply that basketball players could not be outstanding football players. I played in Cavalier with Brady Trenbeath and Matt Anderson, both were named player of the year in ND Football, both were outstanding basketball players.

What I was trying to illustrate was that for the most part, the teams who have an excellent tradition in North Dakota H.S. Football also have solid wrestling teams. It's almost impossible to compare this to basketball because there are only about 50 wrestling schools in the entire state, while I believe literally every school that has a football team also has a basketball team. This is especially true in smaller schools where kids play multiple sports. In the larger schools more kids are specializing in sports so you don't get a lot of Basketball/Football stars or Wrestling/Football stars. You do get some, just not at the same rate as the small schools.
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby winner-within » Thu Nov 10, 2011 12:28 pm

If we would have had wrestling, or if we could have went down the road to wrestle (it was before co-ops) I would have wrestled, at least my fresh a soph years....then I grew 6 inches and started enjoying Basketball.....wrestling gives the edge to a football player when it comes to foundation and balance, its hard to tip over a wrestler.

Few wrestlers are real good at Basketball....but I do know a few!
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Re: Football/Wrestling

Postby defensewinsgames » Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:17 am

I agree that this game is great discussion fuel! In my experience basketball schools tend to have better passing attacks and better "skill" position players. Wrestling schools have a hard nosed bunch of kids. Thy often have excellent lineman and a tough strong backs. They have the strength and footwork to pound the ball down the middle.
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