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Let's shake things up--new rules ideas


Dave Cloud

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OK, time to play rules czar for a day. What rule/rule change would you propose to make the sport better? To save everyone some time, there will probably NEVER be one foot in bounds for a takedown. The safety concerns from the NFHS will always trump added benefit from more scoring at the edge. With many gyms having inadequate space, it would be difficult to have a uniformly enforced rule. Here is my proposal:

Four point near-fall after a four count. 

Rationale: More scoring equal more excitement. Also, easy to understand: two count in danger equals two points, four count equals four points. More reward for scoring should encourage more mat wrestling leading to fewer out of bounds situations, speeding up matches. Also, bigger scoring opportunity could lead to more comebacks from deficits. Ideally, faster matches might even lead to NFHS someday approving six match limit instead of five. A 16 man bracket with full wrestlebacks to third could then be done in one day.

Let's hear your thoughts on this and your ideas for a rule addition/change. New proposal period for wrestling rules opens June 1, 2019

Edited by dave c
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Two thoughts:

1. Reduce tech fall differential to 10 points. Or, give the option for tournament or super dual sites to use a 10-point tech fall rule. 

Rationale: Speeds up long days. Another step toward reducing mat time that might allow for 6 matches in a day in the future. Doesn't reduce possibility of big comeback because comebacks will seem just as miraculous if they happen from a 9-point deficit with a 10-point rule as they do now with a 14-point comeback with a 15-point rule. And 99.9% of matches will have the same winner even with a reduced point differential requirement.

2. Aside from blatant shove-outs, award a point for an opponent stepping out of bounds from the neutral position.

Rationale: Speeds up matches by reducing out-of-bounds stoppages and adding a few more points here and there. Forces exciting wrestling as wrestlers must stay in bounds. Becomes a second-nature rule very quickly, as evidenced by the easy adaptation that took place when freestyle competition adopted a similar rule.

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19 minutes ago, maligned said:

Two thoughts:

1. Reduce tech fall differential to 10 points. Or, give the option for tournament or super dual sites to use a 10-point tech fall rule. 

Rationale: Speeds up long days. Another step toward reducing mat time that might allow for 6 matches in a day in the future. Doesn't reduce possibility of big comeback because comebacks will seem just as miraculous if they happen from a 9-point deficit with a 10-point rule as they do now with a 14-point comeback with a 15-point rule. And 99.9% of matches will have the same winner even with a reduced point differential requirement.

2. Aside from blatant shove-outs, award a point for an opponent stepping out of bounds from the neutral position.

Rationale: Speeds up matches by reducing out-of-bounds stoppages and adding a few more points here and there. Forces exciting wrestling as wrestlers must stay in bounds. Becomes a second-nature rule very quickly, as evidenced by the easy adaptation that took place when freestyle competition adopted a similar rule.

Intriguing thought on Tech Fall, but I feel as though the Major decision would then need to be 6 or complete disregarded if that happened. 8 for major and just 2 more for tech fall wouldn't make much sense. LOVE the step-out! Prepares for International styles and forces athletes to wrestle at all times instead of stalling. Would eliminate the ability to stall on the edge with a lead that so many have grown to love.

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1) 100% agree on the step out

2) First injury time used when opponent has not been called for an illegal move = opponent gets choice. Second time wrestler must withdraw. Stops (hopefully)wrestler from using injury time to recover and if a wrestler is that injured he must stop the match twice, probably shouldn’t be in there. 

3) I’m good with a 4 point near fall and a 3 point takedown. Keep rewarding offensive wrestling 

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Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.

As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  

You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

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6 hours ago, Kookie953 said:

Mat-side weigh ins.  You said I'm czar for the day.  Haha.

As a process guy in my "professional" life, the whole idiocy of weigh-ins days or hours before actually wrestling defeats the purpose.  It would literally take a few seconds per match.  

You miss weight, it's a forfeit.  All the sudden you have eliminated your issue of kids cutting too much and people will wrestle their true weight.

Love the idea here too. Evens the playing field a bit and would likely grow the sport a lot because Football athletes (and coaches) are often not huge proponents of our sport (even though they should be with all the transference) because of weight cutting. They don't want their boys getting smaller for any reason. 

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14 hours ago, maligned said:

Two thoughts:

1. Reduce tech fall differential to 10 points. Or, give the option for tournament or super dual sites to use a 10-point tech fall rule. 

Rationale: Speeds up long days. Another step toward reducing mat time that might allow for 6 matches in a day in the future. Doesn't reduce possibility of big comeback because comebacks will seem just as miraculous if they happen from a 9-point deficit with a 10-point rule as they do now with a 14-point comeback with a 15-point rule. And 99.9% of matches will have the same winner even with a reduced point differential requirement.

2. Aside from blatant shove-outs, award a point for an opponent stepping out of bounds from the neutral position.

Rationale: Speeds up matches by reducing out-of-bounds stoppages and adding a few more points here and there. Forces exciting wrestling as wrestlers must stay in bounds. Becomes a second-nature rule very quickly, as evidenced by the easy adaptation that took place when freestyle competition adopted a similar rule.

Playing devils advocate on the “step out” rule. So if im controlling the center of the mat and shooting you to the out of bound line and I take one more shot and you do a quarter turn and shoot me out, I’m stalling? Also, what happens if I take a shot in the middle of the mat and drive until you’re off the mat?(not blantly shoved off).

To me a step out rule would be too judgmental, if you want to enforce college rules, so be it. However, if you just say if you get shot out you can be stalling even if there’s a scramble. Not a huge fan of it.

 

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16 minutes ago, Kyle Ayersman said:

Playing devils advocate on the “step out” rule. So if im controlling the center of the mat and shooting you to the out of bound line and I take one more shot and you do a quarter turn and shoot me out, I’m stalling? Also, what happens if I take a shot in the middle of the mat and drive until you’re off the mat?(not blantly shoved off).

To me a step out rule would be too judgmental, if you want to enforce college rules, so be it. However, if you just say if you get shot out you can be stalling even if there’s a scramble. Not a huge fan of it.

 

I would want to take the subjective element of stalling completely out of it. I'm not suggesting a stalling rule. I'm suggesting a step-out rule that makes out-of-bounds situations fully objective.  Know where you are and don't step out. It doesn't matter who initiated. It's just another layer of mat awareness, body positioning, and tactics. But the big bonus is it automatically takes away a significant chunk of stalling in a natural, unbiased way.

Edited by maligned
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25 minutes ago, casualwrestlingfan said:

Add another weight class between 220 and HWT to give 15 classes so that "normally" number of matches won would be the only tiebreaker needed. Make HWT just be 290 with no allowances and have the added class be 255.

if adding a 255 or anything close to that, why not just make HWT an open class with no limit. Let the future D and O line kids wrestle. It would also bring in more kids as the football coaches would want their kids getting in better shape and improving footwork. 

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30 minutes ago, casualwrestlingfan said:

Add another weight class between 220 and HWT to give 15 classes so that "normally" number of matches won would be the only tiebreaker needed. Make HWT just be 290 with no allowances and have the added class be 255.

The only problem with adding weight classes is that we already have too many forfeits and adding weight classes increases forfeits.

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1 hour ago, Y2CJ41 said:

The step out isn't judgmental, it's pretty simple...if your foot steps out of bounds no matter the action the other guy gets a point. It's actually the easiest rule out there to interpret.

Disagree. In old freestyle rules if I had a shot and other guy sprawled and we were moved near the out of bound line, no points we awarded when we went out. So that right there would be a judgement call...unless you were to say no points can be awarded, in that situation.

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2 hours ago, Coach Brobst said:

Love the idea here too. Evens the playing field a bit and would likely grow the sport a lot because Football athletes (and coaches) are often not huge proponents of our sport (even though they should be with all the transference) because of weight cutting. They don't want their boys getting smaller for any reason. 

That's an excellent point (and I'm a football coach).  We recently just moved down here to Texas, where wrestling and wrestling culture is not as prevalent...obviously football is.  You wouldn't believe how many wrestling people I've talked to where football coaches are the biggest obstacle to getting kids to wrestle, despite the transference.  

But it's mainly due to the issue of cutting and the thought of the football coaches is their kids are now not getting bigger, stronger, and faster in the winter.  

Yes, I'm doing my part to try to change that thinking too...but when your 175 lb running back or linebacker is all the sudden wrestling 160 then there is some merit to the argument.

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3 minutes ago, Kyle Ayersman said:

Disagree. In old freestyle rules if I had a shot and other guy sprawled and we were moved near the out of bound line, no points we awarded when we went out. So that right there would be a judgement call...unless you were to say no points can be awarded, in that situation.

It's not a judgement call any more. It's a simple, you step out the guy gets a point. The time it was an issue was when people gamed the system to drop to their knees as they were going out of bounds to avoid the "step" out. That was fixed fairly quickly.

The step out is a very easy rule and concept to understand. 

I like the way out of bounds is called in college, BUT would not want high school refs to have that kind of power of judgement on every time someone went out of bounds. The stepout would be a lot easier to implement with high school refs and it is fairly simple to see who steps out first.

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2 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

It's not a judgement call any more. It's a simple, you step out the guy gets a point. The time it was an issue was when people gamed the system to drop to their knees as they were going out of bounds to avoid the "step" out. That was fixed fairly quickly.

The step out is a very easy rule and concept to understand. 

I like the way out of bounds is called in college, BUT would not want high school refs to have that kind of power of judgement on every time someone went out of bounds. The stepout would be a lot easier to implement with high school refs and it is fairly simple to see who steps out first.

I guess we’ll disagree, I do not like step out idea at all.

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If I could change anything I would add a weight in back in the middle.  Those weights always seem to be loaded with both talent, and numbers.  I think you would actually see the % of FF go down as most teams could fill another middle spot. Also the 15th weight would make a difference for tie-breakers and things like that.

106
113
120
125
130
135
140
145
152
160
170
182
195
220
285

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27 minutes ago, Bear62 said:

if adding a 255 or anything close to that, why not just make HWT an open class with no limit. Let the future D and O line kids wrestle. It would also bring in more kids as the football coaches would want their kids getting in better shape and improving footwork. 

I'd rather see a limit still. I know some OL/DL can be bigger, but I'm not a fan of that as a football guy even. I'll take the smaller, quicker, athletic OL/DL than the 300lb one. I hope the rest of football for high school age would get in line with that. Many of those college and pro OL/DL end up loosing a bunch of weight or go the wrong direction. They will have more years of life after wrestling and football, which I think the limit would help.

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3 minutes ago, ENoblewrestling said:

If I could change anything I would add a weight in back in the middle.  Those weights always seem to be loaded with both talent, and numbers.  I think you would actually see the % of FF go down as most teams could fill another middle spot. Also the 15th weight would make a difference for tie-breakers and things like that.

106
113
120
125
130
135
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145
152
160
170
182
195
220
285

  1. 105
  2. 115
  3. 125
  4. 130
  5. 135
  6. 140
  7. 145
  8. 155
  9. 165
  10. 175
  11. 185
  12. 195
  13. 220
  14. 255
  15. 290 

Could change some of these depending on the trends of forfeits and how many are logged jammed in one weight class.

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37 minutes ago, Kookie953 said:

That's an excellent point (and I'm a football coach).  We recently just moved down here to Texas, where wrestling and wrestling culture is not as prevalent...obviously football is.  You wouldn't believe how many wrestling people I've talked to where football coaches are the biggest obstacle to getting kids to wrestle, despite the transference.  

But it's mainly due to the issue of cutting and the thought of the football coaches is their kids are now not getting bigger, stronger, and faster in the winter.  

Yes, I'm doing my part to try to change that thinking too...but when your 175 lb running back or linebacker is all the sudden wrestling 160 then there is some merit to the argument.

I have coached both sports for the past 8 years and it is a hard sell to the Head Football guy that losing even 10 pounds is going to be okay for the kids long term future. It was much tougher at smaller high schools as to fill out a line-up it was going to take 7-8 football players and obviously weight classes matter so to get in the line-up a 190 pound linebacker may go to 182 for the season.

That does bring into question the mat-side weigh ins a little as well though: If I'm at a smaller school and have 2 kids that weigh 164 naturally and a really good kid that weighs 178, obviously 178 has no problem maintaining for 182 and one of the 164 pounders easily goes 170, but the other one is fighting an uphill battle to keep under 160 on a regular basis. At HSE, I can probably find another athlete willing to do the sport because of our sheer numbers. When I was at Mooresville even (1400 students) or TC Howe (300 students), probably going to be a problem for me and may increase forfeits.

I think the rule nets positive overall, but probably won't happen because of small schools and trying to fill weights becoming more difficult.

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Indiana becoming a state that allows middle school wrestlers to compete on high school teams.  This may help avoid FF's, especially with small school programs.  I believe other states that allow middle school wrestlers to wrestle on high school teams are Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Iowa=traditionally strong college programs?? I may be incorrect with the states listed, but if memory serves me correctly I thought some states at least allow 8th graders?? 

May not be a reality for this to happen in Indiana.  If it is taking place in other states, why not Indiana?  I imagine we can all argue that some 8th graders if not 7th graders could stand on the podium at Bankers Life......

 

Edited by Coach Duncan
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13 minutes ago, Coach Duncan said:

Indiana becoming a state that allows middle school wrestlers to compete on high school teams.  This may help avoid FF's, especially with smaller school programs.  I believe other states that allow middle school wrestlers to wrestle on high school teams are Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Iowa=traditionally strong college programs?? If not 7th graders, maybe 8th graders??

May not be a reality for this to happen in Indiana.  It is taking place in other states, why not Indiana?  I imagine we can all argue that some 8th graders if not 7th graders could stand on the podium at Bankers Life.  

 

I could be wrong, but I believe some high school sports in Minnesota allow 6th through 12 to compete together. My mom's former hoops teammate in college coached the Minnesota women's team. I believe on of her players profiles it mentioned she had lettered on the varsity program from 6th to 12th grade at her school.

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