A few thoughts...
I grew up in Wabash County and my wife in Fulton County and have raised my family in Purplesburg. We chose not move back north after college because of job opportunities and when we had kids, the educational opportunities that exist in Brownsburg Community School Corporation vs. what the wife and I had in the late 80's up north. Some of the student athletes who attended Brownsburg HS when their siblings attended an other HCC rival have spoken volumes about how those opportunities in educaton were best for those kids...
Almost every single football visit my son took his junior year, the football staff spoke to him/us about wrestling almost more than football in all cases. They recognize the grind, discipline, etc. it takes to be an elite wrestler while being a P5 football recruit. He visited multiple footballs camps and even met the Red Cobra contingent at an exit in Iowa City following a football camp to catch a ride to Lincoln, NE for a week of wrestling camp during summer football workouts...
While being a multi sport athlete, you have to continue to train for wrestling while practicing football, track, baseball, CC, etc. You can't just pick it up in season... That requires A LOT of sacrifice of time, effort, etc.
How many are willing to do that?
How many coaches of those other sports are willing to at least look the other way while the wrestler still trains?
And if the coach doesn't like it, are the parents and student athlete willing to continue with their plan/goals? (experienced this)
One of my son's future #SWARM23 classmates is a guy some may have heard of... Name is Ben Kueter - 4x Iowa State Champ, U20 World Champion, etc. He drives from Iowa City to Sebolt's Academy a few times a week. Check the distance if interested... And he plays baseball. Iowa's high school association has it set so that kids can do FOUR (4) sports seasons - as track and field is in the spring and baseball follows it into the summer and some of their best athletes are 3 or 4 sport kids and those coaches acknowledge that sometimes you need to let those elite athletes participate/train concurrently. Another walk-on classmate played basketball for his high school and wrestled AND made their state tournament! Another young man you will hear more about in the future, Aaron Graves - gatorade player of the year, 1000 career basketball points and 4th at state in wrestling - he will be a B1G DL of the year and likely a 1st rd draft pick in the future.
Some would say this is easy for someone from Purplesburg to say, but the training he did consisted of private sessions with C-Red outside of normal team or academy practices because of other time committments...
I guess what I'm trying to say is something along the lines of if you want something bad enough, are you willing to put the time and sacrifices into trying to achieve it...?
Class wrestling probably would help a few things - maybe shortening up the tournament series length by a week or two, shortening distances for driving to the regional/ss weekend, too.