Blue White Illustrated

STAYING POWER PSU has some rebuilding to do, but a fifth consecutive wrestling crown is hardly out of reach ael Sanderson has done it again. Eight times in the 10 years since he was hired, he and his coach- ing staff have put Penn State atop the college wrestling world. It's an incredible run that exceeds al- most any dynasty going in sports right now, and it's got people wondering: How long can this go on? When the Nittany Lions won the na- tional tournament last month in Pitts- burgh, it was their fourth in a row. After the celebrations concluded, thoughts began turning to next season. The team appears to have plenty of firepower re- maining, even with this year's three indi- vidual champions listed as seniors. Reinforcements are arriving, too. But forecasting next year's lineup is as chal- lenging as it's been at any time in Sander- son's career. The variables in play – red- shirts, medical redshirts, Olympic red- shirts, maybe even a transfer or two – cloud the future radar. Furthermore, win- ning five in a row would be a nearly un- precedented feat. Winning four consecutive titles, something that Sanderson has now done twice, is a historic achievement in itself, one that only a handful of college coaches have ever accomplished. But five in a row? Only Dan Gable at Iowa has pulled that off. Sanderson's framework for winning championships has been to build around all-time great duos. In 2014, Ed Ruth and David Taylor had just graduated after leading PSU to four championships in a row. Bo Nickal and Jason Nolf were just arriving, destined to do the same. Bonus-point-scoring wrestlers like that don't come along all the time, and even less often in pairs. So instead of rushing Nickal and Nolf onto the mat before they were ready, Sanderson chose to redshirt them, like he did with Ruth and Taylor, thus preserving a marvel of a fifth year for all. During the season in which Nickal and Nolf sat out, Sanderson also opted to redshirt returning All-Americans Nico Megaludis and Zain Retherford. Essen- tially, PSU took itself out of the 2015 team race before the season even started in the hope that those moves would pay off in the years that followed. Four NCAA championships later, it's safe to say those moves paid off. "We're comfortable and happy with the way things have turned out," Sanderson said. "It was able to create a wave to roll through, and now the excit- ing part is creating another wave." Does that next wave need another year to recoil, like last time? Or is it ready to crest again right away? An unusually large group of freshmen – decorated yet green – are set to join the fold. First, take Brody Teske, who is com- ing off a redshirt and will likely take over the 125-pound spot. There are a host of mid- to upper-weight wrestlers such as Joe Lee (157/165), Aaron Brooks (174/184), Michael Beard (197) and Seth Nevills (285), too, who have been on a deferred JUDGMENT CALL C

• Cover