Penn State Wrestling: Domination – By The Stats
For those of you Penn State Wrestling Fans who like walls of numbers and stats, well I have some good news for you!
However, if you’re not a big fan of a grown man blabbering on and throwing out random percentages, well, I’m sorry. Maybe you can stick around and learn something new?
I promise to keep the read-time of this article well under the norm. Which means it’ll be less than an hour.
Did I lose you yet?
Oh good, you’re still here!
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I’m going to assume that since you clicked on this article, you’re aware that the Nittany Lions, led by head coach Cael Sanderson, have won 11 of the past 13 NCAA team championships. Penn State Wrestling’s sheer dominance on the mat over the past decade-plus has been incredible to watch.
The Nittany Lions appear to have a firm hold on collegiate wrestling. So much so that there have been many questions asked if what they are doing is even good for the sport.
Now I’m not here to discuss that, however I certainly have some thoughts on it. But let’s first dive into some numbers during Cael Sanderson’s tenure in Happy Valley
Cael Sanderson Stats
Sanderson is now in his 16th season as the head man at Penn State and he currently owns a record of 210-16-2.
Just for the people who are fans of math (Cue Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds – “NERDS!!”), that comes out to a winning percentage of 92%. For context, the highest winning percentage in Nittany Lion history belongs to J.H. Shollenberger who coached one full season and went 5-0.
Oh, by the way, this was back in 1914.
Additionally, Sanderson is the program leader in overall wins as he surpassed Penn State great Charlie Speidel (191 wins) last year.
Another stat to throw out there is the fact that Sanderson has coached 91 All-Americans and 38 NCAA Champions during his tenure in Happy Valley. Keep in mind Cael is only 45 years old. So it’s possible he could coach for many more years to come.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Nittany Lions are smack dab in the middle of a dual meet win streak of 63 straight. The NCAA unbeaten record is 84 straight wins and this belongs to both Oklahoma State and Iowa.
However, both of these streaks included ties.
The NCAA record for consecutive dual meet victories is 76. And this is held by Oklahoma State from 1939 to 1951.
Who knows how long this streak will end, however, this is a great segue into looking at the numbers from the current season.
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Penn State Dual Meets 2024-2025
The Nittany Lions have wrestled in a total of seven dual meets this season. Which means two things:
-Obviously, they’re 7-0 as it would be dumb to bring up a win streak following a recent loss
-There have been a total of 70 matches
Just a quick note, the numbers I’m about to throw into your laps are from the dual meets only. These don’t account for invitationals and other tournaments.
Stats
-Penn State is 67-3 in the 70 total matches wrestled. This breaks down to a 96% winning percentage.
-There have been a total of 180 takedowns in the 70 matches. The Nittany Lions have a staggering 170 of these (94%).
-From takedowns alone, Penn State is outscoring their opponents 510-30 in match scoring.
-Penn State Wrestling has outscored their opponents a combined 323-9 in dual meets.
-This includes three dual meets where they’ve scored 50+ points.
-The Nittany Lions tied the program record for largest margin of victory against Michigan State (55-0).
-Of the 70 matches wrestling, Penn State won bonus points in 54 of the matches (77%).
-The lone losses on the year were all decisions.
-Penn State has forced 36 stall calls on the year. Conversely, they’ve only taken five.
-The riding time point has been awarded in 11 total matches. The Nittany Lions have won 10 of them (91%).
What does this mean for Penn State Wrestling?
Well for starters, it means the lineup is a juggernaut from top to bottom.
It also means that Penn State Wrestling hasn’t faced a ton of competition this year. But at this point in the year that’s fairly common.
The Nittany Lions have faced three ranked teams so far: No. 26 Lehigh, No. 17 Little Rock, and No. 23 Missouri.
Much stiffer competition is on its way. And soon.
Penn State travels to No. 6 Nebraska this Friday, which should be a good dual meet from start to finish.
Then the rest of the B1G schedule is the following:
-No. 13 Rutgers (away) Jan 24th
-No. 2 Iowa (home) Jan 31st
-No. 21 Michigan (home) Feb 7th
-No. 29 Maryland (home) Feb 9th
-No. 4 Ohio State (away) Feb 14th
-No. 10 Illinois (away) Feb 16th
So yeah, it’s going to ramp up quite a bit.
But back to my question at the top of this section.
With what the Nittany Lions have done already this season, what does that mean?
Well, nothing. While some of the stats they are putting up are mind-blowing, nothing matters until the calendar moves to March.
The only things that matter are that everyone stays healthy and that they are peaking at the right time of the year. And when that happens, then you can start talking about stats and records because they will be backed up with individual and team titles.
MORE Penn State Wrestling News from NittanyCentral:
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- Ranking The Greatest Meets of the Cael Sanderson Era at Penn State
- Carter Starocci Aiming to Finish Career in Class By Himself
Education: Penn State University
Location: State College, PA
Even though he had no prior journalism experience, Chris has now covered Penn State Wrestling and Penn State Football for the past three years, including as the Penn State Wrestling Beat Writer for VictoryBellRings.com, part of the FanSided network.
And it's clear he also likes constant torture as he's been a PSU Basketball fan for way too long.
Several years back, Chris made the seamless transition from PGA Professional to computer programmer and thoroughly enjoys following and writing about all things related to Penn State sports during his spare time.
- Penn State Wrestling: Domination – By The Stats - January 15, 2025
- Penn State Wrestling vs. Michigan State: Nittany Lions blank Sparty 55-0 | FULL RESULTS - January 10, 2025
- Penn State Wrestling: Bold Predictions for the B1G Regular Season - January 8, 2025