Fresh Challenges Ahead for North Dakota State?s New Era of Division I Wrestling
10/29/2004 5:00:00 AM | Wrestling
When the NCAA Division II championships wrapped up in
NDSU's 36th straight winning season ended with another runner-up finish in the country and marked the last time that head coach Bucky Maughan would pencil into his schedule the names of North Central Conference foes that he's become so familiar with over his past 41 years of coaching.
Duals against Minnesota-State Mankato, Augustana and Nebraska-Omaha, have been replaced by matches with Princeton, Duke and
Division I wrestling has arrived and with it comes a new set of challenges that the four-time Division II national champion and 17-time NCC champion Bison have never seen.
“It's going to be new places, new teams, new experiences,” said Maughan. “There are a lot of ifs. We can't go in expecting that we're going to go undefeated like last year. We're using this year as an introduction to week after week, constant Division I wrestling.”
The 2004-05 season has already started with a giant step in the right direction. In September, the wrestling program received acceptance for multidivisional classification, meaning wrestling will be eligible for the NCAA wrestling championships in the 2006-07 season. Initially, the Bison were not eligible until the 2008-09 season.
“That changed the whole scope of what we're trying to do,” said Maughan, who has utilized the news as an even bigger attraction for recruiting top talent to NDSU. “I've talked to 17 elite wrestlers, from
“I am looking at that first year of D-I eligibility to go in there and make some noise,” Maughan stated. “We're building now to 2006. Our whole process, the experience, the scheduling, getting used to wrestling at higher levels, is so that when we do become tournament eligible we're going to go in there and shoot for a pretty good finish.”
The immediate future of Bison wrestling begins this November. NDSU returns 2004 All-Americans Nick Magee and Matt Hermann, plus two-time All-American Lucas Christianson, who sat out most of last season. Seniors Magee, Christianson, and Collin Kelly will captain this year's squad into the uncharted waters of Division I.
“Right now, we are starting with a very young team,” said Maughan, who will have to replace graduating All-Americans seniors Brian Kraemer, Paul Carlson, Mike Fiedler and Thad Pike. “We are going to have a lot of new people in and we're going to be facing a lot tougher schedule than we've ever faced in our past.”
The Bison will head out east for the NC State Duals and the Virginia Duals in early January for a true test in top-notch competition.
The mindset for the coaches and wrestlers in the inaugural Division I campaign has a slightly different twist than in year's past. Battling teams like
“Our approach is that everything we do is a positive. We're training harder and working harder on the mental toughness aspect of the game,” Maughan said.
“It's not a leap that we can't make. It's that you have to take a different mindset. It's real easy for Division II wrestlers to get spooked, and say, ?We've got to wrestle Division I guys.' Well, now you are Division I guys.”
Maughan captured NAIA and NCAA national crowns as a collegiate wrestler at Minnesota State-Moorhead in the early 1960s, and he believes he had a tougher time in the NAIA tournament. He's preaching that same attitude every day at practice.
“With our guys, they have to know that it's not that different; it's just a mindset. That's what I have to do. I have to get our guys thinking, we're Division I wrestlers and we can go with anybody.”
This year's squad features veteran wrestlers and redshirts from last year that are hungry for mat time. Maughan plans to redshirt the entire freshman class to save their eligibility for the Division I championships. Returning NCAA qualifier Eric Sanders will also redshirt this season to gain an extra year at the Division I level.
“I think we've got a good lineup,” Maughan said. “It will be a good learning experience for us. I think we're going to be better than some people think we're going to be.”
