John Smith Says Count the Takedown, Count the Points!
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State has another major weekend of wrestling competition coming up with No. 24 Arizona State visiting Gallagher-Iba Arena to wrestle the freshly vaulted No. 3 and unbeaten Oklahoma State Cowboys. John Smith’s team is unbeaten at 10-0 and 5-0 in the Big 12. Then they will take out on the road and visit No. 5 Missouri, who was upset last week and saw Oklahoma State take their No. 3 ranking in this week’s poll.
Asked about the competition and getting fired up for the matches with ASU and Mizzou, and Smith sounded like former Alabama head football coach Nick Saban preaching the process.
“This is a time that you can hopefully get better, keep focused on your training and your skills,” Smith said. “We don’t think about the competition until the day before.”
Arizona State is coached, Like the Cowboys, by a alum in Zeke Jones, who like Smith wrestled from 1984-1988.
“They done a nice job, Zeke (Jones) has done a good job and put them back in position to win some trophies,” Smith said of the Sun Devils wrestling program and his counterpart. “That is not easy to do.”
Smith is excited about taking his team to wrestle Missouri where there will be nothing but ranked wrestlers battling ranked wrestlers. At 165-pounds No. 3 Izzak Olejnik (18-2) will test himself against No. 1 ranked Keegan O’Toole (13-0) of the Tigers. By individual ranking Missouri is favored in six matches and Oklahoma State in four with Daton Fix at 133, Tagen Jamison at 141, Sammy Alvarez at 149, and Dustin Plott at 184.
Before the Cowboys and Missouri wrestle at 1 p.m. in the Hearnes Center, Stillwater High School is traveling up to Columbia and they will wrestle Liberty, Mo. right before the Cowboys and Tigers tangle. John Smith said he is looking forward to watching that dual.
Smith seems to be really enjoying this wrestling season and part of that is his team. He really likes these guys and how they’ve pulled together and he really likes the new scoring.
“They are holding the calls, and I don’t know where they get the information that they need to do that,” questioned Smith. “Even our takedowns where we’ve been taken down I’ve thought the call was called quickly I back off. Put the points on the board. This is all about adding points, scores getting higher and higher and then you’re (officials) not making the call. It’s frustrating. It’s been frustrating this year with not understanding that we’re adding points, three-point takedown, near fall adding with two, three, and four. We’re holding calls, come on.”
Smith said he doesn’t care and if officials will speed up awarding the take downs that Smith and other coaches believe are there, he’ll be fine.
“If it’s against me, I won’t say a word, just make the call!”