The 2020-21 Wrestling Season Set to Start in January

STILLWATER – The year of 2020 has had no shortage of challenges and the 2020 wrestling season for Oklahoma State is no different. In a world of social distancing and trying to stay COVID-19 free, the sport of wrestling makes that a little bit tricky and head coach John Smith touched on that topic in Wednesday media availability.

“We’re in a time now where people could get dismissed from the team, you know you make these mistakes and bring something that hits a lot of us. So, we’ve had a tough month, the month of November was tough for our wrestling team and I really believe after reviewing everything and looking at everything, it was really nobody that did anything out of hand that caused it, it was a chain of people making contact. A good part of that is we’re probably over that with those individuals for five months. Not that it’s a good thing, but it’s a good thing as long as their health’s fine and their health looks like they’re going to come out of this with this month we’ve had in November.”

With every team in the country trying to stay as healthy as possible to have a season, the decision has been made to start the season in January. On top of that, the way the schedule is set up has been changed.

“We’re definitely wrestling one day a week,” head coach John Smith said. “As of right now, it looks like we’re going to have four home duals and be on the road three or four times. We’re hoping to have our first meet on Jan. 10 and that’s going to be multiple teams, we hope, that comes into Gallagher-Iba Arena where we could get up to three matches. The schedule’s looking pretty good. We’re hoping to wrestle teams out of conference, possibly Southern Illinois, [Arkansas] Little Rock.

“So, it’s going to be a little bit different from the stand point of how we get matches. We could have a varsity team wrestling and a [junior varsity] team. If somebody wrestles our JV team, I don’t know if you say JV or A team and B team, but we could possibly see that on a couple of different occasions. We have a schedule in place right now and we’re just holding off on making sure that the CDC guidelines are what they’re going to be and it could change again, but I’m hoping that we have the schedule out by next Monday.”

With four home duals with multiple teams, it’s possible Oklahoma State could have eight duals in GIA this season, with the possibility of the same format out on the road, which will go a long way in helping the Cowboys’ standing for not only the Big 12 tournament, but for NCAAs as well.