Chad Red's perfect HS wrestling mark had him destined for NCAA titles. It's not that easy.

Longtime wrestling coach Chad Red Sr. knows the drive from Indiana to Nebraska well. He had his entire route mapped out for the 64 trips he made during the six years his son, C.J., wrestled in Lincoln for the Cornhuskers.

Attending practices and matches was common for the elder Red, but this practice during Parents Week of C.J.'s sophomore year was different.

The plan was to watch practice and then go to the football game against Purdue. C.J. was wrestling against Tyler Berger, a two-time NCAA All-American and the No. 2-ranked 157-pounder in 2019, but C.J. was struggling.

C.J. came to Nebraska after one of the most decorated prep wrestling careers in Indiana history. Wrestling under his dad at New Palestine, C.J. was a four-time IHSAA state champion with a 183-0 career record. He ranked as the No. 5 pound-for-pound wrestler in the nation and the top-ranked 132-pounder in the country, according to the Asics FloRankings in 2016.

C.J. had the pedigree, but wrestling against older, stronger collegiate wrestlers was a challenge for him early in his career.

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"He was killing me," Red said of Berger. "It was the first to 10 points and he had eight, then he took me down and he had nine. So I made a mental decision that I was going to get one (point)."

C.J. executed and got a point on Berger, but his partner was quick to respond. Berger shot for a takedown and seconds later, C.J. was running off the mat and into the locker room.

"I remember he hit me with a level change and I remember his head being lower than mine on the level change," C.J. said. "I was like, 'oh crap', I need to get my head out the way, too little too late. Before I knew it, the back of his head had already knocked out my tooth. I looked at my tooth being on the mat, and yeah, that was about it."

Maybe it was the difficult adjustment to being away from home and dealing with an elevated level of competition. Maybe it was the hours of extensive dental work C.J.'s family put into correcting his teeth. But after losing his tooth, C.J. struggled with his mentality on the mat and his passion for the sport waned. He continued to compete, but he was scared to share his feelings with anyone, his dad included, because he was not sure how it would affect his scholarship.

"That season wasn't going really well," Red Sr. said. "Really up and down with a lack of confidence. Definitely was afraid and kind of hesitant to shoot just because again, he had his main front tooth knocked out and he was still in there doing it six days a week.

"I think (being) 10 hours away, (being) 20 years old, he hadn't quite figured everything out yet. He still needed a little bit of touch up as far as just growing. I think that's just part of life. I think kids get it at a little bit different ages."

Red's coaches and family noticed the change in the affable and outgoing C.J., so they encouraged him to seek help.

"I remember when that happened, I didn't want to wrestle at all," C.J. said. "Towards the end of the year, my dad and my coach, coach (Kendric) Maple, both got me to sit down and talk with somebody and it only took after that first time, I felt totally different towards wrestling. I felt that love that I had before my incident and I was ready to go back out there and compete."

C.J. said all athletes deal with mental struggles at times and he hopes the stigma around seeking help will be eliminated over time. He added that it's important to recognize the signs of an athlete who may be dealing with challenges.

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"Everybody has their mental battles and sometimes those mental battles can affect how somebody performs or how somebody is looking at their sport that they so-called love, or how they're just kind of getting away from the sport and don't want to be around it," C.J. said. "I feel like if that's happening, we need to be able to get our guys into a sports therapist and that's something that I was able to touch down with in Nebraska, especially my sophomore year."

C.J. finished his sophomore season with a 22-14 record and a second-place finish in the Big Ten tournament. He ended his career with a 98-46 record. He was a three-time All-American and a five-time NCAA Championship qualifier. But he never won a Big Ten or NCAA championship.

"We pushed him to (win a national championship) and he pushed himself to do that," Nebraska wrestling coach Mark Manning said. "Sometimes it's just not in the cards. There's only one guy that can say they're national champion at the end of the day.

"It's a perspective that a lot of times people forget. You're the best in one state, now you're trying to be the best in 50 states... As a redshirt freshman or an 18-year-old, 19-year-old guy, you might be wrestling 24-year-old guys. You weren't doing that when you're in junior high or high school. So sometimes it's just another level. You have to jump up another level, not only from the technical style standpoint and the knowledge of the sport, but mentally you have to get better. I call it neck-up training."

Looking back on his career at Nebraska, C.J. has no feelings of bitterness or disappointment about not winning a national championship. C.J. is still the positive and exuberant person he rediscovered after his sophomore year, and that will serve him well in his next role as an assistant wrestling coach at IU under Angel Escobedo.

"Going around kind of hanging my head, 'Oh, I didn't get a national title' or hanging my head just because last year I didn't end up on the podium. My grandma told me at a young age, walking around carrying your head down just leads you into walls, dead ends," C.J. said. "Just keep your head up and even if something does set you back, you work a little bit harder the next time. That's one of the reasons I'm still wrestling."

While coaching at IU, Red continues to train with the Team USA Regional Training Center in hopes of competing in the World Wrestling championships. Red’s role on IU’s staff will be coaching the lightweights and middleweights.

Coaching has always been in the younger Red's blood. Chad Red Sr. has trained numerous state-champion and collegiate wrestlers through his Red Cobra Wrestling Academy. Escobedo, a national championship winner at IU in 2008, participated in camps at Red Cobra for years and even gave a young C.J. Red a signed wrestling shoe he during a visit to the academy.

Escobedo knows the Red name carries weight in Indiana, and a lot of his wrestlers grew up watching C.J. dominate the state as a prep star. C.J.'s name, game, positive personality and strong relationship with Escobedo made him a natural fit for the IU coaching staff.

"His energy's really contagious," Escobedo said. "I tell him all the time, it's great to have him in the room as a coach just because of his perspective. He's pretty happy-go-lucky and just excited to be there every day, which is awesome.

"I know he fell short of being a national champ, but I think he understands that it's about the journey, not about the accolades. He's gonna bring a lot to coaching. He's gonna bring a lot to the table, all the things that maybe he wished he could do, or could go back and do, I know he's going to pass that along to the college guys."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Akeem on Glaspie on Twitter at @THEAkeemGlaspie.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Chad Red Jr. didn't win NCAA titles at Nebraska, now an IU assistant