Wrestling Mailbag: Early Cy-Hawk thoughts, B1G+ stream, Iowa's walk-out songs, NWCA All-Star Classic

Couldn't help but think about next month's Cy-Hawk dual this weekend.

Maybe it's because I got to watch both Iowa and Iowa State on back-to-back days this weekend. Maybe it's because they both wrestled, and beat, California Baptist, so that got my mind racing about what the head-to-head matchup will look like on Dec. 4 in Iowa City.

Here's a very early thought: if both teams trot out the same lineups they did this weekend, it's not unreasonable to think that Iowa State would be favored, on paper, to win this year. By my count, the Cyclones would be favored at 125, 141, 165, 174, 184, Iowa at 133, 157, 285, and both 149 and 197 would be toss-ups.

Here's another: if the Hawkeyes roll out the A-Team, it's not unreasonable to think they could pulverize Iowa State, because you'd be adding Spencer Lee, Real Woods, and Nelson Brands to the mix, which would flip 125, 141 and 174 to Iowa (again, on paper) while the rest stays mostly the same.

We've got a while before we get to that one. Iowa has four duals between now and then, against Army West Point, Buffalo, Sacred Heart, and Penn. The Cyclones have this Sunday's dual against Grand View in Humboldt, then host the Cyclone Open after Thanksgiving. Both teams will have wrestlers at the NWCA All-Star Classic on Nov. 22, too.

Maybe those competitions will help provide clarity on whether or not Iowa's lineup will feature all of its capable horsepower against its in-state rival. Maybe we'll learn another thing or two about Iowa State's lineup, though what we've seen so far seems like the lineup they'll roll with for most of the season.

That dual is shaping up to be one of the biggest in college wrestling this year, at least during the first half of the 2022-23 season. The Cy-Hawk dual always garners attention here in Iowa, but it's always a lot more fun when it has some national implications, too.

We'll break down that dual in more detail once we get closer, but it was very much top of mind this weekend while sitting in both Hilton Coliseum and Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

More:Iowa wrestling 42, Cal-Baptist 3: Three takeaways from the Hawkeyes’ season-opening win

OK, onto the Wrestling Mailbag. A little bit lighter this week, but lighter is good, considering a lot of my attention is also on the upcoming Iowa high school football state championship games.

Please give me a follow on Twitter and I’ll keep you up to date on all things wrestling in Iowa. Don't forget to tune into the Register's wrestling podcast, In the Room, each week. You can find the latest episodes below.

Thanks for your help here, and for reading.

I mean, technically, you could say that I redshirted my initial year at the Des Moines Register.

Most people probably don't know this (some might), but I actually didn't cover wrestling when I first got to Des Moines. I covered primarily high school football and basketball, plus some basketball recruiting. After that, we shuffled the staff a bit and I landed on the wrestling beat.

So I guess if we want to extend the whole joke, I redshirted in 2016-17, first year of wrestling was 2017-18, second was 2018-19, third was 2019-20, then 2021 was a covid year and free for everybody, then my fourth year was last year, 2021-22.

Good thing the college eligibility rules don't apply to me, or I'd be done, and that would be sad.

More:How an Iowa journalist fell back in love with wrestling by writing about the sport

Alex Marinelli and Kaleb Young on the B1G+ stream

I did not haze Alex Marinelli and Kaleb Young before they called Iowa's dual against Cal-Baptist on the B1G+ stream on Sunday afternoon, no. But I did talk to them beforehand, just to say what's up and ask how they were doing, a small catch-up. Gave them some quick thoughts on what I saw from the Lancers on Saturday night in Ames (told them Iowa would probably roll). Asked them if they knew who would be starting at 157 (they told me they didn't).

They sat down at the head table on the floor while I sat up in media row, but I tapped into the B1G+ stream during the dual because I wanted to listen to them.

They sounded pretty good!

When it comes to former athletes, you never know if someone will be good on the mic until you put them on the mic. Some high-level athletes and coaches are really good about breaking down their sport as the action happens and can talk about their games in terms that normal humans can understand. Some aren't. It's much easier to identify the bad ones because we know, from watching other major sports, what the good ones sound like.

Marinelli and Young didn't really assume the traditional roles of play-by-play and color commentator. They were just two wrestlers talking wrestling for two hours, which works for the crowd that tuned in. They were insightful with their own stories from the practice room and their own thoughts on each Iowa guy.

They were also quick, clever, and funny. The best exchange came during Drake Rhodes' match at 174 pounds:

• Marinelli: "174, this was recently occupied by Michael Kemerer. Now we've got a new face."

• Young: "Kemerer was a long-time Hawkeye."

• Marinelli: "Seven-year senior. Some people go to college for seven years, but they're called doctors."

• Young: "He's a doctor of wrestling."

After Jacob Warner's 38-second pin at 197, Marinelli quipped: "His longest time wrestling today was his warmup," which was hilarious.

And before the dual got started, Iowa native Eli Alger sang the national anthem. Young asked Marinelli what he thought, and Marinelli said, "I think he sounds like Garth Brooks, a little bit."

Of course, they were biased toward the Hawkeyes, but that was probably the point for a B1G+ stream. Other former Iowa wrestlers have been on that stream before, like Nathan Burak and Alex Meyer. The B1G+ streams are usually reserved for the Big Ten Student U productions, which is a cool opportunity for sports broadcasting students at each Big Ten school to learn the ins and outs of professional broadcasting in a low-stress setting.

The biggest piece of advice I gave them was to just not cuss on air. So far as I could tell, they didn't, so I'd call the whole thing a success.

Here's hoping they get invited back for future streams. Iowa's duals against Penn (Nov. 26), Illinois (Jan. 6), plus the Soldier Salute on Dec. 29-30, will all be on B1G+ this season.

More:Iowa Hawkeye wrestling will be on TV nine times in 2022-23. Here's when and where.

Analyzing the Iowa wrestling team's walk-out songs

Tony Cassioppi's song has to be at the top: "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash. There's just something fierce and intimidating about the way that song begins. It's a really good walk-out.

Iowa wrestlers had a good mix of fun and intense walk-out songs on Sunday. You had some classics, like "Numb/Encore" by Linkin Park and Jay Z (Rhodes) and "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath (Abe Assad). You also had crowd favorites, like Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" (Max Murin) and Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" (Warner).

I always make it a point to ask wrestlers about their walk-out songs at some point because, one, it's an easy icebreaker; two, it's off the beaten path from the questions they're normally asked, so it's fun; and three, the song choice allows a little bit of their personality to shine through.

The Iowa ones are always fun, but the Iowa State wrestlers had some good ones on Saturday. Marcus Coleman, Ames native, went with "Face of My City" by Jack Harlow. Sam Schuyler chose Sum 41's "Fat Lip," which is a classic. And Kysen Terukina, a Hawaii native, picked "Maui Hawaiian Sup'pa Man" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

Here's the list that I caught from Sunday:

• Cobe Siebrecht: "The Show Goes On" by Lupe Fiasco

• Patrick Kennedy: “Feel So Numb” by Rob Zombie

• Drake Rhodes: "Numb/Encore" by Linkin Park and Jay Z

• Abe Assad: "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath

• Jacob Warner: "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen

• Tony Cassioppi: "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash

• Aidan Harris: “Wolf Totem” by The HU

• Brody Teske: “Return of the Mack” by Mark Morrison

• Drew Bennett: "Yeah!" by Usher

• Max Murin: "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice

And here's the list from Iowa State on Saturday:

• Paniro Johnson: "Ambitionz As A Fighta" by 2Pac

• Jason Kraisser: "Shoota" by Playboi Carti

• David Carr: "Still D.R.E." by Dr. Dre

• Julien Broderson: "Rap Saved Me" by 21 Savage

• Marcus Coleman: "Face of My City" by Jack Harlow

• Yonger Bastida: "Come & Go" by Juice WRLD

• Sam Schuyler: "Fat Lip" by Sum 41

• Kysen Terukina: "Maui Hawaiian Sup'pa Man" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

• Zach Redding: "Purple Lamborghini" by Rick Ross & Skrillex

• Casey Swiderski: "A Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams Jr.

From Last Year:What’s in a walk-out song? A look at the pre-match music choices for Iowa wrestlers

Looking ahead to the NWCA All-Star Classic

The cop-out answer is that there's a lot of intriguing matchups, if only because there's a lot of wrestlers from Iowa involved, but also because the whole card looks fantastic, which is the point, after all.

Here's the full list, as of Tuesday morning, via FloWrestling, who is streaming the event:

• 125: Pat McKee (Minnesota) vs. Kysen Terukina (Iowa State)

• 133: Lucas Byrd (Illinois) vs. Michael McGee (Arizona State)

• 141: Cole Matthews (Pittsburgh) vs. Real Woods (Iowa)

• 191 (women's): Kelani Corbett (Missouri Valley) vs. Sydnee Kimber (McKendree)

• 170 (women's): Yelena Makoyed (North Central) vs. Jessie Lee (Life)

• 149: Sammy Sasso (Ohio State) vs. Austin Gomez (Wisconsin)

• 184: Aaron Brooks (Penn State) vs. Parker Keckeisen (Northern Iowa)

• 165: Dean Hamiti (Wisconsin) vs. Keegan O'Toole (Missouri)

• 143 (women's): Adaugo Nwachukwu (Iowa Wesleyan) vs. Alara Boyd (McKendree)

• 109 (women's): Peyton Prussin (Life) vs. Emily Shilson (Augsburg)

• 165: David Carr (Iowa State) vs. Quincy Monday (Princeton)

• 197: Jacob Warner (Iowa) vs. Rocky Elam (Missouri)

• 285: Tony Cassioppi (Iowa) vs. Greg Kerkvliet (Penn State)

• 174: Carter Starocci (Penn State) vs. Mekhi Lewis (Virginia Tech)

(Terukina was a late sub, replacing Arizona State's Brandon Courtney. Elam was also a sub, replacing Wyoming's Stephen Buchanan.)

Among those that are Iowa related, I'm really intrigued to see Matthews-Woods and Brooks-Keckeisen — both because they're 1-v-2 battles in InterMat's rankings, but also because they'll be revealing for different reasons.

Matthews and Woods are at the top of a relatively wide-open weight class this season. I would argue, right now, that anybody within the top-15, and possibly more, are legit podium contenders at 141 pounds this season. It will be one of the wildest and most-important weights come March, so getting to see the two guys who are considered the top dogs will be fun for everybody — and, also, it'll be our first look at Woods as an official Hawkeye wrestler.

Brooks-Keckeisen is also interesting because we'll get to see if Keckeisen has closed the gap on Brooks, a two-time NCAA champ. He's the bar that all other 184-pounders are chasing. Others have come close, like North Carolina State's Trent Hidlay in the 2021 NCAA finals, and even Keckeisen, who nearly beat Brooks in December last season. Michigan's Myles Amine beat Brooks in the Big Ten finals last year, then lost two weeks later in the national finals.

Keckeisen, himself a two-time All-American, is 48-3 in his last two seasons, and two losses have come to Brooks: 3-2 last year, and 6-4 in the 2021 NCAA semifinals. So this opportunity will be a fun early-season test for Keckeisen to see where he's at to start the year, and where he needs to go/what he needs to work on over the next few months.

I'm not bold enough to make predictions — at least not this early in the season. Most of my prediction energy has been reserved for high school football.

Related:Northern Iowa begins the 2022-23 wrestling season by saying goodbye to the historic West Gym

Hot takes after two weeks of college wrestling

My hottest early-season take is to get rid of the freshman/sophomore divisions from open tournaments, and I think this is more of a frustration with their existence than it is a hot take.

College wrestling is hard. Not every freshman is immediately ready to go. Development looks different for everybody. Some slowly build and finally win as juniors and seniors. Some make massive jumps as sophomores then peter off. There's not like one set of rules that anybody can follow to find success.

So I get the genesis of these freshman/sophomore divisions. Let's ease some guys into the college wrestling world and let them build some confidence before we throw them to the wolves.

But — and I guess this is only from my perspective — it's hard to gauge how much development is taking place when they're only wrestling other freshmen and sophomores.

Take this weekend, for example. The Grand View Open had an Open Division and a Freshman/Sophomore Division. Iowa State and Northern Iowa cleaned up the freshman/sophomore division, winning a combined eight weights (Iowa State with 5, Northern Iowa with 3).

Cory Land went 5-0 with three pins. Ryder Downey went 6-0 with two technical falls and two major decisions. Wyatt Voelker went 5-0 with two pins. They all took first, which is great, but I still have no idea how good they really are because they didn't really wrestle anybody that could tell me how good they really are.

(That's not to say they didn't have some notable wins. Land beat both Iowa State's Sam Hrabovsky by fall and Evan Frost by 13-1 major. Downey notched a 15-2 finals win over Nebraska's Reese Davis, a two-time Oklahoma state champ. Voelker beat Iowa State's Rowan Udell 14-8 in the finals.)

I think we might've learned a lot more if, say, Land wrestled at 133 in the Open Division, where he could've seen Grand View's Carson Taylor, one of NAIA's top lightweights. Or if Downey had wrestled Iowa State's Cam Robinson, the Open Division champ at 149. Or if Voelker wrestled some of the grown men in the Open Division at 197.

I'm of belief all three guys will be very good college wrestlers, but I still need to see it, if that makes sense. I could make a similar list of all the Iowa State guys (Manny Rojas, both Frost brothers, on and on), but by now, I think you get the point.

Related:Wrestling: Iowa State beats California Baptist, plus takeaways from Luther, Grand View Opens

This week, I'm grateful for Casey's loaded breakfast burrito. When you're on the road as much as I am during the season, you try to find good eats that don't completely wreck your diet. I'm sure there are better choices than a gas station breakfast burrito, but it tastes really good and doesn't make me feel like trash, so that's a win in my book.

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Wrestling Mailbag: Early Cy-Hawk thoughts, NWCA All-Star Classic, more