Wrestling Mailbag: Welcome to Cy-Hawk week, plus Patrick Kennedy, Cobe Siebrecht, Dan Gable Donnybrook

It’s Cy-Hawk Week, finally and again — and it’s shaping up to be a fun one.

#2 Iowa hosts #10 Iowa State on Sunday. Both teams enter with 5-0 records, but they feel like different 5-0 records.

The Cyclones came thundering out of the starting gates, their 5-0 start highlighted by a 26-6 romp over Wisconsin. They’ve pummeled four other lesser teams as well, and have actually won 18 consecutive duals dating back to last season. Things are looking up in Ames.

The Hawkeyes haven’t rolled out the full A squad yet but have still powered through each opponent, their latest a 26-11 win over a sneaky-good Penn squad that was capable of winning that dual. Some Iowa fans, whose confidence ebbs and flows with the most-recent performance, are probably still frustrated.

That leads us to Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, a 1:30 p.m. (CT) start time on Big Ten Network. The Hawkeyes have won 17 in a row in this series. The Dan Gable Traveling Trophy, created in 2010 to celebrate this rivalry, has yet to actually travel.

More:Three takeaways from a gutsy 26-11 Hawkeye victory over Penn

A lot of you guys, mostly Iowa fans, asked about the Hawkeye lineup for this week’s mailbag. We’ll learn more when both teams release their probable lineups later this week, but here’s a quick thought:

If Iowa rolls out the same lineup it used last Saturday against Penn, there’s a very real possibility that Iowa State wins on Sunday.

“We have to find a better lineup,” Iowa coach Tom Brands said then — and he’s right.

Line them up and see for yourself:

• 125: Aidan Harris vs. Kysen Terukina

• 133: Cullan Schriever vs. Ramazan Attasaouv

• 141: Drew Bennett vs. Casey Swiderski

• 149: Max Murin vs. Paniro Johnson

• 157: Cobe Siebrecht vs. Jason Kraisser

• 165: Patrick Kennedy vs. David Carr

• 174: Nelson Brands vs. Julien Broderson

• 184: Abe Assad vs. Marcus Coleman

• 197: Jacob Warner vs. Yonger Bastida

• 285: Tony Cassioppi vs. Sam Schuyler

Probably give the nod to Iowa State at 125, 141, 165, 184, and there’s a case to give the Cyclones an edge at 197, since Bastida beat Warner last year. Probably give Iowa the nod at 285 and … the rest are probably considered toss-ups, although there are cases to lean Iowa at 157 and 174.

If Iowa inserts the A squad, that’s Spencer Lee at 125, Brody Teske at 133, Real Woods at 141, and all three of those weights probably flip to the Hawks, at least on paper — and you’re talking a possible 10-point swing at 125 alone if Spencer is as good as we know he can be. Iowa probably feels a lot better with their stars in the lineup.

Still, Iowa is not a shoo-in to win if Lee, Teske, and Woods all go, and Iowa State isn’t a full shoo-in to win if they don’t. There are interesting matchups across all 10 weights. This is what rivalry duals should look like. This should be an epic battle from start to finish, with every match filled with a kind of win-or-go-home, do-or-die intensity.

If Iowa State really is a top-10 team, they should want to see Iowa’s best team. If they beat a less-than-100% Hawkeye lineup, what would we really learn? Beating down Wisconsin is one thing. Beating a lineup that should win a trophy? Now that’s a statement.

For Iowa, if the full A squad does make an appearance, it’s the first opportunity to showcase the lineup everybody is waiting to see. If the Hawkeyes are truly going to make a run at top-ranked Penn State in March, beating a top-10 team at home would be a very nice first step.

These are just the early-week thoughts. There will be more as the week goes and as we learn more from both sides about what to expect on Sunday. But the excitement is already palpable, and will continue to build in the coming days.

Bring it on. All of it.

More:Iowa State's David Carr renews old family wrestling rivalry with victory at NWCA All-Star Classic

OK, onto the Wrestling Mailbag. If you haven't already, check out Stalemates' newest video, which dives into the Tom Brands-Virginia Tech-Kevin-Dresser-Iowa State history and helps explain some of the current-day tension between the Hawkeyes and Cyclones. It's really well done — and not just because I make an appearance.

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.

How good is Iowa wrestler Patrick Kennedy?

Just want to lead with this ridiculous stat:

Patrick Kennedy is averaging 20 points per match.

That's 80 total match points in his first four matches this season: 20-5 over Cal-Baptist's Mateo De La Pena, 22-9 over Army's Dalton Harkins, 24-9 over Sacred Heart's Aidan Zarrella, 14-5 over Penn's Lucas Revano.

Pretty good!

OK, wet blanket: these guys aren't exactly at the top of the heap nationally at 165 pounds. De La Pena and Zarrella are both true freshmen, but Revano was an NCAA qualifier who went 1-2 last year and Harkins has won 70% of his college matches. Context matters.

But that's also one reason why Sunday's Cy-Hawk dual is interesting. Kennedy, presumably, will get to wrestle David Carr, which will give us an honest look at how Kennedy stacks up against a guy who is at the top of the heap nationally at 165.

Kennedy-Carr is super fascinating purely from a stylistic standpoint. Kennedy is a brawler with a gas tank and a wide variety of attacks and finishes. He's scored 34 takedowns in four matches, and 14 have come in the third period. Carr is sound technically, strong, lightning quick, and his length may gave Kennedy fits, especially on the mat. Carr's also been more battle-tested this season, with a 7-5 win over Wisconsin All-American Dean Hamiti.

Nationally, 165 is arguably the deepest weight in Division I wrestling this year, with three NCAA champs, in Carr, Missouri's Keegan O'Toole, Stanford's Shane Griffith, plus five more All-Americans, plus a two-time age-level world medalist, and then you get to Patrick Kennedy, a U23 national champ — whose floor, as I see it, is the bloodround, and whose ceiling, until I see otherwise, is probably third or fourth.

Sunday's match against Carr will be the first true test for Kennedy, and may ultimately be a sneaky big matchup for seeding purposes come March, especially if Kennedy can finish high at the Big Ten Championships in March. There will be more tests — six of InterMat's Top-20 at 165 are from the Big Ten; Kennedy will see four of them in the regular season — but the first one is always a big one.

So perhaps that floor or ceiling will move depending on how Kennedy does this weekend, and it may continue to fluctuate as he navigates Big Ten competition, too. But the simple answer is that his ceiling is high. It's OK to get excited about this guy.

I mean, the guy scores 20 freaking points a match. That's insane.

Last Summer:Iowa wrestler Patrick Kennedy wins U23 men's freestyle national title

The growth and maturation of Iowa wrestler Cobe Siebrecht

Here's the thing: Cobe Siebrecht has always been pretty good.

After failing to qualify for the state tournament his freshman year at Lisbon, he reached the Class 1A state finals every year after. He took second to three-time champ Adam Allard as a sophomore, second to four-time champ Alex Thomsen as a junior, then won it as a senior. Went 174-11 during that stretch. Pretty good résumé coming out of high school.

The word that comes to mind when describing Siebrecht during his Lisbon days is volatile. He was a menace on top and pinned a lot of people. His senior year, he beat Wyatt Henson by major decision. He ripped through his state bracket … but at state duals, he was randomly pinned by a freshman who then went 0-2 at the traditional state tournament. Volatile. High highs, weird lows.

He's more consistent now, is the big thing. The highs are still freakishly high, but there aren't as many weird lows. He's not a world-beater by any means, but he's dangerous, as evidenced by his second-period fall over Anthony Artalona last Saturday. He was only down 2-1 after the first period, then the headlock, then a calculated roll-through that resulted in a fall.

Among the many developments I've seen from Siebrecht during his college career is that, first, he's more confident now. He knows he can go out there and compete at this level. We've seen small glimpses of it, most notably when he wrestled North Carolina State's Tariq Wilson last season. He lost 7-3, but he showed tremendous fight. No question that helped him between the ears.

Secondly, he's more tactical, a smarter wrestler. He's still a menace on top — most all long-and-lanky guys are — but he's stringing setups and fakes to open up his attacks on his feet. He's pretty versatile offensively, maybe even a little funky at times, but he's also pretty slick defensively. I'm not a huge fan of leg-passers. Much prefer traditional head-and-hands baseline defense, but leg-passing works for him. Great gig if you can swing it.

Cobe Siebrecht is an awesome story of development, perseverance, and, now, reaping the rewards on the big stage. He's only 4-0 this season, but with two majors and two pins. Bigger tests are coming, with six Top-20 opponents waiting during the Big Ten dual season, including three of the top four, in #2 Brayton Lee, #3 Will Lewan, and #4 Peyton Robb.

That's a tough gauntlet to run, but Cobe Siebrecht is going to fully embrace those challenges — and, who knows, maybe he'll pull an upset or two and become a serious darkhorse threat come March.

Why not?

There is no such thing as a fluke NCAA finalist

None. Zero. This was meant in jest, clearly, and it made me chuckle, but there is no such thing as a fluke NCAA finalist. It is literally impossible to "fluke" your way to the finals at the biggest, toughest wrestling tournament in the world. That we have to state that is mind-boggling to me.

Iowa high school wrestling at the Dan Gable Donnybrook

All of them. Can I say all of them? Because I'm excited for literally all of them.

The Dan Gable Donnybrook kicks off an exciting weekend of wrestling in Johnson County. The three-day, two-division tournament — the girls wrestle Thursday-Friday; the boys wrestle Friday-Saturday — will feature many of the state's top wrestlers as well as some of the best in the country.

And, yes, our guy Julien here nailed it with 182 pounds being the primary draw. If everybody shows up who I think will show up, we'll have four of the top-six 182-pounders in the country at Xtream Arena:

• #1 Brayden Thompson, from Lockport (IL)

• #3 Connor Mirasola, from West Bend West (WI)

• #5 Tate Naaktgeboren, from Linn-Mar

• #6 Gabe Arnold, from Iowa City High

Thompson was on the Junior world team this summer. Mirasola won a Junior national title in July. We could also see the first of many meetings between Naaktgeboren, an Iowa State signee, and Arnold, a future Hawkeye. How's that to kick off Cy-Hawk weekend?

On top of that, here's the list of teams that will be competing at this year's Donnybrook:

• Waverly-Shell Rock, #1 in Iowa's Class 3A, #14 nationally by MatScouts

• Marmion, from Illinois, #25 nationally by MatScouts

• Mt. Carmel, from Illinois, #36 nationally by MatScouts

• Linn-Mar, #4 in Iowa's Class 3A, #46 nationally by MatScouts

• Iowa City High, #5 in Class 3A

• Ankeny, #6 in Class 3A

• Waukee Northwest, #7 in Class 3A

• Fort Dodge, #8 in Class 3A

• Bettendorf, #9 in Class 3A

On top of that, there's also Minnesota's Apple Valley and Kasson-Mantorville, Missouri's Liberty and Staley, Omaha Skutt Catholic, and many more schools that routinely field exceptional wrestling teams each year. Combine that with the high-level in-state wrestlers, and the Donnybrook is going to be a can't-miss event again.

The fun part about the Donnybrook is it's the first major tournament of the year, so we'll get to see where some kids land in terms of weight classes, which will help shape narratives and subplots for the rest of the season.

At 113 pounds, for example, we could see Fort Dodge's Dru Ayala, Bondurant-Farrar's Connor Fiser, and Bettendorf's Jake Knight, who were all All-Americans this summer. At 120, Waukee Northwest's Koufax Christensen and Bettendorf's TJ Koester, who were both state champs last season.

Or at 195, there could be West Bend West's Cole Mirasola, #5 nationally by MatScouts and a Junior All-American; Waverly-Shell Rock's McCrae Hagarty, #9 nationally, a two-time 3A state champ, and an Iowa State signee; and Fort Dodge's Dreshaun Ross, an insanely-talented freshman who won a 16U freestyle national title this summer. And will anybody test Ben Kueter, Iowa City High's three-time state champ and Junior world gold medalist?

On top of that, the girls' tournament features plenty of firepower, including some of Iowa's biggest names, like Charles City's Lilly Luft, an Iowa women's wrestling recruit; Decorah's Naomi Simon, a Junior All-American; and Fort Dodge's Alexis Ross, a returning state champion. It'll be arguably the biggest early-season tournament during the first official Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union-recognized girls wrestling season.

And those are just a few of the things I'm excited to watch later this week in Coralville.

Last Year:Iowa City High’s Ben Kueter wins super match at first Dan Gable Donnybrook tournament

Go-to concession stand food?

Started and ended this week's questions with Shawn. I don't normally go to concession stands, to be honest. If I'm at a live sporting event, I'm there for the action, not to eat snacks or enjoy an adult beverage or whatever else. But when I'm on press row at either Carver or Hilton Coliseum, I'm usually drinking a C4 Energy Drink and eating a Clif Bar before the dual starts.

This week, I'm grateful for my parents, who filled up my gas tank while I visited them this weekend. It's the little things, you know?

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: Cy-Hawk Week, Patrick Kennedy, the Donnybrook, more