Oklahoma State coach David Taylor posted a Jan. 14 message on X  suggesting the National Wrestling Coaches Association’s National Duals should return to the college wrestling calendar with an early-season date featuring the top-ranked teams in the country. 

Speak and you shall receive, coach. 

One week later, Flowrestling and Oklahoma State announced the National Duals Invitational, sponsored by Paycom. It’s a massive attempt at advancing the popularity of the sport, especially in the region, with Tulsa tabbed as the host city. With the November 15-16 date, it will provide valuable early-season incentives that will undoubtedly benefit every participating program — exactly what Taylor envisions.

“I think it’s something coaches, athletic directors, wrestlers, are going to be really excited to be a part of,” Taylor said. “And then the way the money can be split up, coaches can decide how they want to do that. If they want to put it in their foundation, if they want to focus on NIL, there’s a lot of needs in college wrestling right now. [We’re] just being creative on how we can grow wrestling and create exciting events.”

The 16-team field will vie for a purse worth more than $1 million. Each team will receive $20,000 for participating and the top eight squads will receive additional payouts between $20,000 and $200,000. 

Any wrestling program could benefit from the financial gain, national spotlight and early-season litmus tests between wrestlers, some of whom otherwise might not meet until March. 

But perhaps most importantly, it gives Division I wrestling the much-discussed regular-season, marquee dual tournament a large segment of the community has been clamoring for in recent years. 

“This is an event that programs and fans can get really excited about,” Taylor said. “It’s early, it gives people something to put on their calendar, you can schedule around it how you want to. I think it’s going to be something that can be a part of really growing our sport. People are really excited about it.”

Taylor said he’s already had people call and tell him their hotels are booked and they’re just waiting on the lineups to be finalized. 

College wrestling leaders have discussed the duals since the NWCA’s Division I National Duals dissolved in 2011. That event regularly attracted top teams for an early-January bracketed event, but coaches haven’t been able to form a consensus on when, where and how to make a similar event work. 

There was discussion at one point in the past about crowning the NCAA team champion through a dual format rather than the traditional individual format each March. 

“The national tournament is decided in March — with individuals — so that’s not being moved, this is nothing to do with that,” Taylor said. “We get to wrestle and get an opportunity to help out our programs. I think we as coaches, we get a chance to make an impact on the sport and try and grow wrestling… Get people excited and get butts in seats. I think that’s the idea.  

“We can watch this event and we can watch our favorite school compete against our other favorite schools. Then we can focus on March and the national tournament and I think it only drives excitement to the duals that are in our venues. It’s more storylines that can be marketed and, you know, wrestling, we have a lot of cool things that we can talk about.”

Plott Aiming For Evasive Win Against Keckeisen

Speaking of storylines and marquee matchups, this weekend is headlined by the fifth installation of the #2 Parker Keckeisen vs. #3 Dustin Plott conference rivalry. Keckeisen is 4-0 against Plott dating back to last season when Plott joined the 184-pound weight class. The two previously wrestled at CKLV in December with Keckeisen winning by an 8-3 decision. Taylor said he liked what he saw out of Plott in that match.

“He knows what to expect, I thought he did a good job in Vegas, in parts of that match,” Taylor said. “He got his bell rung really big early in the match and I think he was a little bit out of it. Parker’s really good. He’s gonna come after [Plott] and there’s gonna be a lot of scoring exchanges, it’s gonna be a great match. I know Dustin’s looking forward to going out to compete.”

TBD At 133

Oklahoma State has a good problem: The Cowboys have two viable options at 133 pounds in #19 Reece Witcraft (8-2) and freshman Cael Hughes (7-0).

Witcraft hasn’t competed in more than a month, but Hughes has not disappointed in his absence. Hughes pinned NC State All-American Kai Orine in his first home dual and followed it up with a sudden-victory takedown to beat West Virginia’s Tommy Maddox. 

Taylor was non-committal on who would wrestle the duals this weekend but said both 133-pounders will travel to Iowa for duals against Northern Iowa and Iowa State. 

“We’re trying to balance both guys’ match counts but at the same time we got to pick our best guy getting ready for the conference tournament,” Taylor said. “We have some time to make that decision and both guys are working really hard and  doing a great job when they get the opportunity to go out and wrestle.”