197 ?

[JohnK73]

Heard a rumor that Cooley was hanging up his shoes. A lot of injuries over his college career and already got his degree, so walked away. Checked the roster and his name is gone today. Body doesn’t heal as fast as they get older. But now the real question is: Do they pull Rune Lawrence’s redshirt? Or do they go with Ian Bush as the starter for the rest of the year? Anyone know how many event Lawrence has wrestled on the team? He wrestled midlands unattached.

[Geoswaff]

I think they keep him in his redshirt. I think he may have one or two more opportunities to start in a dual and still keep his redshirt. Bush is smallish for 197 but seems competitive, so that feels like a good option for the time being. With Watters out for the year, I don’t see a reason to pull redshirts as we just don’t have the depth to absorb losing Watters and maintaining our level of team performance. Would have been nice with Payton’s last year to see what this team could have done…

[JohnK73]

I have to agree with you on keeping Lawrence on RS after last night. That was the first I heard that Waters is not returning to the lineup this year. That plus Titus dropping another match to an unranked wrestler and most like dropping out of the rankings himself because of it. Conley, Bush, and Wolfgram got the job done last night, but those are not the guys they are going to see at the Big 12s.
Hall looked very good and continues to get bonus points every time he steps on the mat this year.

[Jon Perkins]

Ian Bush is a very competent replacement for Austin Cooley. Even though he is better at 184 he can still compete very good at 197. Rune has had some good wins over some ranked guys but has also had some loses against ranked guys, so keeping him in red-shirt this year is the right call. It will be nice to have Rune, Ty Watters, Shawn Taylor, and Big Brock in the line-up for a full three years.

On another side note that has nothing to do with the "197" topic, I seen in an article where Peyton Hall ranks second all time for wins. I was curious to see who was first and how many wins they had. In first place is Greg Jones with 128 wins. I can see Peyton easily over taking this record by the end of the year. Best of luck to him on reaching this milestone, he deserves it.

[dunbar76]

Wrestle the best guy at 197 without regard to redshirt..