1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - January 7th: 10am - Mark Manning (Nebraska Wrestling Head Coach)

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

Purdue comes to town todayLet's breakdown the lineup for the HuskersAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the Coppull Chevrolet GMC Studios, here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery, on 937 The Ticket and The Ticket FM.com. Happy Friday, everybody, again, thank you for joining us on one-on-one, 937 The Ticket, 402-464-5-6-85. If you have questions or comments, get those in. If you want to call in and talk to the coach, let me know.

That's how you'll do it on the Honda Lincoln Hotline. The live video stream is up. Facebook, YouTube, Twitch. Reach out. Those chat rooms are open. Our guest has a busy night tonight. He's hosting an event and he's also coaching tonight. Let's bring in Mark Manning of a Husker wrestling.

Coach, man, I appreciate you. Thank you for doing it today, man. Thanks for having us on. It's great. Okay. So let's handle the personal business first. I have been after you to do your own show. Yeah.

Right? Like, listen, you have, anytime you're on, the wrestling fans light up, everybody leans in, and it's give us more Mark Manning. Give us more wrestling. Give us more Huskers wrestling. I've asked, I've begged. I will today now plead what's it going to take to get a once a week Mark Manning wrestling show.

Let's schedule it. Let's knock it out here. We've got 10, 12 weeks left of the season. Right. Once a week? Once a week. We'll set a timeline. Once a week.

Once a week. And we'll set aside that time for wrestling period so that your student athletes can come on and talk. Be good. Right? We don't have to. I mean, it helps when the events are going on, when the camps are going on. It makes sense where you have a place where you can put your information out there.

And it's one thing for me to talk about wrestling. It's a whole other thing when the icon talks about wrestling. We need to make that happen. So let's pick a night and let's get it done. We'll do it. All right, good deal. Good deal. Wrestling fans will like that.

Hustker Nation will like it, I hope. Well, that's, it's, it's, look, this Husker Nation is hungry for a men's program to be successful. Yeah. Well, here it is. Here it is. Now it's time in season where a top five. a nationally ranked top five team is right here in Lincoln, and it does not have the exposure or the lights on.

And that has to be fixed. And I want to be a part of how that gets fixed. Appreciate that. Right? Because this roster, look, you're a fun group. You've got a roster of fun guys. So let's go up and down the roster for folks who may not know, and let's tell them why they should come to Devaney tonight

and see this exceptional group of wrestlers. I like it. Well, right now, 125, we have Jeremiah Reno, who's a red shirt freshman. Liam Cronin kind of started the season. It dealts with some injuries. But Jeremiah Reno is our guy right now, and Jeremiah has really made a lot of improvement

in the last couple, really, a couple months, really. He's really stepped it up because once you're the guy, sometimes when you're a red shirt or a young guy on any team, I don't care whether it's basketball, football, wrestling, baseball. There's a learning curve, and that learning curve gets accentuated once you're in the lineup and once you're the guy type thing. But Jeremiah is doing a good job, and he's got a tough competitor tonight, and that's good. Challenge himself.

When you start changing weight classes with returning wrestlers, how complicated does that get for you? Are you matching up trying to put the best person at each weight class or to give yourself the best opportunity to win matches? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I think everyone's situation is different where if Liam has an injury that he can't deal with throughout the year, sometimes it's good to cut ties and shut him down and then just go with Jeremiah Reno.

So that's kind of where we're at there, that weight class. You know, it's, you know, Liam has a lingering injury and it's not going away. So we're going to kind of do what's in the best interest of the student athlete. We would love for Liam to be in there. But right now, it's not probably best for the team because he's not at his best. Compare the two wrestling styles for those two young men. Well, Liam, Liam's got a lot of experience. He's a sixth-year guy, kind of, and where Jeremiah Reno is just a redshirt freshman.

And so, Liam's just stronger, more physical right now. Jeremiah is still in that maturity age, you know, and maturing into his body. But Jeremiah can really wrestle. He can scrap. He's tough. He's tough on top. And, you know, just dealing with the Big Ten, it's no joke. It's big boy wrestling, so you better bring your lutch pail.

So, yeah, it's good. It's good. When you talk about the maturation of wrestlers, right, comes in natural 125. Over the course of his career, do you have perspective on where they'll end up as a weight class? Is this, you know, while you're here, you may go up a weight. class, maybe two at a max. How do you work that? Yeah, that's great.

You know, Jordan Burroughs came in on a 141 pounder. And by the end of November of his first year, he was a 149 pounder. Right? We thought we'd have a 141 for at least three years. But guys, some people have been around a lot of great weight training or trainers that have individual training opportunities to give them a lot of maturity in their physical development. And then some guys haven't.

And so Jeremiah is just, he says, just built that way. His parents are both smaller. So he's never going to grow out of that weight class. We knew when we recruited him, he's a 125 for life type thing. So you still pay attention to the parents? Yeah, absolutely. Go to the house. Let's see what's going on here.

Like, okay, Dad, what are we got? What are we got here? Exactly. And some guys are, you know, they're going to just mature. And, you know, we have a young man on team Javon Parrish. He wrestled 133 as a true freshman for us, Oletha North. So he, Isaiah Simmons was his high school teammate. Pretty good player, right?

That's a pretty good locker room. Yeah. That's a pretty good locker room. Actually, Javon's brother just signed. He's a wide receiver signed with K State. So. Did you correct him and tell him he missed it. He missed the state line by a little bit.

A couple hours south. Right. Right. But Javon came in and now he's a 49 pounder, you know. And so guys just develop at different rates. And but that's a great question because guys grow out of weight. Like Alex Thompson, our 133 ponder was a 125 ponder a couple years ago, grew out of the weight, more fit for him at 133.

you know, it's worked out well for him. For you, what's the line and how much, how much weight you want from walk around to match? Yeah. That's a great question. Usually our guys are 10 or 12 pounds over, like, say, in the summertime or early fall. Okay. They're, you know, say it's September and C.J. Redd 141 ponder.

He might be walking around 152 pounds, you know, right of, around that. Okay. So that's a good weight. Once you start training hard, you start getting on the mat multiple times a day, you know, we talk about that gravy, that gravy's going to come off. Yeah. You got to get the gravy off.

Can't just get the little stuff off. See, I'm telling you, I was, I forget who I was talking to yesterday. We were talking about wrestling. He was a lot of calories. You just burn, these kids burn a lot of calories. I was talking to Dylan Meyer, who's a wrestler, you know, did pretty well at the state level, and we were talking about it and said, yeah, I wrestled until I had to make that decision between wrestling and basketball. And I said, basketball, I get to eat.

Like that was really. I hear you. That was really. And again, I'm old that in high school, you know, 78, 79, we were still using trash bags to lose weight. So, you know, under sweats, under, yeah, it was a different kind of deal. Yes. I love the evolution of it, right? That nutritionally we're smarter.

Yeah. And the messaging is great. You're really good at the branding. As a matter of every time I hear you talk about it, I feel bad about what's in my refrigerator. Yeah, come on, coach. You know, this is why I'm out of the game. Everyone eats it. You know, everyone has their little, you know, candy, whether it's candy, sugar or cakes.

What's your vice? What's your vice? What's your vice? Oh, candy. I'm a candy guy. I'm a sweet tooth. Okay. All right. So there's there. And, oh, yeah, you know, Beatrice Bakery is the sponsor of this segment. So you got to at least, listen, I don't care if you give it to you wives.

I don't care if they give them to the girlfriends. You're walking out of here with some Beatrice's bakery today, coach. Like, you can put it in the VIP host room at Devaney Center. That time before it was delicious. Right, right, good stuff. So at 125, you have a pretty good idea about what you're doing. What's next? Who's above that?

Alex Thompson at 133. So he's a story. Oh, you know, he was a four-time state champion in Iowa. coming out of high school. And he wrestled at 125. Was the in-state qualifier a couple of years ago for us. And so he's moved up to wait 133. Got beat out at the weight class last year by Tucker Shalming late.

We had two really good. Tucker's now at 141, kind of backing up CJ, Red. But Alex is really showing bigger improvement. It's really just he's at it, pointing his career. He has to make up his mind. I want to be great. I don't want to be good. good. I want to be great.

And that's where these guys come to, I don't care what sport it is. There's a decision-making time in their mind. They have to say, I want to be great. I want to be consistent. Well, wrestling almost demands it. Yeah. Right? Because it really is.

I don't know if there's any other sport where you know exactly what your deficits are immediately. Right? It's, wait a minute. Like, I'm not holding the weight well. My water's wrong. I'm dehydrated. All of those things. Strength levels, you know, not where it needs to be.

But you mentioned that there is a bridge. You have bridge wrestlers who can go between weight classes who have substantial experience. Yeah. Does that make the practices better? Does that make the competition better? Absolutely, DP. It's really good. There's a lot of good competition in a room.

We're a red shirt and a young man, boo dryden, who's really good. You know, he's very competitive with Alex and Dom Sirono's another young man who is a freshman, who, a freshman again, because he came in as COVID year. It's very strange to talk about those guys that are. Extra year. They were a freshman last year and a freshman again. And so that's the general public doesn't really understand. You know, we have six freshmen guys that came in last year.

not a lot of people a couple of them got to wrestle last year right because the big 10 said you could wrestle freshman it doesn't count against you um but you couldn't you know have them rustle in the so you had extra matches extra matches and so we we do again we have three extra matches we didn't match up with Purdue uh for tonight so there's no extra matches because the weights where they have we don't have enough guys So whether we have someone banned up or we have a guy redshirted so you can't pull a guy out, it counts against your eligibility this year. So it's very restrictive with 9.9 scholarships.

And you got maybe three or four scholarships on the side redshirted that you can't utilize. So let's go through that then because how many wrestlers are on the roster? About 35 guys. So 35 guys and nine. plus 9.9. Basically 10 scholarships. 10 scholarships. 10 weight classes.

10 weight classes. Man, there's some stress when it comes to doing the finances. Absolutely. And in the competition for it. So I would imagine of those, safe bet five of those are full, or do you split them all? We split them all up. We split them all. Yeah.

We split them all up. And so, you know, we look for it. somebody let's say you're not one of the top 20 top 19 top 19 yeah those 12 do they can they wrestle in to scholarship territory absolutely and we've had a lot of guys wrestle into scholarship money come here as a walk on and and uh you know we have a guy in the mix right now who is a freshman i can't mention this name but uh yeah that's that's you got to love you got to love sharks in the water, right? Nobody gets comfortable. That's right.

You know, and I'd love to see we had, you know, a two-time All-American, Aaron Studebaker, 18 miles from Raymond Central, who was a walk-on kid, and he ended up being a two-time All-American. Obviously, he was on, end-up on scholarship money. And so you look, Craig Brester was a three-time All-American, two-time National Runner Up, was a stud for us. And, you know, Howells, Nebraska, small-town kid, came here for nothing. end up on a lot.

And so those stories that are really motivational for sport like wrestling where, hey, you know, everyone says, you know, I've never met a high school coach that when I go to recruit a young man, hardest worker I've had, hardest worker I've ever had. Everyone's a hard worker. You can't fake wrestling. You can't fake football. You can't think, hey, best football player I've ever, well, I don't know. Physicality is required.

Physicality is required. That effort is required. And that, and that persistence and grit, you know. Well, it helps, I mean, listen, it helps to have a legendary coach like Mark Manning. You've got the resume. You've got people around the program where Jordan Burrow could pop in any day and reset the standard. Right? Like, and just reminding people, hey, here's the standard.

the best to ever do this belong in this space. And being able to say that on a recent level, because some of the other programs don't have that. Like football doesn't have somebody recent who could walk in and say, we may be the best that ever did this and a walk in that space, and you need to hold them accountable for it.

That is a powerful thing about this program. And this is why I love the wrestling program. Even when I first got here, I'm like, I'm diving into this because I dig what's happening here. Now at 141, you've got the bridge. So you've got a former guy who moved up in 133, and you've got a stud. So, and CJ's, he and Mikey are my showman. Yeah.

Like those are the guys that, like, I think in another life, introduce them WWE style, UFC style, let them walk to the mat with their music and just stop somebody. Let's talk about CJ Red. Oh, man, CJ's great. is uh you know he he he's really grateful for a sixth year another year um been a four-time all-American he wants to he wants to win a national title he wants to be the best he's got a tough weight class um just excited for the rest this this part of the season is really you it's big boy wrestling now boy you have to step it up you know mentally physically get ready to go and And C.J. He's got that switch in him. He can switch it on. And people know that. And he knows it. And that's the biggest thing. He knows it. I would add another guy in there with Mikey and C.J. is our next guy, Ridge Lovett. He's a dog.

There's some big 10 buzz about Rich Lov. Ridge Lovett is, it just can't say. You have the look on your face that's letting, folks, I hope you're on the video stream. because you see Coach Manning. The look he just gave was when you know, you know, he's one of those dudes. He's one of those dudes. And I think the whole country realized that at the Cliff Keene, you know,

invitational big tournament in Vegas and Yanni Diakamas. I can't even say his last name. Yanni from Cornell, you know, he beat the Olympic champion last year. he's beat two world champions he's a top five guy in the world not in the nation in the world right he and uh he he's a national champion a couple years ago took olympic red shirt to make the olympic team last year just fell short but he's he's a stud and ridge wrestled him in over time and was kind of in on the winning take out and got out scrambled but you know that's that opened people's eyes up like wow we knew ridge is good but now

He's another level. He's getting better, and that's what we love. I love that see the development in guys, and that's what motivates me every day to see guys come in and get better. Yeah, that's development, coach. That requires great, like that word is why we glow about. Talk to the Huskers wrestling coach, Mark Manning.

So at 141, you're in a good spot. What's next? Ridge, love it. So love it. Love it. What, what, wait a 49. So 149 and then at 57. At 57.

Now, Peyton's got some standard, right? We're talking about expectation. Yeah, absolutely. Let's give the personality profile on Peyton Rob. Peyton Rob, quiet, outgoing when you get to know him and yes, one-on-one, very smart, intelligent, just real hard worker. He really knows where he needs to be. He doesn't get outside of his elements. He's very, I do this, this, this.

I mean, he's always improving, but as far as his mental capacity. Ridge is all over. He's fun. He's laughing. He's intense. He's this. Patent's dialed in. I don't know what I mean?

I got a job to do. Yeah. I got a job to do. He's great to hang out with and chat with. But real calm, real, very precise in what he's doing and how he thinks about things. So after Peyton gets his pin at 157, who's next? Bubba Wilson. Right.

Got to love that name, right? Right. That's a wrestler's name. Manhattan, Kansas. Bubba's kind of like a red shirt freshman, you would say. He's been here three years, but Bubba is a guy that we identified early just as a guy that, In our program, we knew he has, he wrestles with a lot of heart and a lot of passion, a lot of energy, you know, he just, he might not be perfect, but he's going to bring it.

He's going to be persistent all the time. He's coming at you. One of his teammates used the word intangible. Yeah. That's a good word because not every guy's built like that. That's what's exciting. And Bubba, he's a fighter. And so it's great to have a guy on our team like that.

because he's never going to say die, man. He's going to fight to the end. And I got it. Everybody wants to watch because you're never quite sure what's going to happen. That's right. Right. Good, good point. Right.

So after Bubba, who we got? Mikey Lavorola. There's the Italian stallion. Oh, man. He is fire on wheels, man. Yep. It's going to be fun to see him wrestle tonight. I think he's really motivated.

And he's got a tough, tough kid. and we're ready you know Mikey wants to make another jump in his wrestling and you go up that next level and you know guys like Ridge Lovett and Peyton Rob really help guys like Mikey to say you know what I can do that I can give more of myself

and that's it's fun that's leadership from within see I get all goosebumps when you find out that did you have a roster of people who look out for each other and pick each other up. Yeah, absolutely. The standard constantly being set and reset. Yeah.

And it's necessary. 184. What are we got? Taylor Vins, man. Taylor Vance. Taylor Vens is a sixth year guy, him and Eric Schultz, and Christian Lance. We finished kind of with a bang. You, that's a, that's a strong finish, coach.

Yeah, strong. And we, you know, the, the, kind of the question probably in a lot of wrestling people's mind is man they got they got Mikey Lavorola Taylor vins 10 and 0 10 and 2 6 and 1 and 1 and 1 and Christian Lance down a stretch and Christian Lance has really stepped his game up and now we're like hey what how are those guys going to do could be a lot of uh could solve the puzzle of how Nebraska wrestling is going to finish this year this is how deep this is coach this is what you put together you put up lineup that starts on fire, but then the depth of this, at the end of this thing,

you guys could turn around any match that you're in because you've got finishers at the backside of this thing. They rely on each other. They feed off each other. And of course, they've got the leadership. They've got the dude at the head of the mat, keeping them too. I'm going to find my way, coach. I don't know who I need to talk to, but we need the mat side seats. Yeah. Right. I need the mat side seats so I can feel all of it rained down on me. Okay, I can get it. Like, we need to do that. So it's Purdue tonight. What time's the match? First, you get the high school match and then. Yeah, high school matches at 7 o'clock and then our matches at 7. At 7 o'clock, the Vandy Center, ticket are available. Giveaways to the first,

is it 250 or? 250, I think, get the little tumbler thing. And 246 of them will get, uh, 246 people. So you might want to cut that number down. 246 people will get mugs because there's four. I didn't, like, we're going to get. I'm getting there early. I'm not trying to say anything, but I might be trying to, but, you know, I don't want to get you a little tips. How is he going to get in trouble?

Well, the next time he comes next week when we have him in, we, he's got trouble, but he handles it because he's seen it all already. He's already been through it. They can't get in trouble. There's new rodeos. Who's going to get him in trouble? That's it. You've seen the lineup he put together? Oh, man. This is a lot. Look, Husker Fasca Nation, if you're looking for a place to watch male athletics, get it done. Tonight, Devaney, Purdue. Purdue's going down. Boilermakers getting handled. Coach, thank you, man. I love when you come in. The energy is always

great. I appreciate you making time for us. You bet. Thank you. Thank you. We'll set that date. Let's get it. And then give me those three words that we'd love to hear, only as Coach Manning can say it. Go big red. Go big red. There we go. We'll more one-on-one when we come back.

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