1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Nebraska Wrestling Coach Mark Manning: February 26th

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

Nebraska Wrestling Coach Mark ManningAdvertising 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 heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought to by Canopy Street Market. Boom! Face! 11 o'clock on a Wednesday, going to do two hours for you today. Two hours, two coaches from Husker Athletics, and I'm thrilled to be. about it, opportunity to get deep dive into some of the things that are happening in these programs and the people that are involved. Sartar-Hamman text line is 402, 464, 56685.

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We were supposed to have him yesterday, but he is a man of, of his word. Coach Mark Manning, head coach, Husker Wrestling. Coach, thank you for making time today. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, D.P. Thanks for having us on. Your understanding of time and, yeah. The coach and me understand stuff happens.

Stuff happens. And when one of your seniors needs you, you got to rally and show up for it. So I understand it. We had so much. The interesting conversations yesterday that happened, and I was trying to figure out how to get into some of the dark corners of wrestling. But one of the things that happened at Purdue was a uniform violation. And I didn't coach.

Like I went through because I said, look, I've had two technicals and two write-ups ever as a coach in 30-some years. And both of them I was like, okay, I got smarter. Okay, I got smarter. What's the protocol for it that one wrestler comes out in the block in red, red unitard, okay, fine. The rest of the team had on the Nebraska script. Yeah. And they come out after the time.

And they go, hey, Nebraska was deducted to the point because. They had two different uniforms on. So coach, what's the protocol? Because I know you set up, like, especially for road meets, that that stuff is prepared and handled. And then, but you also have teenagers and young men who are different from day to day. Oh, yeah. So what's the protocol?

Who handles the uniforms? Who's responsible for uniforms? Well, it falls on me. so, you know, at the end of the day, I can say this guy, this guy, it doesn't matter, but it's about myself. So I should have had that, you know, everyone on the right page knowing they were going to wear the script, the scripted Nebraska on the red singlet and then Antrello grabbed his block in. So, hey, it is what it is.

It was a great mistake made and lesson learned. Yeah, lesson learned and delightful challenge, you know. That's always, that's part of our gig. You know, you have some, you know, through the years, I've had guys show up going to the NCAA. Coach, we get there, you know, eight hours later. I forgot my wrestling shoes, coach. Howdy, forget your wrestling shoes.

You're going to the national tournament, but kids do. And, you know, that happened. And we just said, hey, okay, we take the team point. Everyone else got scripted Nebraska on their, on their singlet. so off we went and it's okay. It's just lesson learned. It taught, it taught a lot of Nebraska fans that there's a rule that exists. And then it made them curious about the process because it's like,

yeah, if you've coached on a big platform and you're talking about a lot of uniforms and numbers and equipment that goes with you, like I'm fascinated by Husker football being able to pull that off with, with 85 different uniforms and all the things that have to happen. all the travel that goes along when you go on the road. So I'm always fascinated with that. How do you handle travel day organization? Because you're talking about meals. You're talking about medicines.

You're talking about all the things that have to be structured. And I do want to tell you your greatness was identified pretty early by the fact that you said, it's on me. That you orchestrate it, but you also have to trust and delegate. Gate. Yeah. But how do you handle this full? You're going to Evansville, Illinois for the Big Ten tournament. How many people go, right?

Because you've got the ten wrestlers who are going. Yep. Coaches, staff, and then who else do you bring? So we're going to bring our sports information gal and also one of our social media people, Collins's going to go with us. And then we bring our coaches, our director of ops, Brandon Bradley, obviously all our coaches. And then we can bring five extra wrestlers. So that's really a development thing that they started bringing extra guys because once you see it,

you believe it a little bit more. And so, you know, you can bring five extra guys that could be a lot of redshirt freshmen or maybe guys that earn their way of really, you know, they're just really servant leaders and really help our guys a lot. So we pick out five guys. It's hard sometimes picking out only five. But we'll pick out guys that can warm up with different guys and that can help them, you know, get food back in them after a match.

Because the Big Ten tournament's all about you weigh in two hours later. You'll wrestle first round. And then you'll wrestle quarterfinals kind of leads into that. And then, you know, it's, it's off and running and semifinals at night. And then, you know, the next day is all the placement matches and the finals. So it's all about just, we've done it a long time. So, you know, Coach Schneider and I have been together a long time. So I've got him organized where I know how things should run.

And then we just tell our director of ops, say, Brandon, this is what we do. This is how we meet at a certain time. and then, you know, a lot of times we'll work out, like last week before we went to Purdue, we worked out on Friday and then took off, well, I'm sorry, on Saturday, and we took off and got there, worked out that night, and then the next day woke up, did a little workout, go back, and then, you know, 530 match on live on BTN, and so you you got to be uh you know guys are are are dialed in they know hey they got to show up they got to do this and it's it it's a discipline sport you got to be disciplined with

with your time and how do you utilize it because we're in a weight cutting sport you know um set dorsi for example is my associate athletic director and he traveled with us this week and you know it's very unique you're getting ready for competition Not only, but you have to get your weight down, right? So you have to get weight down, you know, weighings are two hours before. So we get there an hour and a half before that, get, you know, go to the gym, get our weight down,

work out, make sure they're down to weight, and then, you know, ready to go. Get nutrition back in them, get hydrate them back up a little bit. You know, weight cutting in college is not, it's more like weight management, but you still have to, you have to make the weight. So, you know, it's not like people are cutting 20 pounds every week, you know. That's when guys are out of their weight class, you know.

So there's still a weight limit element to it, but, you know, you have to be disciplined in that approach. And it just makes you more disciplined wrestler. If I said to you that often you reach the fork in the road between nutrition for energy and than weight loss, weight cut. That seems to be the real teeter-totter for college wrestling coaches. They have to make that decision and go, listen, I don't want you to cut weight so drastically that you don't have any juice left in the tank, right? There's no point of sitting you out there weak.

And the hour, the 90 minutes in between your workout, weigh in, and then when the matches actually happen, you don't want to go crazy. pumping anything into the system. You have to be really specific about what you put in. So how do you handle that? I'm sure there are times where you just say, listen, we're going to go with somebody else. We're going to go with the backup because it's not safe for you.

It's not good for them. Let's give them an opportunity. We think it's the best for the team. Yeah, sometimes that happens. You know, guys just where they're not feeling well, you know, it's, you know, week in and week out, you have to be, that's the mental aspect. you have to be tough mentally.

And one, if you, if you're cutting a lot of weight and then you go and get beat, and then the next week you have another tough match and you say you lose again and you're, you know, you're questioning yourself like, whoa, why am I doing this? Why am I sacrificing, you know, when when all my buddies that aren't on the wrestling team are going down to Chick-fil-A and pains, you know, and going out for libations. And then you're like, wow. And then you have another tough match.

You're wrestling rank guys. So you have to really love what you do. And part of that is, you know, you're in a weight cutting sport. You've got to embrace doing it the right way. And you have to live around your weight class. That makes everything work smoother. And then coaches aren't losing their mind. and we're not having a heart attack before weigh-ins.

Well, that 23-hour chaos is trouble. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I've seen a lot. There's teams out there that we know that they don't cut their weight right, and you could beat them off the scale. And that's why some teams look energized and other teams don't. And so you have to, you know, we have a great nutritional staff here

that we really lean on and just get their expertise. and allow them to talk to our guys a lot about what to do at what point and when to put what in. And, you know, it's a science to it. You know, that's why nutrition and sports psychology are really important, you know. And so you've got to put the right, right, right energy back in to be your best. It seems to me that what you have set up and boundaryed here at the University of Nebraska and this wrestling program is a lot of the things that separate the bottom third of Big Ten wrestling versus the top third and that in recruiting folks who have some idea about weight management

about showing discipline in high school that hey you can meet with how often does it come up in recruiting that, hey, how are you cutting weight? How, what's your walk around versus what you weigh in and how do you do it? I would think that making that, choosing people who are willing to do that would be a big part of recruiting. D.P. Absolutely. And you find out a lot about their character, you know, because, you know, it's easy to take shortcuts in weight loss.

And so it's more about you got to make the weight, you got to live at this weight class, You know, you got to live around, you know, 8 to 10 pounds, you know, in the off season. And so you have to have discipline kids and you have to have guys that love the sport. And, you know, it's just like anything, you know, if you want to play in the NFL, you got to take care of your body, got to take care of your nutrition, whether you're NBA player, whether you're Major League Baseball, you got to eat, you got to eat the right things. you've got to take care of your body. And same thing in wrestling, our sport.

If you want to be Olympic champion or world champion or NC, you've got to take care of your body, you've got to eat well. Yes, there's sacrifices. Absolutely, you can't go, you know, to Dunkin' Donuts every day and expect to win a national title and in a weight-cutting sport. You've got to be disciplined. And that's just part of our sport. and that's the tough element of of wrestling too.

You know, it's, there's a weight involved and you got to make it. Yeah, I mean, if you grow out of it, then you grow out of it. But, but some, you know, it's funny. You mentioned about recruiting, you know, sometimes, you know, it's, it's bizarre because parents are, are involved in recruiting. You say, well, Johnny, he's 125. Well, he'll be 125, you know, for the next five years. okay

he hasn't shaven yet his puberty hasn't happened and you still think he's going to wait 125 five years from now probably not he's going to grow he's going to mature you know I've seen kids that are a one projected 125 they end up being 149 potter

because they grow and you know some kids just say small some kids you know they get man muscles you know it's like I was over at football last week, you know, seeing, you know, just how those guys' bodies changed just in, you know, maybe six months, you know. And so same thing in wrestling. You know, you got guys still growing, still filling out, you know, I call it man muscle.

They finally look like men, you know, they get man muscles. Well, you see the difference. You see the difference. Silas already is a great example. Yeah. Right? That you can go out and you will see different body types of. and you go, wait a minute, there's certain programs that have a physical appearance presence.

It just looks like, oh, you got grown up. You got grownups. But I also think that that's why we're so intrigued by this year's lineup and this year's roster because you've got some young dudes who had had the, we call it, athletic arrogance. And your guys down there, I mean, they're. is a gauntlet that you've put together from 140, from Ridge up to Pentow to Allred, that just look like they came out ready to do this and it's a thing. So is that on purpose or is that

just simply they're willing to do the work because some have changed weight classes, some have moved along, some moved up, some moved down. And then you have guys who are willing to make those decisions and discipline. Yeah, it's just, it's just part of them buying into, to be in their best. And they, they understand that helps the team be the best. Yeah. And that's, you, you knocked it out of the park there, DP. It's, it's, it's buy in from them.

And we, we got great human beings, great kids. And I, I can't tell you, Husker Nation, how proud that you guys should be of the guys on our team because they have the work ethic like farmers, the discipline, and just really proud of how our guys conduct themselves and how well they take care of the little things throughout the year. And it's great to be coaching these guys and great to be part of their journey. And we're looking for more at Big Ten's and National. So it's March. It's what's important. Yeah, I think I need to meet with the marketing people of NCAA wrestling because its own version of March Madness should be profile. Yeah.

Like, listen, wrestling wildness would be a full thing, right? The craziness and chaos of that, especially at the Big Ten tournament, that you have at every weight class, if you look at the top 10 rankings nationally, it's Big Ten. six and seven of the 10 spots. Yeah. And I can't imagine that fans really appreciate, especially those folks outside of the circle, how incredible it is to have the number 7-125 in the country, who legitimately is an All-American and a real threat

to win the Big Ten championship, how much competition and chaos he's going to have to go through to do it. Yeah, for sure, for sure. It's, you know, some wrestling fans out there, the last five years I've known, they choose to either go to the Big Ten tournament or the national tournament, and they choose the Big Ten tournament because they know, hey, I'm going to see in the semifinals, I'm going to see maybe the semifinals at Nationals, the same guys. Or in the finals, those same two guys might be in the finals.

Right. So, you know, we always say if you can win a Big Ten title, you can win a national title. So, and, you know, sometimes it doesn't play out that way. Sometimes, hey, I've seen guys finish sixth and they win the national titles two weeks later. Just because they have a tough gauntlet, take a different mindset, they different draw. You know what? The NCAA wrestling tournament is a lot like 10 basketball tournaments. Yeah.

If you can wrap your mind out. Because there's 10 weight classes. And, you know, it's like Caleb Smith, Smith went into the NCAA tournament last year. He was ranked 15th. He knocked off the number two guys second round and way he went. And so it's, you know, it's wild. It's fun. And each wrestler, even with the season that they have within the Big Ten,

in that moment in the tournament, it just, it could be that this is the great come together, right? that all the preparation, all the work, all the struggles, all the lessons, all of that stuff happens and then boom, Evanston, Illinois, it comes together and they go, Coach, I got it. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, I got it. And it's going to be, Mark Manning joins us here today. And coach, here's a part that when you talk about discipline and organization and culture,

and I think calling Nebraska wrestling a program means that it is not, it is more about the long-term consistency rather than just the team. That this team is built on the great programs and rosters of past. I think a big part of it is this amazing coaching staff that you have. Because they too live in discipline, which if you see them, again, your coaches look like, look, if you need to throw a single at any of them, they could go get you, they could go get you some points. Like you got some dudes.

How important is that? to have a Snyder and a turtle, like, James Green, right, like you've got a, you've got a gang that travels with you for Nebraska wrestling. Yeah, for sure. It's, it's everything, you know. You build a village. You need, you need everyone.

And I got it, I'm blessed to have a great staff. And, you know, a great trainer and Tyler Weida. I mean, Trevelle and Brian and James, and then Brandon Bradley this year joins us as director of our ops. I got a great strength coach and John Pfeiffer, and Ron Luff helps us a lot with our nutritional aspect. So just, and then Seth Dorsey is our associate athletic director, helps us a lot.

I mean, it's Matt Davidson. Those guys both are really, you know, add a lot of input into our team, our program, what we're doing day to day, and they help out a lot. I mean, it's everyone that, you know, we have a, we have a gentleman that washes a wrestling room or cleans it out every day. That person's really important to our team. Really important. Staff infections.

Absolutely. And he cleans up our locker room, our maths every day. And we can't thank him enough. These guys, he's amazing. So, you know, it's, it's everyone. And I'm blessed to have a great staff, like you mentioned, D.P. It's really good, a lot of knowledge, a lot of expertise. But more than that, it's just the love they bring for the guys on our team.

And that's what I'm really, you know, really proud of just how these guys, our guys are, you know, they just, they're a fine, tight group. And it's, it's that way because we have coaches that are bought in that are helping them in every aspect of their life. life, not just wrestling. Yeah, it shows up. I mean, to have coaches who have lived the life at the highest level, highest level of discipline, whether it, you know, weight cuts,

discipline in the arts that are required, all those things, and they're still living that way, it matters. And it makes it easier to recruit, but it also makes it easier to keep wrestlers in the program because if you've got a James Green to go to, if you've got a Snyder to go to, if you've got a national champion, a big guy to throw, people around, Trevello, right? And I do want to say they're all great personalities, great men. That's on purpose. You cannot, I've talked to folks who want to come,

who want to wrestle at Nebraska, and they talk about it, that listen, they have guys that know, they know what it's like, they know what it, what it takes, and they still live it, which is important. Yeah, for sure. And that's, that's what, that's what special this group and special about this team. And like you mentioned, you know, there's been a lot of good teams through our program over the years. This team's really special. Just that special human beings on it.

And next year will be different, but there'll be a variety of different challenges, guys growing and maturing. But that's what's fun about coaching. You know, not every team's the same. this team is just really focused and dialed in and want to get better each and every time out and really excited to see where March takes us here. It's going to be big.

Before we get a break, from the text line, says, what's up? I got a question for the coach. This is from Kupski who says, well, the guy's going to help wrestlers warm up,

will they have certain aspects of the wrestlers that their teammates are going to face? Does that play into how you pick who the five are? A little bit. We do a lot of our, that's a great question. We do a lot of our scouting kind of ahead of time, but we'll do some stuff like that if we know, you know, it's the same in football or basketball or whatever. And you know, you bring in a different pitcher in baseball.

You know, we're going to face some different guys that maybe we didn't prepare for and we have maybe in the consolations or in the wrestlebacks or going out the front even. You know, it's, it's someone does. some unique thing we can show them that. But yeah, it helps. But we try to just bring along the guys that are going to really maximize our guys' effort in competition. So, you know, it's tough to choose five guys.

But we kind of spread it out, smallest, the biggest, and allow everyone to be able to have some kind of workout partner. And that element's really big. We want to thank the folks of Stevens and Smith for supporting Take Down Tuesdays. I want to thank the folks from Canopies Street Market, Dan Swanson, who was offered to make meals for the wrestling team if they ever need them to do that. And they make them fresh in-house. So you can literally go through the menu and get that done. But the folks at Canopy Street Market for handling this and the folks from Tifty Tinas, who have offered to put together meal plans for your young men as well.

So, you know. Tipsy Tina, that's our guys, that's music to their ears right there. They're going to make it move. We're going to take a break when we come back. I do want to talk about the rankings and give coach an opportunity to just rain praise on the 10 guys who will put. Listen, to have 10 wrestlers all make the nation's top 25 as you're heading to the Big 10. That is an accomplishment and it's a big deal. We want to hear Mark Manning's elevator pitch on his 10 wrestlers that are going to Big 10s

and how we think this thing plays out. It's one-on-one here on the ticket. Thank you.