Young Bucks Impress in 2024
I had the pleasure of speaking with J Jaggers before last season began, and again just earlier this week to recap the 2023-2024 season and beyond. A lot of things changed since the beginning of last season, and a lot of adjustments needed to be made by the Buckeyes with respect to their lineups, but not so much with the expectations.
The youth in their lineup really stepped up and answered the call for their team. “After fifteen years you think I would learn that no season ever goes as planned.” The Buckeyes graduated three All-Americans from the 2022-23 season (Orndorff, Smith, and Romero), but they felt really good about how they reloaded and how they were positioned to enter the year.
Sadly, the season began with the terrible news that Sammy Sasso had been shot and would miss the season, and possibly end his career. Next, they lost other All-Americans Carson Kharchla and Gavin Hoffman to season-ending injuries. “I’m not sure how many teams in the country could sustain the graduation of three All-Americans and season-ending injuries to three All-Americans, and come out of it as successful as we were. I think it was one of the better jobs we've done as a staff in my time here in managing all of those things and still managing to find a way to be successful.”
J points out as well that this is an interesting sport in that most successful or unsuccessful seasons are judged on three days in March, but the road there can be successful and reflected on as such. “When you look at our season in totality, we were 16-2 in dual meets.” They battled Penn State as well as anyone did in a hostile environment, and they had a loss to Pitt. “We beat Virginia Tech when they were second in the country, we beat NC State when they were second in the country, Cornell, Michigan. Then obviously at the Nationals it was so tight 2-12, it was hard to look at the scores and wonder ‘if we had a healthy Sasso’ or where your team ends up. Super proud though, and anytime you can get an individual champion that is special, so all-in-all it was pretty successful.”
Sometimes you see teams have bad injury luck like the Buckeyes did last season, and in that instance often those teams just “punt” on the season by keeping their young guys in their redshirts, allowing them to develop more slowly, and just accepting fate as it lays it’s cold hand on your shoulder. Not for Ohio State though, they had a strong recruiting class coming in, and some guys getting their opportunities in the lineup that they looked to. Even returning young guys like Jesse Mendez had to take another step for the team to be successful, and that’s
exactly what happened. Let’s make sure we compare apples-to-apples for a moment though.
Remember how Jesse Mendez started as a true freshman and was an All-American? I sure do. “We didn’t have the luxury of being able to redshirt him his first year. A lot of the talk this year was on some of these super freshmen, but a lot of those guys are the same age as Jesse.” We all know how the season ended with Mendez as an NCAA Champion, but with the exception of a close loss to Cole Matthews, and a loss to Beau Bartlett (which was avenged twice), he almost had a perfect season as a true sophomore.
In addition to the young and talented Jesse Mendez, you had Nick Feldman stepping into the lineup, which was planned. What was unplanned was the impact of some of the guys like Rocco Welch and Ryder Rogotzke. “It felt like it was a different guy at each marquee event which was really cool, so they each got to feel a little bit of that juice that you get when you put the team on your back and get that signature win to win the dual. NC State it was the first three, McCrone, Bouzakis, and Mendez, all three got pins within ten minutes.” This was fun to relive with Jaggers because you can hear the energy and excitement from him almost re-experiencing these things and genuinely appreciating them in the moment.
J continues “Feldman kind of came into his own in January when he had the match-winner against Cornell, and then again against Michigan. Ryder Rogotzke against Michigan set the table; so it was even possible for us to win. It was fun and the guys fed off of that. One thing about a team that is young is that they don’t know any better, so they just go out there and compete.”
Covering the Buckeyes last year I certainly recalled a lot of the big moments for the young guys, but hadn’t really considered just how many of them had opportunities in big moments to step up, and more importantly how many of them followed through in those moments. It shows the confidence level instilled in these guys from day one in the room. Additionally though, their ability to adapt and their flexibility on the season was abundantly clear looking back. “It was a microcosm of our season. It was always something different. Whether it was a different lineup, or a different hero, it was just a really resilient group. It’s an imperfect group, not the group that we thought would have been in there six months ago, but it’s what it was and they found a way where maybe the pieces fit better, and it was perfect.
Getting back to the NCAA Champion Jesse Mendez. He had such a great Olympic Trials that I wanted to see how that affected his confidence and approach. He didn’t get what he came for, but having a close loss to a World Champion in Zain Retherford, and having had several wins against top, world-level competitors in former Buckeye Joey McKenna, multiple-time world medalist James Green, and World silver medalist and 4x NCAA Champion Yianni Diakomihalis. I figured there were positives to take away from the experience.
“You try to tell him as his coach ‘bro you’re different’, and they believe you a little bit, but until they have it, when he won the Nationals and was in the camp of NCAA Champions, now he wrestled at the Olympic Trials like he was a guy.” It makes sense to me that winning would increase confidence levels, but J also points out that not only does winning an NCAA title help with confidence, but that he wouldn’t even be in the Trials at all if he didn’t win it unless he got through the Last Chance Qualifier. So he’s in the Trials, but that’s not even the most important piece of that championship when it relates to confidence. “Sometimes guys lose the Nationals that close, and then they struggle with doubt, and they get into close matches and wonder if they’re going to lose again.” But it’s amazing what unwavering confidence does for a guy. According to J, “He looked at the draw for 30 seconds and goes ‘I guess I have to run the gauntlet’ and then walked away”. That’s the sort of confidence that it takes to approach something like that, and he was damn close to finishing it off. He ultimately dropped his match to Zain 3-2, which amounted to a shot clock point, but he traded takedowns with the 65 kg Olympic representative for the United States, and defending 70 kg World Champion. Those are great takeaways from an otherwise unsuccessful Olympic Trials.
2024 174 lb NCAA runner-up Rocco Welsh
To wrap up the interview, I needed to ask about two of their stud freshmen who ended up in the lineup, but were not the plans going in. Ryder Rogotzke and Rocco Welsh. Both of these guys were planning on redshirting this season, and through a series of injuries and successful redshirt seasons to that point in the year, they earned the chance to compete as true freshmen, and both really stepped up in big spots. Rocco made the NCAA finals, and Ryder was an OT loss to the 2 seed away from the NCAA quarterfinals. I equated watching Rogotzke to being on a boat in the ocean during a storm, and thinking it’s going to be okay, but really not being sure of what is going to happen. Something a little more intense than a roller coaster. He looks like he can beat anyone from anywhere at any time.
“He’s doing a really good job of having the organized chaos. We don’t want to stifle that chaos at all. That’s what makes him great, but we are looking to be a little higher percentage and when he was an eyelash away from knocking off the number 2 seed and getting into the NCAA quarterfinals.”
It’s wild to think of how close this sport can be and how quickly something can shift. “That’s our sport. That’s one thing that I always keep in mind when you talk about success, or not having success, one inch here or there and Ryder is in the quarters and you never know what’s going to happen from there, or one inch for Nic Bouzakis or an early takedown for him during his Daton Fix match and he’s in the quarters, and Mendez on the flip side could have given up the takedown against Echemendia, and is he a failure then if he loses that? I don’t think so. We become a prisoner to the result rather than looking at the totality of their wrestling, have they gotten better, obviously everyone wants to win the Nationals, and so do we, but every guy on our team got better whether their result was indicative of that or not on the correct weekend.”
Rocco had his awesome run to the NCAA finals and I had a couple of chances to interview him throughout his run at the NCAA tournament. He had spoken with me about his goals to be a true freshman NCAA champion, and how this was all a part of his plan from the moment he knew he was going to be the guy for the rest of the season.
Here J elaborates on that, “It didn’t take much convincing for him to come out of redshirt. He asked one time ‘Do you think I’m ready’, and we’re like ‘We do’, and he said ‘Let's go’. He just has unwavering belief in the program and in our staff, and I appreciate that very much from him and all of our athletes. When it’s reciprocal like that then great things can happen.” Sometimes a guy and their name don’t really match up. That’s not the case with Rocco Welsh. He mirrors his name with the physicality and activity in his wrestling style and physical stature. There are some parallels to the aforementioned Jesse Mendez and the success that Rocco had in his freshman season. “I see a lot of Jesse as a true freshman as I do in Rocco this year. ‘I can hang around with the greats, and I can make it close and I can bang with them’, but at what point are you going to start separating. He’s very active in his wrestling, and now we have to up the ante with the attacks.” The development of their talent over the years has been very impressive to watch. As referenced by J earlier, when the belief in the coaches, program, and training can go a long way. As far as continued growth and training style in the off-season, J continues “We’re always adapting and learning and trying to be on the cutting edge, whether that’s in technique or trends. With a young team, it’s cool because it’s a blank canvas, so you make sure that they have the fundamentals of the program and skills that we harp on, attacking and giving yourself a chance to finish, but we have a different theme per week to focus on struggles, or strengths that we can lean into.” He continues to describe how they are working to give small advantages in hand fighting and giving themselves a 60/40 advantage in the positioning, working towards a 70/30 advantage. The team and coaches seem to be on the same page with their approach and they have youth ready to answer that call.
Moving forward the Young Buck(eyes) will have some young guys competing at U20s and U23s at the end of the month. They will also be hosting some summer camps, so for those of you who are interested in seeing for yourself what the program and coaches are all about, you can check that out here :
As always, great connecting with J Jaggers, and looking forward to seeing what these young guys turn into as they continue to develop!
