It is that time of year. The leaves are changing. The morning air is crisp. And the college wrestling season is just around the corner.

And you know what that means. Until the first whistle is blown all true fans can see ten All-Americans in their line up and a team trophy in their future. No wrestler has a ceiling, only a floor. And that floor is definitely above where those clowns at Flo, Intermat, and WrestleStat have their guy in their pre-season rankings.

In honor of the true believers I thought I would dedicate this post to the upside. If every wrestler meets their true potential what would that look like?

Lake Wobegon Wrestling

Garrison Keilor, author, podcaster, and radio host, created the fictional town of Lake Wobegon – where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. To honor all those above the average wrestlers I took the pre-season Intermat rankings for every wrestler and calculated their placement distribution. From there I chose the lowest high placement that they had a roughly 10% chance of achieving the placement or higher (some categories are so broad that they push the total well above 10%).

For example, if a wrestler is ranked/seeded fifth they historically have a 6.7% chance of finishing second and a 3.8% of finishing first for a total of 10.5% chance of at least second. I credited those wrestlers with second place points (the lowest high placement). In this way the team totals then represent the low end of what is achievable if everyone wrestles lights out and reaches the lower end of the high end they are capable of. So think of these totals as “at least” if you will. And the associated probabilities are for the team total or higher.

Holy Cow. Penn State can finish with over 200 points.

Or….

If Oklahoma State wrestles out of their collective minds and PSU wrestles to the field’s historical average there will be a changing of the guard. Sadly, if Nebraska realizes their full potential that is probably still not enough to take down the defending champs.

Of course, all of that ignores the zero sum nature of scoring. They can’t all wrestle above average. These scores are not possible in aggregate, just individually. One team’s higher score is another teams lower score. So what are the odds any of these will happen individually?

Never Tell Me The Odds

Han Solo would have made a great wrestling fan. No one on any message board wants to hear about the past. All things are possible in the future. The odds be damned. There was this one time this one guy did this one thing therefore….

Anyway, I am telling you the odds.

One In A Million

Only Wyoming and Michigan check in with better than a one in a million chance to hit their high point total. It is also no surprise that they are the only two teams with fewer than six ranked wrestlers.

Penn State clocks in at exactly (with rounding) one in a million.

At the other end of the spectrum, Pittsburgh has the potential to score more than double their expected points but that potential comes with approximately a one in five billion chance.

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