Opening Statement:
“It's wrestling season, right everybody? We're pretty excited, we're grateful and we get to do this right. It's been long with ten weeks of training leading up to this moment. Wrestling against each other and playing against each other. It's nice to put on a singlet and get in front of some people Friday night. Have some stress and get excited to just start the season. It's been a journey since last year with some of the biggest changes ever in college wrestling history and Sun Devil Wrestling history. But it's great. Life is the human struggle. We're excited about the struggle, and ultimately, getting to do what we love and put our hands on people.”
On having Richard Figueroa on the team after winning a national championship:
“Anytime you have a national champion, It lets everybody know, ‘hey the guy next to me, to the left of me, to the right of me is a national champion.’ He can win, and I can. I'm doing what he does so it brings a tremendous amount of respect. Richie still has to continue to earn that respect, though. What I'm saying to people is he isn't defending a national championship. Nothing to defend. He doesn't have to block anybody away from something he already has. It says nobody gets to take it from him. He's in the pursuit of another one. So he's got to go through the same thing but it'll be different. He was hurt twice last year. I actually hope it's easier in some ways, because he had some bummer injuries which slowed him down. But I do think that this journey he's on is exciting. It lifts up all boats as they say. And I know the guys we got on our team are competitors. It's not that they don't want him to win. They want to do it too. ‘Man, if he can do it I can do it. I want to do it too.’
So there's a little bit of that energy in the room which is good. It's healthy, it's competitive, and we've never had a three-time national champion in Sun Devil history. So now we have another thing and it's fun checking boxes. It's fun checking boxes in life, in what we do and Richie's in the pursuit of checking more boxes.”
On Richie’s growth in the offseason and his confidence:
“I see the same Richie. I see the same person, the same wrestler. I haven't seen any behaviors that make me think, wow he's acting different now that he won it. Really, I haven't really seen him act any different. I do believe that when he gets ready to compete and he gets ready to wrestle, and then when he actually does compete and wrestle he’ll look different in that. It'll be a national champion out there wrestling again. That comes with confidence. There will be some kids that will be scared and fearful, but some of them will trophy hunt. So I think we'll see some of that too. I know he's getting external differences. Like there's the national champ. Everybody loves to refer to him that way because it's always cool. Hey there's a national champ, and people like to say that and engage in that. I don't see him acting differently, but I do think when he gets ready to wrestle, he's just had that experience that he will be able to call on and say, ‘I've done this at the highest level and I've been in a stressful situation.’ He'll be able to handle it.
I still think Richie's human. I don't think he's any different, but I do think he had two different seasons. He had a 13-0 freshman year, and it was over. But he was undefeated then he didn't wrestle. The next year he maybe was .500 at one point. I don't think that's right, but it was kind of close. He had a totally different regular season until he got to the big show, and he's like I'm winning this thing. We always knew he could. He knew he could, just fighting through those injuries. So Richie's experienced it all, from the pressure of being undefeated to taking lumps by guys he should never lose to. So I think he's wiser, the wisdom should show through and I think he's setting a goal of being the best and being the most dominant. But that comes with another set of standards, expectations, discipline and commitment.”
On returning five NCAA qualifiers this season:
“We've got a mixture. Five guys that have been to the NCAA tournament. Some have been on the podium, some haven't yet. I think like most teams, you always need to have experience and youth. Every team has experience and youth. Just maybe a little bit of it shifts. I do think there are some that are hungry, like Jesse (Vasquez), Julian (Chlebove) and Cael (Valencia). They are very capable of getting on the podium and being All-Americans. It's hard to be an All-American, the sport is tough and people will snatch your heart out of your chest if they can. So I do think they are hungry. Julian's a senior who should have been already on the podium in his mind and ours too. I think he's coming with a vengeance. He'll sink the boat and he'll leave nothing unturned, so I like where his brain is at.
Jesse was like Richie, except he was a couple weeks later, meaning they both came off injuries. Richie got back in time to get enough matches to be ready at the NCAA Tournament. Jesse just didn't have enough time. I think he would have been if he would have had two more weeks of competition to get ready. Get the Oklahoma State duel he didn't get because he was still on the edge of being hurt or not hurt. I think he just didn't have enough juice heading into the NCAA Tournament, so I think his experience is a little different. ‘I know I could have been on the podium last year, I know I'm getting on this year.’
Cael has kind of been a little above .500 guy. I think he carries a big weight. He's got Zahid and Anthony's weight on his shoulders, but it really has nothing to do with him. It's all about him and his experience, and staying within himself and wrestling within his four limbs. So I think he wants to prove something. I think he wants to show he’s as good as them, and just really for himself. I really know he doesn't have any interest in comparing himself to his brothers. I think internally he has no issues with all that. But I do think that people apply that. ‘Zahid did good, Anthony did good, what's going on with you?’ They do that a lot in today's world with social media. So I think he's feeling it.
And of course Cohlton (Schultz) and Richie, Cohlton's been on that podium a bunch. Now in his head, it’s champ or bust in his mind. And I tell you I've seen a huge difference in that guy this year by far. It's the first time he's not splitting time between Greco and freestyle. It's like anything, we want it all. ‘I want to be great in folkstyle, I want to be great in Greco and I could do them both.’ He has been good enough to be able to do both. But what he has found is he's not performed at a championship level in either when he has been splitting time. He's been close, but you can see the difference in his wrestling. He was wrestling with a Cuban guy we had at our RTC practice, and he just looked like a folk styler for the first time. He wasn't just doing all upper-body and pummeling. He was shooting and he was throwing legs, things that he's always had but just hasn't. He's too busy trying to make sure he doesn't grab a leg, because in Greco you can't grab a leg, so he's trying to stay focused on Greco. Now he can grab a leg. So I don't think he's really tried to do any Greco in practice these ten weeks and it's showing. So I'm excited about seeing a guy's focus on full-time folkstyle, and he'll be a beast. He'll be in the mix.”
On Richie being mentored by Brandon Courtney:
“Richard and Brandon are brothers. One thing they have been very good at is their relationship. They were not going to allow any of the external drama to get in their relationship. I told them when we actually had a very private wrestle-off that nobody knew about. I even said to them, ‘hey, you guys are gonna wrestle, think about the kind of money you could make if we aired this thing.’ And they said that this is family. Of course the money would roll in, it would be a lot of fun. But right now, we're family and we're gonna settle this amongst ourselves. They have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. Anytime one guy says something, the other one laughs at the jokes and the energy in the room between the two is really good. Obviously, Brandon's a four-time All-American and a NCAA finalist. In his mind, he probably didn't get to the goal he wanted but he was very, very close several times. Richie's accomplished it, and I think Brandon has felt ownership in Richie's national title.
And then I do think that Richard thanks Brandon for the challenges of keeping him honest, and in his training and making sure that he was his best version every day. They just feed off each other. We're gonna have another one of those good problems when we get towards L.A. [Olympics] in 2028. I think both really feel they can be in the mix and they're gonna help each other. They're just really good at understanding how to do that. Compete, battle, fight and respect each other, and then soon as they walk out the doors they're really cool with each other. They've got it down and I haven't even really had to work on their relationship. Sometimes as the coach you want to make sure they're getting along and put them next to each other. It's just natural, they really like each other. I think they're kind of cut from similar mold, similar past and similar energy. Cool guys doing stuff together type things. They're elevating each other.”
On the development of the newcomers on the team:
“It's interesting. Pierson Manville went to State College High School. That was kind of fun getting a guy right out of that area. He's really doing a super job in the dorm living a freshman lifestyle. A 49-pounder, probably will slide in where Kyle Parco was at some point. I think the youth is really doing a nice job. Obviously we had two guys transfer to Iowa. We were probably gonna be preseason No. 2. I just feel very confident it's a little bit of that as well here, that next guy in. Guys like Kaleb Larkin, Pierson coming in, Kyler Larkin who’s won Fargo a couple of times. Then the couple of verbal commitments we have, and we're really close to getting another really top verbal commitment. A kid that flips from another school. And if we do, I feel really confident that the future of this program is gonna be great.
It's Arizona State wrestling. When kids graduate or they enter the transfer portal deal, it's the next guy in. I feel really confident that our next guy in is just as good, if not better than the guys that were there before. So I think that youth and that group of young guys is really coming along nicely. Another person I'd prefer to keep under the radar but his name's gonna come up and he's going to win a lot is Azizbek Fayzullaev. He was a U-23 national champion and he won the U-23 Asian Championships when he was 17. So he won the 23 and under division when he was only 17 years old, and a lot of people don't know about him yet. He's from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. His dad is a national development coach for Uzbekistan and he has a little brother that's really good. He came in the room and right out of the gate, him and Zahid didn't like each other too much. They're good now, and I'm very confident everybody's gonna know who Aziz is by December. They just really don't know now. 84-pounder.”
On building a strong culture:
“We're grateful and we're blessed. We really have a good staff right now and t's the best it's ever been. Lee [Pritts] has been in the program for 15 years. He’s a veteran recruiter who knows where every kid under every rock is at. He has just a tremendous amount of relationships. Frank Molinaro, was a national champion, World Cup champion and wrestled for a bronze medal. Along with Eric Thompson, they know that Penn State secret sauce. I know what it is now. I was always like, ‘what are they doing?’ They're doing something really good and I've been around before, but I can't put my hand on it. Now I can. I can see by watching Frank and Eric. Frank was the first guy doing the ankle ride and the ankle trip. Then David Taylor and Ed Ruth added a cradle to it, and they advanced what Frank was already doing. But Frank came with a lot of the beginning things that Penn State was doing.
But really you watch them, and you know the Penn State group from the outside, but I see Frank and Eric on the inside. Very grateful people and very well balanced. Wrestling is not do or die, it's a game. It's fun. Be careful how serious you take things. A lot of the things you probably have been hearing floating around wrestling is coming out of their camp, and they're just really good coaches. And they're really good at people. They care about people. They love wrestling and they want to win a lot, but they don't get too hung up on the winning piece. They start to realize that when you obsess on winning people start to freak out and they get weird. If I'm not wrestling good I get weird, and also what's wrong with me? What am I doing? They're really good at just keeping the troops calm, having fun and when I'm having fun and wrestling free I just feel better. I'm wrestling free, I'm not tight, I'm not weird and I'm not panicky. I'm having fun, and they're just really good at that. So I would say they're rubbing off on me. I'm not rubbing off on them. I think I'm crabbing a lot of what they're doing and saying I like this and I like this mentality. I think it makes us a better team. We were a top-ten team solidly, then Frank and Eric came along and we’re right into the top-five. I think that's a lot because it's just how we're approaching. And just our relationships with the kids, just being real careful that we don't get too obsessive and too weird about it.”
On having a tough schedule:
“What I've tried to do is schedule the best team in every conference in the country, whether they'll wrestle us or not. So what we try to do is go to those places where we can wrestle the best team in every conference. Now with the move to the Big 12, the great thing for us is we will now get to wrestle the best in the Big 12. Now how do we get to the best of the ACC and the Big Ten? And so we try to create a schedule that does that. I don't know if our schedule is balanced out like I was saying. It kind of feels top heavy, like pretty good. I think it is just being really smart about it. Be careful not to try to do too many things too early. We're not trying to win the national tournament in November. We're trying to get prepared, be ready and compete well. But we're not going to sacrifice a March outcome because of a choice in November. We're not going to put a kid out there that's hurt because we really want to win this dual meet. We sent Cohlton overseas, and a couple of dual meets that we lost probably would have won if he was there.
But again, as much as it hurts in the moment, when you wait and get to the NCAA Tournament, you're so happy you didn't sell early to perform late. I think we've been pretty good at doing that. Not getting weird, staying balanced and just really having fun and keeping a good perspective about where we're at. Wrestling is a power endurance sport. It's you know. You have to have the strength of a weightlifter, the endurance of a cross country runner and the speed of a sprinter. Wrestling is beautiful that way, because you have to have all three. Speed and endurance create power, and speed and strength make power. And you have to create power over and over, hence the endurance. We're going to go through the phases of power endurance. We're going to go through the right steps to get to the right place. As much as I want to hurry up and get to that, the bigger base we can make the taller pyramid we can make. We just need to be smart about it. Again, don't get weird and stay focused.”