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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

March 18, 2016

Cael Sanderson

New York, New York

THE MODERATOR: We will open it up for questions.

CAEL SANDERSON: General thoughts? We're happy we wrestled well, a lot of tough matches, big day, quarter and semifinals. Tonight was good. We went 8 for 8, which is good, Conaway wrestled great. He was in the wrestle backs, beat a couple of All-Americans, I believe, and everyone in the semis you guys already know. How was that, good opening?

THE MODERATOR: Sure.

Q. Cael, is this what you envisioned when you decided to redshirt Nico and Zain last year knowing that you would get Nick in the lineup?
CAEL SANDERSON: I've answered that question a lot about what we did last year. Yeah, we wanted to get those guys with this freshman class and let them lead this freshmen class and you never know if you have a chance to win a national title or not. You have to believe you do, and you have to put a lineup up that can score points for you. You never know until you get here and the guys go out there and win matches.

But I think things are going well and we're happy, happy with the decisions we've made and keep moving forward from here.

Q. Cael, a lot of talk about obviously the freshmen but you've got two guys closing out their careers, Nico and Morgan who have come up short, would it be more special that they won compared to what the young guys are doing in?
CAEL SANDERSON: I think everyone has their own individual goals, and I'm not going to compare freshmen to seniors. But every one of these guys wants to win and Nico, this is his third trip to the finals which is an unbelievable accomplishment and the a four-time All-American.

Yeah, obviously I want him to throw 'em up in the air after he wins the national title. It's something I've been picturing and visualizing for a while. He's worked so hard and everyone works hard, though. But you've got to go out there and score more points than your opponent and that's how you win the match, obviously.

He's got to do that tomorrow. He has a tough opponent. Morgan is in a tough battle, also, being a fifth year guy. Yeah, you want those guys to go out on top, be happy, win their last match and be a national champion. There is a difference between being in the finals and being a national champ.

Obviously and we want them to win and we feel like they both have a good chance. They've got to do it. They've got to go win the match.

Q. Coach, 1997, Iowa, 5 champs, 2006, Oklahoma State 5 champs, you guys have a chance to do it tomorrow, feels like you guys feed on each other and it feels like it's a healthy, fun competition between them to win one another. Can you talk about joining teams like that in the modern era and being one of the all-time great teams, and are you guys ready to go on a run like you did in 2011 and 2014?
CAEL SANDERSON: I have no idea. We don't talk about past teams. We want to be the best team we can be, and yeah these guys feed off each other and they love to compete and you see them, they're smiling and joking around. They're light before they go out and compete and they go out and get after it.

So, yeah, 5 guys have a chance to win a national title, Conaway has a chance to take third, pretty good team. We saw this coming into the season this is a team that we could potentially have 10 All-Americans, not even close to that, obviously. But these guys, they've had a great tournament and scored a lot of bonus points and obviously Zain is a sophomore and we've got freshmen back, good kids coming in, great recruits coming in, so we're definitely excited about the future of the program.

Q. Cael, when you listen to your athletes and they come in here and talk about the fun they have in competing and a lot of people that have wrestled understand at times it isn't fun. How are you and the coaching staff and the people in your program able to keep these kids having the positive attitude in spite of obviously a lot of pressure at this level for young men to wrestle at college?
CAEL SANDERSON: I think the sport is fun. I don't think there is any sport more fun than wrestling. It's a lot of hard work, but if you want to be the best at something, it's going to be the same in any sport. But, yeah, we love wrestling, and I think our staff, Coach Casey loves wrestling, Coach Cody loves wrestling, bow and arrow, we love wrestling. We enjoy competing and I think that helps with our guys because they're going to feed off of what we're doing and it's just getting the right kind of kids that love wrestling. That's what we look for.

But, yeah, wrestling, yeah, it's a tough sport, but, you know, for so many years it's been, let's see how tough we are and tough guys win in wrestling and this and that and obviously that's not great for your sport and that's not going to draw the kinds of people and kids you want in the sport we want regular people you don't have to send your kid to the tournament to show everybody how tough he is, that's not our sport, wrestling is a great sport. It's a lot of fun. It's a great base for every other sport that there is and it's fun. These guys, they dream about winning NCAA Championships when they're 5 years old. We want them to keep that mentality at Penn State, that shouldn't change when they get to the nationals, we say, what did you want to do? You want to win, let's go win. Take that fun mentality and take the same approach that you would have if you were skipping ahead ten years or if you're a little kid looking at it, but, yeah, I think that's -- wrestling is fun, yeah, it's tough. But if it's not tough it wouldn't be fun, right?

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you so much.

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