William Shakespeare may have said it best when he wrote “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
After winning an NCAA title last season as a sophomore, #4 Antrell Taylor found that fact out pretty quickly. He’s been forced to evolve a bit this season after seeing how his opponents are approaching their matches. Taylor is 10-2 on the year with major decision losses at the National Duals Invitational against both #1 Brandon Cannon and #12 Logan Rozynski of Lehigh. Many of his opponents have been wrestling him extremely tight with their elbows tucked in to avoid the underhooks and body locks, sometimes to the detriment of their own offensive output.
“I’m feeling real confident right now. I had a slow start to the season, but I’m finally starting to put together my offense because I know guys are scouting what I do now, and I can’t really wrestle the exact same as I did last year,” Taylor said. “They’re going to wrestle me real square stance, so I’m developing my offense so I can get to legs when guys do that because they’re not going to come forward.”
In this weekend’s dual between Nebraska and Oklahoma State, Taylor took on then-#2 Landon Robideau in a low-scoring match. For a guy like Robideau, who generally pours on the pace and the points in his matches, he was much less offensive against Taylor, especially after an early exchange in the first period where Taylor caught a Robideau shot, whipped him over and pancaked him to his back — but it was out of bounds.
“In the beginning of the match, he was kind of bum-rushing me with the underhooks and trying to bully me around like he’s been doing to his past opponents, but that’s not really how I go out,” Taylor said. “I was able to whip him over onto his back on the edge of the mat, and I think that’s what really scared him during that match because he was real timid and was second-guessing himself after that.”
The match was tied 2-2 at the end of regulation and sudden victory, sending the match to tiebreakers. In the first tiebreaker period, Taylor said he made an in-match adjustment to his strategy from the bottom after being ridden in the second period for a bit. That led to his explosive five-second escape that forced Robideau to choose neutral in the second tiebreaker period.
Taylor was narrowly able to fend off Robideau’s 30-second sprint, holding on for the 3-2 win.
“Antrell’s motion and his offense keeps guys at bay — it’s hard to score on Antrell if he’s in offensive mode rather than defensive mode,” Nebraska coach Mark Manning said. “He was playing a little bit of defense at the end, and Robideau got to his leg but couldn’t finish. When he’s offensive and he’s in the mindset of just continuing to score points, that’s when his defense becomes offense for him.”
Going back to the National Duals Invitational, it is true that Taylor was dealing with a knee issue, but he was adamant that it’s not why he lost those matches.
“I had injured it during the tournament, but I’m not going to say that my knee was the reason why I didn’t wrestle to my full potential,” Taylor said. “I just felt like I was wrestling pretty flat.”
According to Taylor, winning a national title last year made him think he needs to be more dominant in his matches — racking up pins and technical falls — so he grew frustrated.
“When that didn’t happen, I just felt like I was a step behind because my offense wasn’t working and I was second-guessing a lot of things,” Taylor said. “I don’t think my mind was in the right place during National Duals, and I think that’s kind of why I didn’t wrestle to my full potential.”
It’s that mental side of his game that he’s been focusing on ever since.
“I’ve had talks with all the coaches and we’ve been working on my mental side of the game because that’s a big aspect when you’re coming off of what I did because I’m in a different position now,” Taylor said. “I’m not really hunting, I’m the hunted.”
Until late March, Taylor is still the reigning champ and he aims to keep it that way, especially against a mostly unfamiliar crop at 157 pounds. Out of the current Top 10, Taylor had only faced #6 Meyer Shapiro (a 7-2 win at NCAAs) in his career when the season began.
Both #5 Robideau and #3 PJ Duke are true freshmen, and Taylor has never faced #7 Vincent Zerban or #8 Daniel Cardenas. Then you have #2 Ty Watters, #9 Kannon Webster and #10 Jordan Williams, who are all up from 149 a year ago.
“I honestly think that plays into my favor because my game and how I wrestle is kind of hard to stop if you’ve never wrestled me before,” Taylor said. “I think wrestling these newer guys and guys I’ve never seen, it’s going to be a rude awakening (for them).”
With the Big Ten dual season right around the corner, Taylor has one match circled — a home date on Jan. 25 against Ohio State.
“Brandon Cannon — I gotta get that one back,” Taylor said. “I feel like there were glimpses of what I can do to him in that match, but I just wasn’t wrestling to my fullest potential. That’s a match I need to get back for sure.”
Nebraska Looking To Become More Aggressive
Nebraska’s 22-12 loss to Oklahoma State was one where the points were few and far between. Nebraska scored just three takedowns, while the Cowboys had seven. After giving up an overtime takedown to #2 LaDarion Lockett at 165 pounds, Nebraska didn’t give up another the rest of the dual.
“Eight of the 10 matches were super tight. In all my years, I’ve never been involved in a dual meet that had that many tight and close matches with tight calls,” Manning said. “It just shows not only the level of wrestling, but how hard the sport is.”
In a dual such as this where there’s a lot of action but not a lot of scoring, fans sometimes mistake the low scores for lack of offense. When asked about it, Manning presented a football analogy.
“It’s a lot like playing a really good defensive team, like Miami and Texas A&M the other day was 10-3,” Manning said. “All these talented guys out there that will probably be playing in the NFL on both teams. It’s hard to score touchdowns and hard to score field goals. That’s what I would relate it to. It’s hard to score when it’s a good athlete against another good athlete. It is what it is.”
But you won’t catch Manning being pleased at the lack of offensive production, regardless of the opponent.
“We need to just be the aggressor and take our wrestling to another level and find the energy and effort to go get the takedown when we need it,” he said.
Another person who wasn’t fully pleased with his team’s performance was Taylor, who said he’ll be addressing the team before they start the second half of their season.
“When we come back from break, there’s going to definitely be some things said because I feel like we have so much potential, and it doesn’t seem like we’re all wrestling to it at this point in time,” Taylor said. “I know we still got a lot of season left, but it frustrates me to see these guys lose these close matches where I know they’re better than that.”
Ziola Spells Ferrari at Heavyweight
Nebraska’s #4 AJ Ferrari sat out Sunday’s Oklahoma State dual against #9 Konner Doucet. Ferrari beat Doucet 2-1 at the National Duals Invitational. It’s unclear why the decision was made to go with Cade Ziola or even who ultimately made the decision, but the true freshman wrestled tough in a 2-1 loss to Doucet. It was the home-state Ziola’s first career home dual in front of a record crowd at the Devaney Sports Center.
“AJ wasn’t feeling good, but we felt good about Cade going out there and winning the match,” Manning said. “It was good to be able to get Cade out there in a big match like that, and he performed really well.”
In what was a weird match, Doucet rode the entire second period after going scoreless in the first, but the undersized Ziola was constantly threatening escapes and reversals, forcing a locked-hands call for the 1-0 lead. Doucet then earned an escape point to start the third and was able to hold off Ziola for the 2-1 win.
“(Doucet) was looking for top position and he was looking to ride Cade out — that’s his go-to,” Manning said. “His mission was to ride him out and then get out. We need to get better on bottom. In these tight matches, you just got to get better and be able to get out. Unfortunately, he didn’t but he was so close.”
