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Already this season it has been announced that there will be new classifications for the 2016/2017 season. It appears that the whole state is trending toward AA/A.

Concerns of the "smaller" schools have been expressed.

Concerns of kids from not wanting to wrestle because they can't compete with the larger schools has been expressed.

Concerns of regions not having enough wrestlers to to produce 4 state qualifiers while other regions leave kids at home, have been expressed.

As of right now, we have results posted from seven AAA schools. All seven of these schools are also scheduled to remain in the AAA classification in 2016/2017.

Using the 2016/2017 classification rankings in terms of population and bouncing against the current scores, here is where we are:

Cabell Midland (highest populated school) forfeited 285.
Huntington (4th highest) forfeited 3 weight classes.
Woodrow Wilson (9th highest) forfeited 4 weight classes.
Riverside (16th highest) forfeited 2 weight classes.
George Washington (20th highest) forfeited 4 weight classes.
Spring Valley (22nd highest) forfeited 2 weight classes.
Ripley ( 29th highest) forfeited 2 weight classes.

Now, there has been mention that wrestlers didn't make weight, not enough practices, etc, etc. Then why didn't these super populated high schools insert their "B team" wrestlers when somebody doesn't make weight? Answer: there are no B team wrestlers.

Cabell Midland and GW both forfeited 285. I guarantee you that both schools have plenty, PLENTY of heavyweights walking the halls. I would find somebody to walk out on the mat and collect the forfeit.

Rumor has it that Independence has a full roster. Independence has less than 1/3 of the population as Cabell Midland.

Woodrow Wilson is in the same county as Independence.

The power house teams in WV are not based on student body population. They are based on the overall "program". The future of building wrestling in West Virginia is insuring that every kid who goes out for the team gets to compete.

The increased competition provided for B, C and D teams is the answer. I applaud the implementation of this.
Rethinking the regional tournament / state tournament qualification system will need to happen sooner or later.
Allowing B team wrestlers to compete in order to qualify for the state tournament is an outstanding idea. To be the "second best", you have to beat everybody besides the champ. There are wrestlers each year who place in the state tournament but they also lost to one of South's B team wrestlers.

South typically has wrestlers on the B team that would place in the state tournament.

On the reverse end of this thinking, we will see once again at the state tournament where a couple of schools finish in the top 10 all due to the accomplishments of 2 wrestlers.

What other states do is only good for idea generation whereas they are not dealing with the declining population of WV.

A dual match championship is a good idea for a handful of schools.

Throwing all of the wrestlers (A through Z teams) into the state tournament qualification pot is a good idea.

Wrestling is an individual sport first. Team sport second. Wrestling's survival will be based on getting more individual's out and on the team.

With practice beginning on November 16th kids would have had to practice on two Saturday's and thanksgiving to have exactly 14 practices in by Wednesday. Most wrestlers are dedicated but that's hard to get every kid to show up every day over that stretch when school is out.

I think there are still a few at Midland that were still playing football up until last week

Independence does have a full roster. Also, there is a very successful youth program in place, as well as a very strong middle school program.

And it shows!!!!!!!!

I just spent all day watching Independence win the Lake Norman duals for the second year in a row.

Independence has a much better team this year than they had last season.

Even the guys who came up short a few times will be doing much better by the season end.

independence has a full roster. Look at lake Norman results. Indy actually may have a full B team roster. Ihs has 3 heavyweights.

Changing opinions and attitudes towards wrestling starts with athletic directors and principals. In my area these two people are the biggest stumbling blocks to our wrestling program.

We have a high school AD that ADAMANTLY refuses to allow any off-season drilling or conditioning in the wrestling room, which I am sure is happening in other schools. How can you generate interest in a sport when the AD refuses to allow any form of promotion of the sport or promotion of improvement in the sport during the offseason? Football coaches have their players in the weight room from the day after the season ends until the first day of practice. Football practice starts what? six to eight weeks before the season, but in wrestling we get 2.5 weeks of practice before season starts (no doubt because football is still going on).

We also have a middle school principal that refuses to allow the team to travel to anything more than local wrestling meets and refuses to have more than one coach. The net result is a wrestling room with 15-20 kids and one coach (not much actual coaching going on as a result) which leads to unprepared wrestlers who get beat by even average local talent and lose interest.

With that said, I don't think wrestling is declining. When I wrestled nearly 30 years ago only high schools had wrestling. Now we have over 90 middle schools with wrestling and around that many youth leagues. The sport is growing.

The final problem I see is football coaches that are anti-wrestling. Pretty much everywhere you see a successful wrestling program it is tied to a football coach that either coaches wrestling or promotes his football players being wrestlers. I have personally witnessed football coaches outright forbidding their players from wrestling and telling them that if they want to do something to stay in football shape then they should be in the weight room. Imagine the backlash that would happen if coaches of other sports were forbidding their athletes from playing football.