Hawkeye Wrestling Retains Highest Goals

Iowa Chasing Championship with Old, New Faces

Iowa heavyweight Tony Cassioppi (left) works on top of Iowa State’s Sam Schuyler during their match on Dec. 4, 2022 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

Iowa’s men’s wrestling team has questions to answer.

Real Woods is not one of them, nor does he want to be.

Woods was a Big Ten champion and a national runner-up at 141 pounds last season, and his goal is simple.

It comes from a message coach Tom Brands has given him.

“To write your own story,” Woods said. “You want to write your own narrative. Don’t leave it up to anyone else, any external standards or opinions. Write your story.”

Woods, of course, would like a different ending.

“Number one, it’s be a national champion,” Woods said. “And be that in a dominating fashion, never lose a match.”

Woods adds a lot of power to a lineup that still has plenty of punch. The Hawkeyes, ranked No. 2 in the preseason team rankings by FloWrestling and eighth by WIN and Intermat, have six past All-Americans on the roster.

Four of those All-Americans — Woods, Nelson Brands (174), Abe Assad (184) and Tony Cassioppi (285) — have been with the program. The other two — Jared Franek (157) and Michael Caliendo — were among the four transfers Tom Brands added out of the NCAA’s transfer portal in the offseason.

“I don’t feel like anyone is high-stress, high-strung,” Cassioppi said of the mood, and the competition, within Iowa’s wrestling room. “Everybody wants to win a national title.

Franek and Caliendo came from North Dakota State. Victor Voinovich from Oklahoma State and Joey Cruz from Oklahoma.

Franek was an All-American who finished fourth nationally at 157 pounds last season. Caliendo was seventh at 165, and Voinovich qualified for the NCAA championships at 149.

“They're awesome,” Brands said. “The portal obviously helped that transition. When I say transition, not transitioning them here, but the transition … when you're looking at your roster and maybe what's thrown at you and how you're dealing with certain things, certainly the new portal rules, we had to utilize them. We jumped in that arena.

“They're not just new additions. Two of them are All-Americans, and one of them was in the Round of 12. These are good wrestlers that we know because we looked at them when they were in high school. We looked at these guys. We know where they come from. We know where their strengths were as high school wrestlers. They were on our watch list. We recruited them.”

Even the new faces have impressive resumés. Freshman Gabe Arnold was a U20 Pan American gold medalist in the summer. Redshirt freshman Bradley Hill won a silver medal.

“Iron sharpens iron,” Cassioppi said. “Having the best guys in the room is what you want. You want your toughest matches to be in here, and then you can walk through the national tournament.”

There are some questions that hang over the program, though, as several wrestlers — who and how many still aren't known — are part of the NCAA’s investigation into sports wagering.

Brands said he is patient with the process.

“It never changes that you're wrestling, competing for a national team title, and individually it never changes that you're competing and wrestling for individual titles,” Brands said. “That doesn't change how these guys operate.

“It's natural to maybe check out in some of these situations, but our guys have been patient, and they're facing it. They're facing it like you face adversity, and that is one day at a time, and you control what you can control, and you move on every day. At the end of the day, if you have that mentality and that theme that you're marching to, you know what? There’s satisfaction.”

Brands likes the depth of the Hawkeyes.

“I stated earlier about opportunity for everybody on the roster, and that means everybody,” he said. “Everybody on that roster has an opportunity now.”

But Brands has his big names.

Cassioppi, a mainstay at heavyweight, would like a national title for his resumé.

“I haven’t accomplished my goal of being a national champion yet,” he said. “And that’s what I’m aiming for. That’s what I’m hoping to accomplish this year, as an individual and as a team.”

Woods wants to put on his own show this season.

“It’s absolutely a fun role,” he said. “I enjoy putting on a show. There’s a big part in wrestling that needs to grow. And I can do my part to grow the sport.”