All the talk surrounding the move to the SEC by Missouri surrounds the men’s football and basketball programs. One program that’s left out, however, is the wrestling program — one that’s nationally celebrated and ranked and yet somehow left out in the cold by a conference that simply doesn’t have a wrestling program.
“The move also will displace Missouri’s wrestling team, a perennial national power in a sport fighting for its survival,” says a report from the Associated Press. “With no SEC teams competing in the sport, the Tigers expect to turn to the opposite coast, potentially joining Big 12 holdovers Iowa State, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State in an expanded Western Wrestling Conference — a league whose members now hail from Colorado, North and South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.”
Mizzou’s wrestling program is ranked No. 13 in the country after starting the season ranked No. 9.