Iowa State suffered a gut-punch in its 23-9 loss to Oklahoma State on Sunday. The eighth-ranked Cowboys won seven of the 10 matches, totaled 18 takedowns, seven near falls, three reversals and 83 match points against the 16th-ranked Cyclones.

If that sounds one-sided, that’s because it was.

Time for a reset

Kevin Dresser was a head coach for 18 years at the high school level. He discussed at length in his nearly six minute opening statement that he had to micromanage his wrestlers back in his high school coaching days; now, he’ll have to do that to his group of college wrestlers.

Starting immediately, the Cyclones will be treated like high schoolers.

“This group of guys, they don’t want to do the details it takes to be great at wrestling — weight issues, lifestyle issues — the little things, I call them,” the third-year head coach of Iowa State said. “This team, starting tomorrow morning at 6:30, is going to be micromanaged. I let them do it their way, and it’s not working.” 

There’s reason to be skeptical of this, yet there’s also reason to think this might work.

Look at the last five duals for Iowa State: they lost to an experienced Campbell team, blew out an inexperienced Harvard squad, were humbled by a top-10 group in Arizona State, barely escaped Brookings with a 22-17 win over South Dakota State and now got manhandled by Oklahoma State.

Simple glance says the Cyclones are 2-3 — all without Jarrett Degen — but a deeper look shows the problems with this team.

No one outside of David Carr is getting bonus point victories on a consistent basis, nor is anyone outside of Carr and Ian Parker putting together wins on a weekly basis.

Degen won’t come in and fix everything, that’s unrealistic. What is realistic is the other starters beginning to show why many pegged Iowa State as a top-10 team in the nation.

Dresser went as far as to lay out the state of each weight class.

“125: [Mackall] did an OK job, got to get more important to him; 133: Todd Small’s gotta learn how to wrestle harder, getting super heavy after matches, then you gotta crash down, and you feel it; 141: great; 149: we miss Degen; 157: we’re getting there; 165: I don’t know how really, really important it is to [Straw]; 174: cutting corners, wants to do it his way, doesn’t want to be honest where he is weight-wise and it showed up out there; 184: he’s a mystery; 197: we’re struggling, that’s the one weight we’re struggling the most,” Dresser said. “Gannon Gremmel (heavyweight) competed really hard tonight.”

If the Cyclones are going to turn this season around, it starts not only with Dresser’s micromanaging but with practice this week leading up to Friday’s dual on the road against Fresno State.

Swapped weights with mixed results

It’s been officially 17 days since Sam Colbray and Marcus Coleman pulled the switcheroo. As its been stated plenty of times, Colbray is in the midst of a midseason cut to 174 pounds, and Coleman has been moved up to 184.

Through six duals, it’s been a bag of just OK.

Colbray is 4-2 since the drop down with one pin while Coleman is 2-4 and has been majored twice.

The two losses that Colbray suffered were from Arizona State’s Anthony Valencia and Oklahoma State’s Joe Smith, who wrestled just his fifth match of the year in Hilton.

Coleman hasn’t gotten into his offense much outside of the duals against Utah Valley and Harvard. He was dominated by the Jackrabbits and didn’t stand much of a chance against Zahid Valencia.

Had it not been for a very late reversal against the Cowboys’ Anthony Montalvo, it would’ve been the second straight dual the Ames native was shutout.

Both are losing matches to fellow grapplers that are ranked in the same area as they are. Close losses like the ones Colbray and Coleman are taking have long and short-term effects on the season.

Until Colbray can beat a fellow top-10 opponent — something he has yet to do this season — and Coleman can get back into his offense, the only thing that was truly a change to Iowa State’s season was one of the starting lineup.

Straw can’t find rhythm

It seems like a distant memory that Chase Straw was standing on top of the podium in Tulsa at the Big 12 Championships after claiming the 157 title.

That magic the redshirt senior found a season ago is nowhere to be found.

Despite a valiant effort against the Cowboy’s Travis Wittlake — a consensus top-12 wrestler in the rankings — he fell in his match, 9-4.

His record now sits at 7-10 overall and 2-6 in duals. His only conference dual win remains against Utah Valley.

Straw doesn’t get the same fortune this time around at Big 12s because 165 is flat out loaded with two guys in the top-10 by InterMat and a host of others in the top-25 by other ranking sites.

It’s probably too late for a lineup change, so the Cyclones will have to wait and see if the version of Straw they saw last March returns for the stretch run.