Post-Dual Quotes: OSU vs. Kent State

Head Coach John Smith

On Jacobe Smith's match:
"That was a lot of action in one minute and we ended up with the pin. If you don't match that action, you could find yourself in a brace for six months with a broken leg. In the end, it was great effort."

On Nick Piccininni setting the tone:
"I think it makes a difference, there's no question. It's good to see your teammates before you show a lot of effort. Kaid Brock getting the major decision… Dean with the pin and we just rolled from there. Some of the guys who may have struggled a little bit scoring points found more points. But a lot more energy and effort. You saw a lot of effort and not afraid to be wrestling hard in the third period."

On what he told Jacobe Smith during his match:
"I just told him to bring your level up, because things can get dangerous when somebody's coming at you that hard. Wake up. This guy's coming. He woke up, got a pin."

"He's got a lot of power and he needs to balance that with some of his speed as well. He's got really good speed. I think he's just trying to feel comfortable right now as a starter. It's good to see him excited, it shows how strong he was after the match.

On OSU's improvement from Friday to Sunday:
"I felt like we got better this weekend from one match to the next. There's only a day in-between but it's amazing when you focus on the right things. And the right thing is competing and scoring points."

On Preston Weigel:
"That was vicious out there. That head lock or lateral drop—that was vicious. I've never seen him do that. When you start seeing things you've never seen from someone, that's exciting. I've never even seen him practice it in the (practice) room.

Dean Heil – 141 pounds, Senior

On getting his pin:
"I definitely needed to give more of an effort today compared to Friday. I wrestled a decent match, up until the last 15 seconds. I got taken down and just kind of sat there. That's not how you want to end a match. It kind of a left a little salty taste in my mouth."

On being more aggressive as a team
"One thing that is important to us is the fans. We want to entertain these fans. With the showing we had on Friday, you got to look at it as a disappointing performance overall and come out today we wanted to show we are much better than that. Coach Smith has stressed it enough that we haven't really wrestled to our potential as a team up to this point. Even today we let loose in a lot of our matches. We scored a lot of near falls and bonus points, which is good, but that's only one dual. It's just a matter of taking this momentum to the next couple duals and for the rest of the season."

On winning quickly:
"It's a good thing in the sense of we are getting after it right away, but sometimes you want to stretch the match out just to test out our conditioning levels and test trying to get that second wind. That's one of the biggest things as a wrestler, for any wrestler, is being able to reach that second wind and being able to push into that. So it's good to end the match early if you can. A lot of people will say they want to be on and off the mat as quickly as possible. but at the same point it's OK if the match goes a little bit longer as long as you're working the whole time. If you go the whole seven minutes not doing anything then it looks bad, but if you go the whole seven minutes and you're working hard, that's a good thing."

Jacobe Smith – 174 pounds, Junior

On staying engaged with coach during a match:
"It's pretty tough, but it helps for sure. I would rather have it than not. If he wouldn't have told me then I don't feel like I would have raised my level. I would have tried to go a different route like be conservative, hit shots when they came instead of forcing it, or opening things up like that."

On how intense his opponent came out:
"Not necessarily caught off guard, but I just recognized that he is coming out pretty hard so I got to be alert at all times."

On being aggressive:
"We all got together as a team when we get together once a week and we talk about it. We recognized the performance (Friday) and how we felt before, during and after and recognized what we need to do to make it better each week. We are really focusing on the national championship, but it's good to reflect on how we felt and what went down during those matches."

Oklahoma State University Athletics

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